[chr15p]

To make written English you need to take 1 part Old (Anglo-Saxon) German, 1 part old Norse, and 1 part old French, stir together for a couple of centuries, then, just as its going though a major pronunciation shift have its spelling formalised by a random bunch of academics with an unhealthy obsession with latin and greek. Fianlly throw away a bunch of letters because the Germans and Itallians who made block type lettersfor printing presses had never heard of them, and bodge your spelling back together using whatever you can just about get away with. (Bring back Thorn!)

Then sit back and get very upset with anyone who tries to remove the 'u' from colour.

[jjtheblunt]

I remember my Germanic linguistics prof saying, regarding English, the statistics of words used in English sentences are roughly 75% as you mentioned above (Germanic), but the dictionary entries are like 75% Latin and Greek variations.

The statistical conjecture of the Germanic linguist was that (roughly) 25% of the English dictionary is used for 75% of words in actual usage.