Why no "i" in "eye"?

[STR]

Ah English, the bastard child of French, German, Latin, and whatever the hell the ancient Britons spoke. I pity the people that didn't grow up with it. However, this ability to accept whatever terminology and grammar it encounters has put it the vanguard of language, assimilating ideas and terms before other languages, who often just co-opt the English word.

 

[Admiral Shran]

Ah English, the bastard child of French, German, Latin, and whatever the hell the ancient Britons spoke. I pity the people that didn't grow up with it. However, this ability to accept whatever terminology and grammar it encounters has put it the vanguard of language, assimilating ideas and terms before other languages, who often just co-opt the English word.

Actually, it's the bastard child of any language it comes into contact with.

I thank God that I'm a native English speaker, because, IIRC, it's quite possibly the hardest language of all for non-native speakers to learn.

 

[Australis]

I hear a lot of Dutch in English actually.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I hear a lot of Dutch in English actually.

Apparently there's parts of the Netherlands where if you spoke Old English you could get by pretty well, I think it's Fryslân that has the closest dialect to that spoken in Old English... Unless Eddie Izzard was lying in that Discovery Channel documentary.

 

[Colonel Green]

I must admit that I'm shocked that some douche has yet to show up in this thread and point to the lack of genders as definitive proof that English is superior to and easier to learn than any other european language.

"Paging I am Legend...."

 

[RoJoHen]

^I do think that English grammar rules are pretty basic and not all that different from other languages I've been exposed to, but spelling and pronunciation are absolutely ridiculous.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Bill Bryson explores the origins of the english language very well in The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that way. I highly recommend it. It was my first book I read of his and I became a fan.

 

[propita]

Ah English, the bastard child of French, German, Latin, and whatever the hell the ancient Britons spoke. I pity the people that didn't grow up with it. However, this ability to accept whatever terminology and grammar it encounters has put it the vanguard of language, assimilating ideas and terms before other languages, who often just co-opt the English word.

Ah English, the Borg of human languages.