Seriously, I admit to doing the I’m English and Proud bit…having suffered so long from the “I’m (insert your choice of nation) and Proud and the English are the devil’s spawn” syndrome for so many years.

The beauty of the English language is that it is multi sourced and multi influenced and I’m learning so much from my reading of Crystall’s book.

Cardi’s overview, of necessity, is fairly simplistic…I’m not sure of the influence of Latin at the moment. It appears that the early church used dialects of Old English (mainly Wessex) long after Augustin went the way of all flesh. What I was interested to learn is that Norman French did not have much influence. Weight of numbers it seems.
Old Norse seems to have had a huge influence in the North East… mention of Scotland is rarely made, apparently.

BTW I didn’t start it either!

I don’t know Welsh but I wonder how much influence other languages had on it?

Meanings of individual word elements
Llanfair - Church of St Mary
llan (church) + fair (from “Mair”, Welsh equivalent of the name Mary)

pwyllgwyngyll - pool (or hollow) of the white hazel trees
pwll (pool/hollow) + gwyn (white) + gyll (from “cyll”, hazel)

gogerychwyrndrobwll - near the fierce whirlpool
goger (near) + y (the) + chwyrn (wild) + drobwll (from “trobwll”, whirlpool)

Llandysilio - Church of St Tysilio
llan (church) + dysilio (from “Tysilio” a Welsh saint)

gogogoch - red cave
gogo (cave) + goch (from “coch”, red)

Credit for the above to John Ball

http://www.jlb2005.plus.com/index.html

and it’s not enough of a reason to come out of retirement….

sorry -

on that point it’s past my bed time … zzzzzzzzzzz

Maynard - You still have a way to go, your lake has only 45 characters whiles the Station in Wales has 58!

The English language is a vast flea market of words, handed down, borrowed or created over more than 2000 years. And it is still expanding, changing and trading. Our language is not purely English at all - it is a ragbag of diverse words that have come to our island from all around the world. Words enter the language in all sorts of ways: with invaders, migrants, tradesmen; in stories, artworks, technologies and scientific concepts; with those who hold power, and those who try to overthrow the powerful.

In fact, very few Celtic words have lived on in the English language. But many of our place names have Celtic origins, such as London, Dover and Kent, & the rivers Thames & Wye.

Approximately one third of Anglo-Saxon vocabulary survives into modern English, including many of our most basic, everyday words: earth, house, food, sing, night and sleep. By the 7th century Latin speakers refer to this country as Anglia - the land of the Angles - a name that will later develop into England.

Christian missionaries, led by St. Augustine, move through the land, converting the Anglo-Saxons from their Pagan beliefs to a Catholic Christian faith. Throughout Europe, the language of the Church is Latin, and the missionaries inject hundreds of new Latin words into the English language. English is spoken differently in different counties, but four main dialects exist and resemble the English we know today. These dialects are Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon and Kentish.

For a hundred years the Vikings control most of Eastern England.

etc, etc…… God’s own language - don’t really know whose language English is…