Great article! It's a good reminder that languages are never really static but constantly changing in at least some ways. I think it's fascinating how sound changes over time can force other changes in a language (much like Latin changed into modern Romance languages over time and lost much of its declension system for nouns).
I don't often comment on here and sent my reply before I completed my comment. In short, I was asking if the settling of Vikings on Britain's east coast (farmings or trading, generations after the raiding) added to the transition of English to an analytic language. My understanding is that the need for communication between the native population and the newcomers caused the word endings to be dropped over time. Thank you for this informative article. I look forward to more.
This kind of explains why everything takes the dative in Old English. It seems to me that when I took freshman Russian, everything took the dative except with/by, which took the instrumental. With Russian you just get used to the sound; probably the same with Old English.
Wow! I will be re-reading this a few more times.
Interestingly, the Dutch word for spring still is lente.
Great article! It's a good reminder that languages are never really static but constantly changing in at least some ways. I think it's fascinating how sound changes over time can force other changes in a language (much like Latin changed into modern Romance languages over time and lost much of its declension system for nouns).
I don't often comment on here and sent my reply before I completed my comment. In short, I was asking if the settling of Vikings on Britain's east coast (farmings or trading, generations after the raiding) added to the transition of English to an analytic language. My understanding is that the need for communication between the native population and the newcomers caused the word endings to be dropped over time. Thank you for this informative article. I look forward to more.
This kind of explains why everything takes the dative in Old English. It seems to me that when I took freshman Russian, everything took the dative except with/by, which took the instrumental. With Russian you just get used to the sound; probably the same with Old English.