How "Anglo-Saxon" are the English?

[superioroid]

the southern ones look hotter innit buddyrydell. i'd like to make babies with jordan

[buddyrydell]

Yep, she's very well-endowed heh.

[OdinofOssetia]

Interesting, because the "southern one" has very dark eyes (dark brown or black) and her hair looks as if it was dyed blond.

[Trog]

Wayne Kerr's comments are completely unrevised and suspiciously like someone who is trying to suggest that the English who are closer to the London area are mixed in some way.

This is Jordan, i.e. Katie Price who famously has barely any part of her body and face untouched by plastic surgeons.





This is Cheryl Tweedy from Newcastle....



These are teenagers from west-central Scotland. To mods, I aplogise if this is an awkward size, but I think in the interests of population studies, it makes an interesting photo;

[Bryce]

cerdic said:

Approximately 80% of the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary has been lost and left no descendants in Modern English, more than 60% of Modern English words have an ultimately Latin root (usually via Old French).

To classify Modern English as a purely Germanic language is misleading and an intermediate classification of Romano-Germanic should be used if the reality of the position of Modern English is to be accurately reflected.

Old English was a purely West Germanic language but Modern English has been so radically altered that this should be recognised in how it is classified.

Your words mirror my own thoughts, even if I'm not sure about the exact percentage. Where, indeed, could we place Modern English on the Indo-European tree ? It certainly derives from some of the West Germanic dialects spoken in ancient England, but it evolved so dramatically that it ought to be given its own special place in linguistic taxonomy.

[noit]

xenophobic said:

Wayne Kerr's comments are completely unrevised and suspiciously like someone who is trying to suggest that the English who are closer to the London area are mixed in some way.

This is Jordan, i.e. Katie Price who famously has barely any part of her body and face untouched by plastic surgeons.

The woman looks horrible, I wonder how she look before surgeries, probably even worse.

[Bryce]

cerdic said:

Buddyrydell said:

I know that English is approximately 60% Latin in origin via Norman-French, but you're saying that 80% of the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary was lost I find that a little hard to believe. Either that or it's just that the most frequently used English words are of ultimately Anglo-Saxon West Germanic origin.

Siteth sorgcearig, saelum bidaeled,
on sefan sweorceth, sylfum thinceth
thaet sy endeleas earfotha dael.

How much of this is intelligible to the Modern English speaker? Sorry about the "th" - don't know how to type thorn here.

It means:

The anxious, grieving man, deprived of joy,
Lives with a darkened mind; it seems to him
His share of sorrows will be everlasting.

Virtually all the verbs and many of the nouns have no descendant in Modern English.

Even the verbs that did survive often have a Latin twin. For example you can start in AS or commence in Latin, equally you can end in AS or finish in Latin.

Siteþ sorgceariġ, saelum bidaeled,
on sefan sweorceþ, sylfum thinceþ
þaet sy endeleas earfoða dael.

We could translate it otherwise and make some of the Anglo-Saxon words more transparent :

He sits sorrowful, careworn, bereft of joy (1) (2)
His mind darkened (3), it seems to him(self) (4)
that his deal of hardship will be (5) endless. (6)

1) Dialectal "seely" = happy ;
2) We could imagine a modern verb "to bedeal" meaning to deprive, it wouldn't be absurd, but bedælan (or bidaelan) was replaced by equivalents;
3) Literally "it darkens in his mind", "sweorcan" is connected to "swart", "swarthy". I can't think of any modern descendant of "sefa" (mind, heart, inner self), there is perhaps an old Indo-European kinship with the Latin "salvus" meaning safe, kept apart?
4) Remember the expression "methinks" from "mē þynceþ", it seems to me ; þyncan differs from þencan, to think, cf. German dünken and denken);
5) "sy" is a subjunctive;
6) "earfoð" (= hard labor, hardship) is connected to German "Arbeit" (work) as a fellow Dodonian taught me.

[Trog]

Before surgery, or at least before excessive surgery (her lips are natural) she looked quite pretty:




After............trash!