Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec,sci.lang
From: philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt)
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!peernews.demon.co.uk!storcomp.demon.co.uk!philip
Subject: Re: Languages in the EC
References: <3h3ci5$qc8@agate.berkeley.edu>
Reply-To: philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk
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Date: Mon, 6 Feb 1995 02:18:09 +0000
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In article <3h3ci5$qc8@agate.berkeley.edu>
           coby@euler.Berkeley.EDU "Coby (Jacob" writes:

> Of the fifteen member states of the EU, only two have primary
> languages that are neither Germanic nor Romance (and one of them, 
> Finland, has a Germanic second language).  Of the remaining thirteen,
> seven have Germanic, four Romance, and two (Belgium and Luxemburg) both.
> 
> English has the distinction of being the Germanic language with the
> largest proportion of Romance elements.  On that basis alone it
> would qualify as the ideal superlanguage for the EU.

I don't agree. The mixture of Romance and Germanic gives English too
many words, which makes it hard to learn.

It is quite common for the basic noun for a concept to be Germanic, but 
for other words refering to the same concept to be Romance. Eg:

hound - canine
tooth - dental
father - paternal

-- 
Phil Hunt...philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk
Majority rule for Britain!
