So for me, as I stumble and bumble my way through learning French (mostly through DuoLingo, hey), I’m often thinking about this issue.

Now-- on the surface of things, Modern English is almost exclusively comprised of German & French, and almost every word in these sentences are specific examples of such in terms of direct etymology. Which is a big part of why I’ve typically regarded French & German as my sibling languages. It’s a nice, bright thought, anyway!

Let’s take the modern English word “fight”-- WP claims:

From Middle English fighten, from Old English feohtan (“to fight, combat, strive”), from Proto-West Germanic *fehtan, from Proto-Germanic *fehtaną (“to comb, tease, shear, struggle with”), from Proto-Indo-European *peḱ- (“to comb, shear”).

My point is that there’s so many ways to run with that over time… in any language whatsoever! Indeed, IIRC there was a “fisten” variation which meant an entirely different thing in earlier German.

But, “shear?” Yes, yes back in my schoolyard days, I wanted to shear my opponent like a little lost lamb, but… I don’t think that’s right.

So here’s my point, assuming you’ve lasted this far. Modern German in fact split from modern English maybe around ~~800AD? And Modern French, around… perhaps slightly earlier than the Norman Conquest (1066), meaning that even though Modern English is absolutely PACKED full of French & German pronyms, we can’t just assume they mean the same thing, anymore, as with the examples above.

It sort of breaks my heart, but it’s just reality, non?

  • JohnnyEnzyme@lemm.eeOPMEnglish
    2·
    2 months ago

    Must be your passion for bandes dessinées.

    Exactly.
    My mother-tongue is officially Castellano, followed by French.

    Unfortunately, as a Peace-Corps baby and child of divorce, I never really had a chance to ‘lock-in’ my first two languages.

    But also, just-- I absolutely adore BD, followed by Euro comics. And French is the language of BD, so… you know… let Mohammed get his arse over to the Mountain, given a choice.