Why is the English language so mixed up?

Answer 1

I will deal here only with the historical aspect.

That is true, and contrary to my fellow french who think that French is invaded by English, English has much more french words than French has English. While the reasons English is used in today's french are pragmatical as English is now the International language, the reasons why English has so many french words in it are historical.

The reign of William the Conqueror brought the langue d'oïl, an ancester of French, spoken in Northern France, which enriched the anglo-saxon language.

This anglo-norman french was principaly used by the aristocracy, the french influence was almost present in Law, civic affairs and warfare. The aristoratric titles were, for example, directly coming from french (Duke from Duc ....). The Clergy always used latin at that time and the people used to speak anglo-saxon which could be found several version (germanic, latin, dutch or celtic ...) depending on the region.

This dichotomy between the people and their rulers is the main reason why there are so many doublons in English. For example, Mutton (from french mouton) is used to define the meat while Sheep (sceap in Old English) from german is used to define the animal. Incredible and unbelievable is also an example

The french growing influence lasted until the beginning of the 15th century and indelibly transformed the "Old English", not only in the vocabulary but also in grammar.

I don't remember how linguists call the 16th and 17th english, (modern maybe), but during this period, with Renaissance, English had been also hugely influenced by ancient Greek and Latin.

And then, English has integrated much more than french. With trade, English also borrowed vocabulary from Spanish, Dutch, German, Italian.... And with time this melting pot has given the English used today.

The subject here in vast and I thank everyone who could precise or add informations. Do not hesitate to contact me for any question.

Answer 2

The most likely answer for this would be that English is such a widespread language. English-speaking nations have been around the world throughout history, many of them taking home things of interest such as spices, clothing, fabrics etc. Obviously if these were new to them, they would have to take the name that the locals used.

Answer 3

Because its very complex.

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You may find this hard to believe, but English is a form of creole, or more accurately it is a creolized language. It is not so much the language of a particular unchanging population developed over millennia, but it is a blending of languages including early forms of Danish, German and other Germanic languages, French, Latin, Greek and many others. You will see how much of this happened if you look at the history of the British Isles. For long periods of the early English monarchy the courtly language was French, and it was only peasants who spoke what would eventually develop into English as we know it. As a result of all the blending and 'creolizing', English eventually lost almost all of its inflected forms and this makes it easier to use one word in so many different ways. Most words in most languages are nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, and many words in English can be 2 or more of these depending on use. In highly inflected languages (languages where affixes determine the functions of a word) this is not so easily done. This same process makes it easy to take some words from other languages and to bring them effortlessly into English structures.

Answer 4

the English language is so mixed up because we have adopted so many different things from different places.

Answer 5

because it's an international language.