English has much double vocabulary, but some other germanic languages have borrowed words from English fairly recently, giving them doublets that usually differ in meaning only slightly or not at all. This is reminiscent of how the European languages universally borrowed from the lingua franca of the day: Latin.
drink: Danish "drink", Norwegian "drink", Swedish "drink"
The native Scandinavian word for drink has no 'n':
Danish "drik", Norwegian "drikk", Swedish "dryck", Old Icelandic "drykkr"
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
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2 comments:
not a drop to trink
That is very interesting about the different language influences on English. I find it fascinating.
Here is a modern website in Low German, if you're interested:
Plattdüütsch wiki browser
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