I'm not sure linguistics as a discipline could even develop with only one language. It seems that to say interesting things about a language, you need other languages to compare it with.
saber964 wrote:Well considering how many words creep into english, I am not surprised. In every day conversations, I use words that are German French Italian Spanish and Russian in origin.
Russian? Which words did we steal from Russian?
James D. Nicoll wrote:The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
Japan, in constrast, just wanders into the Discount Vocabulary store and gets new words wholesale.