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Subject:re: OT Hard Information (was Re: Gender Neutral) From:Sean Hower <hokumhome -at- freehomepage -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 10 Mar 2003 11:16:20 -0800 (PST)
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In my experience, most of our very basic words (words for body parts,
animals, common implements, and the like) have Germanic roots, not
Roman.
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That's because English is a Germanic language, regardless of what 17th century grammarians wanted to believe. You did hit on one of the facts of linguistic change. Every language/culture has a core set of words that is VERY resilient to change because the words are so common. People continue to use these words even if other words are introduced (such as during military or cultural occupation). Body parts are part of this core lexicon, among other things. Historical linguists often use this core set of lexicon to track changes in a language over time. It's all very fascinating. :-)
That's your useless linguistic fact for the day.
Cheers.
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"And in the morning, I'm makin waffles." ~ Donkey
Sean Hower - tech writer http://hokum.freehomepage.com
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