The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > General Discussion > THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. Page 7
  9. All
Dear Foxy,

English and Dutch belong to the Germanic language family. Interesting question: why does German have cases and English does not?
Posted by Mr Opinion, Wednesday, 11 September 2019 1:52:41 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear Mr Opinion,

The best I can do is refer you to the following links:

http://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/6878/why-did-english-lose-declensions-while-german-retained-them

And -

http://quora.com/how-has-german-preserved-its-grammatical-cases-while-most-other-germanic-languages-have-lost-theirs
Posted by Foxy, Wednesday, 11 September 2019 4:36:20 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear Foxy,

Thanks but I like to hear peoples' own perspectives on subjects. If I want a photocopy on a subject I can get a machine.
Posted by Mr Opinion, Wednesday, 11 September 2019 4:42:27 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear Mr Opinion,

I'm not an expert
in German - hence I did the next best thing - and
referred you to links that would give you some expert
answers. I thought that answers was what you were after.
Posted by Foxy, Wednesday, 11 September 2019 4:59:26 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
cont'd ...

Dear Mr Opinion.

All languages change over time.

Some changes in language are clearly motivated by
changes in culture or environment. Language is an expression
of human activity and the world around us
and changes in that world bring forth innovations
in a language (look at all the
words that have been added as a result of the existence of
new technologies). Also contact with other languages may
cause a language to change very quickly and radically.

At any rate - the language of isolated communities seem to
change least.

English has changed radically over the last 1000 years,
perhaps more than any other European language.

You did not express your own opinion in answer to your own
question. A discussion is not supposed to be just one-
sided after all. You ask - and I answer.
Posted by Foxy, Wednesday, 11 September 2019 5:22:50 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Again it looks like this discussion has run its course.
Thank You for your thoughts and I look forward to
more interesting discussions in the future.
Posted by Foxy, Thursday, 12 September 2019 2:01:16 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. Page 7
  9. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy