A very concise history of the English language - Part II

The history of the English language is long and involved. Here are some interesting points in its evolution.

People often wonder why English has so many more words than other languages - for example, why does English have 25% more words than Danish?

The diversity and extent of the English language can largely be attributed to its history of being influenced by other languages. New words have been used alongside existing words with the same or similar meaning, such as desire (from French) and wish (from Old English wymacrscan).
In fact, the majority of words in modern English come from foreign, not Old English roots. Only about one sixth of the known Old English words have descendants surviving today.

Here are some interesting roots of modern English words:

• Old English originally comes from West Germanic invaders from Jutland and southern Denmark: the Angles (whose name is the source of the words England and English), Saxons, and Jutes, in the fifth and sixth centuries AD. 
• The (west) Scandinavian language began to significantly influence English from the first Viking invasion of the British Isles in 789. The English word dream comes from the Vikings.
• After the Norman conquest of England in 1066, a class-based split began in the English language. Beef, commonly eaten by the aristocracy, derives from the Anglo-Norman, while the Anglo-Saxon commoners, who tended the cattle, retained the Germanic cow. Many legal terms, such as indict, jury, and verdict have Anglo-Norman roots because the Normans ran the courts.
• Sometimes French words replaced Old English words. Crime replaced 'firen' and uncle replaced 'eam'. Other times, French and Old English components combined to form a new word, as the French 'gentle' and the Germanic 'man' formed gentleman.
• Some pronunciations and usages "froze" when they reached the American shore in the 1600s. In some ways, American English is closer to the English of Shakespeare than modern British English is. Some "Americanisms" that the British decry are actually originally British expressions that were preserved in the colonies while lost at home, for example fall as a synonym for autumn, trash for rubbish, and loan as a verb instead of lend.
• The American dialect also served as the route of introduction for many Native American words into the English language. Raccoon, tomato, canoe, barbecue, savanna, and hickory have Native American roots, although in many cases the original words were mangled almost beyond recognition.
• The word chocolate stems from an Aztec language called 'Nahuatl'. Choco (bitter) and atl (in water) was brought back to Europe as the drink chocolato.
• Hindi, and the other languages of the Indian subcontinent, provided many words, such as pundit, shampoo, pajamas, and juggernaut.
• The English word for an orange originates from the Sanskrit word 'naranj'.
• Virtually every language on Earth has contributed to the development of English, from Finnish (sauna) and Japanese (tycoon).