Irony of Democrats Celebrating the 4th of July.......

[hollodero]

(07-05-2018, 01:22 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Modern English is kind of an amalgamation between Germanic and Romantic languages. Old English was entirely Germanic. Then the Normans introduced their language to shift us to Middle English. Then the great vowel shift moved us to modern English. So the English of present day is a mash-up, which is why there are similarities to German languages within.

Note, this is a very simplified accounting of what happened to the language.

I'm not sure if that's entirely the explanation. "hinterland" has the word "hinten" in it, which does have a distinct translation itself. Similar things go for kindergarten or schadenfreude or bratwurst and all those words. I always rather figured it's German immigrants who kept this speech islands in the language.
I think Brits don't use these words, not entirely sure though. Also, the word blitzkrieg sure wasn't around when the language shifted from Germanic to English.