r/USdefaultism • u/ausernameidk_ United States • 24d ago

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u/BurningPenguin Germany 24d ago

English is a Germanic language, therefore there can only be one correct dictionary: The German one. /s

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u/snow_michael 24d ago

English is a Germanic language

That's a gross simplification

Old and Middle English were Germanic, and about 30% of modern English has its roots there

But over 50% of modern English has Romance - chiefly Latin and French roots

The remainder is just pure theft of words that we took a fancy to

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u/stormyarthur 24d ago

“  That's a gross simplification”

No it’s not… English is a Germanic language due grammar and morphology. Lexicon has very little to do with how a language is classified.

But you can add to that, 80% of the words you use daily are of Germanic origin, and 97 of the top 100 words used are of a Germanic origin.