Alastair's countrymen didn't have the advantage of Noah Webster, who, uhm, "corrected" or simplified, standardized (ised?), simplified, and in his own word, Americanized many English spellings.
Bill On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 3:26 PM, Bernard Lis <[email protected]> wrote: > Bernie, >> >> Perhaps if you’d used an S instead of a Z I wouldn’t have turned purple >> with rage <g> – I always had the impression that we invented the language >> this side of the pond so you lot really ought to use the correct spelling >> <g>. >> >> (And, yes, I do know that I’m taking liberties with where the origins >> were but only for comic effect!! And you can spell it how you like for all >> I care. Besides which, Dennis probably just had little wayward piggies on >> his keybroad.) >> >> Regards, >> Alastair – in England – where English comes from!! >> > > "where English comes from!!" ? > > Most English words have come from four other languages: Anglo-Saxon, > French, Latin and Ancient Greek. The language spoken in Britain in the > first century B.C. would have been a Celtic language, similar to the Gaelic > languages that are still spoken today in Ireland, Wales, Scotland and > Brittany in northwest France. During the first century A.D. Britain was > ruled by the Romans, who brought with them their own language, Latin. Celts > and Romans lived together and their two languages probably influenced each > other for the next 300 years. >
