Modern English more Germanic or Romance?

[templumForasticus]

A language that possesses 20-30 vocales cannot be romance.

[templumForasticus]

As for the question of the thread : it is a Germanic language, without any doubt.

His voice is Germanic, his writing is romance.

[Comte Arnau]

English neither has the beauty of a Romance language

That is true. But the beauty of a Romance language can't hardly be found anywhere else.

So basically England would speak a Normand patois.

Lol. It would certainly belong to the Northern Gallo-Romance group.

A language that possesses 20-30 vocales cannot be romance.

You mean Portuguese and French can't be Romance?

[templumForasticus]

You mean Portuguese and French can't be Romance?

I thought it before writing, but they haven't have 5 written vowels*
and a huge number of sonorous vowels (germanic background)
that doesn´t adapt completely the Latin vowels.

--
*Read, Longbowman.

[kkk77]

I thought it before writing, but I do not believe that they have 7 written vowels* and a huge number of sonorous vowels.

What do you mean with indefinite?

[templumForasticus]

What do you mean with indefinite?

Indefinite => huge.

[Prisoner Of Ice]

Grammar is so simplified I don't think you can call it germanic but it's not really romance either. Pretty much on its own at this point.

[Comte Arnau]

I thought it before writing, but I do not believe that they have 7 written vowels* and a huge number of sonorous vowels.

--
*Read, Longbowman.

If you only count vowel sounds, not diphthongs or triphthongs, English has 11 to 14 vowels, depending on the variety. That's more than the average Romance language (7), true, but French has 12/13 (15/17 including nasals) and Portuguese has 10/11 (14 including nasals).

I don't know what you mean by "written vowels". When written, they're always six: a, e, i, o, u, y.

[templumForasticus]

I don't know what you mean by "written vowels". When written, they're always six: a, e, i, o, u, y.

Yes, these vowels and their 6 conventional sounds.

[♥ Lily ♥]

There's over 15,000 French words in the English vocabulary which was forced onto us via the Norman invasion.

It's mainly a mixture of German, French (Romance language) and Latin vocabulary, but English has the widest vocabulary of any known language and continues to evolve with the times and incorporates vocabulary imported from many different languages beyond Europe too (especially the names of exotic fruits and vegetables and dishes imported to Britain from far-away lands during the Empire) and also some Spanish vocabulary came into the US English and was imported back to England via Hollywood movies.

There's over 600 Scandinavian origin words in the English language, and some Celtic and Greek vocabulary too.

Modern English is very different to how our ancestors spoke the language 1000 years ago as this video shows.

English grammar is based on Germanic grammar, but vocabulary-wise, it's a mixture of languages which merged together in England.



Source for the pie chart is in the link below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._French_origin

The percentage of modern English words derived from each language group are as follows:
French (Romance): ~29%
Latin (including words used only in scientific / medical / legal contexts): ~29%
Germanic: ~26%
Others: ~17%

Words such as 'knife', 'blood', 'brute', 'troll' and many weekday names are Scandinavian origin, and most words relating to government, art, ballet class movements, cuisine, restaurants, cafes, fashion and style, etc, are French derived words, and a lot of the musical terms we learn in music lessons are Italian, and medical terminology words in the English vocabulary are often Latin words, and there's Greek words we still use in science and maths.