[Milsurplus] Language Experts? OT OT

[Mike]

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Tino Zottola wrote:
 
> As a side note, English was actually a Germanic
> language 1000 years ago

"Kenneth G. Gordon" <keng@moscow.com> wrote:

> Most Germanic based languages don't have neat words
> that combine meanings like English does.

It's true that English was a Germanic language 1000 years ago.  It
remains a Germanic language today.  Officially, it is in the West
Germanic group, which also includes Dutch, Frisian, and German.  There
is also the North Germanic group, which includes the Scandinavian and
Icelandic languages, but not Finnish.  No East Germanic language
survives today.

A language that borrows words from another language does not transform
itself into a member of another language group.  Otherwise, one could
make the equally silly claim that Russian is a hybrid Slavic-Germanic
language for having borrowed greatly many English words.  

Mike / KK5F