Today's class topic was the historical development of English. Today's class was very engaging for me because I was interested in the topic and also able to use my background knowledge of other languages.
My favorite activity was the passage comparison. It was fascinating for me to see how languages develop over time. Also, my knowledge of German and a little bit of Dutch was very helpful in analyzing old English because German and Dutch are the two closest languages to English. So the final "e" in words often appears in German and Dutch in adjectives. Also, German tends to end sentences and clauses with verbs. Also, V's were initial syllable which is very common in German. V's are not usually place in the middle of words. So for me to be able to see these similarities and differences was very eye opening. It was great to be able to make all of these connections between languages. It also showed me that languages can have influences on other languages.
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That's awesome that you were able to make that connection between English and German. Throughout the semester I have wished I knew another langague so that I could compare also.
ReplyDeleteI so agree that knowledge of German helped with the Old English and Middle English analyzation. I could see where non-native English speakers would have great difficult with this.
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