"Anglo-Saxons" in the Church

[Xarto]

Historically Irish weren’t seen as white as this was an an Anglo-Saxon thing. That’s why we were portrayed as less than human by Punch magazine and others. I hate that we are now being cast as “white” when our colour was never a thing here, if someone was to say to me now that I’m white, I’d say no I’m Irish.

 

[dochawk]

But I think if you studied German, you’d see English is a lot closer to it in structure than French is to either.

English has both grammars.

“I gave him the book.” is a germanic construct, while, “I gave the book to him.” is the latin/French grammar.

English is roughly a low German (like Dutch) with Norman French grafted onto it. Most, but not all, of the latin comes through the French (e.g., the names of practically all of the meats).

After a week in Amsterdam, I could follow the written Dutch on signs, displays, headlines, and such.

I also stumbled, to my surprise, on a RC church—I had thought that the Calvinists had driven us all out centuries ago.

Anyway, I went in, and by the cadence recognized the Rosary. Reasoning the Mass would follow, I stayed.

While I always knew where the priest was and what was happening, I could follow one sentence without any trouble, and none of the next sentence–event hough I knew exactly what I said.

English has also stolen, err, incorporated, words from a great many other languages.

Germans and Austrians speak High German.

I did think of Louisiana (I didn’t know that Spanish law still existed in the US),

Puerto Rico is also heavily napoleonic law.

hawk