[PaulRobinson]

English is claimed as being influenced heavily by every nation that conquered England, because of course it was: Latin via the Romans; Anglo-Saxon/Gemanic; then Viking; and, then the Latin/Romance influence again via France/Normandy.

And of course, English develops organically (unlike, say, French), allowing new words to emerge, and for old words to take on new meanings. I love it.

As an Englishman, I always find it interesting that there is this weird defined notion of "Englishness" in language, culture, whatever, when our entire history is one of mashing and remixing ideas over at least 2,000 years, and recent discoveries at Stonehenge push that back potentially by 3,000-5,000 years more.

I particularly like the irony of the far-right going on about English identity on a march in London before going to have a lager and chicken tikka masala before heading home to a bungalow and putting on their pyjamas... :)

I think the Scandinavian roots you talk about trace back to common Germanic roots perhaps, but also the Viking aspect will influence a lot. I think English has been "dipped into" by those roots a few times in history, as has Latin.

On the need to keep the etymology aligned in translation: I think this is a routine challenge of the translator's skill, and why so many people have different views of different translations of the same texts.

The Bible could easily be translated in many different ways, but the "King James" version is considered the standard within the Anglican churches in the UK (and seems to be the common root for US church bibles too), but a more modern translation would be possible, as would one that has a closer etymological meaning to the original sources.

It's all interpretative. If people are building entire belief systems and ways of life (and arguably, laws for society), around a translation, and getting it off in a few places, it's likely we're going to run into the same problems even more when translating Tolkien or an ancient poem...

[pbhjpbhj]

>the "King James" version is considered the standard within the Anglican churches in the UK

I don't find this to be true. Even at high mass ('bells & smells' type communion) you get more modern versions. To my recollection NIV would be most common. Obviously not a representative survey. Also, it might be at traditional/formal services you get [N]KJV as I've been to less of those.

Amongst very old people you see strong support for KJV because that's what they learnt 70 years ago. It sounds very archaic to modern ears. I'd say KJV hasn't been favoured this side of the millennium.

Just my impression.

[celebril]

A bit of correction: the version you'll most likely see being used across the Church of England nowadays is NRSV. It's the scholarly translation.

NIV is the preferred translation for the low-church side, the evangelicals, so definitely won't be used by the bells-and-smells high church crowd. KJV is preferred by a niche who also prefers the Book of Common Prayer liturgy over Common Worship. Usually this is either an older population, a certain ethnic subgroup with calcified traditions, or old-school low church folks (so not modern evangelicals) who prefer the old ways and even the Thirty-Nine Articles.

[devilbunny]

> It's the scholarly translation

And even then, only written at IIRC ninth-grade level (don't know the UK term; ages 14-15). I bought one in college because it was the highest-reading-level Bible they had at Barnes and Noble (major US bookseller; think Waterstones) and I wanted a decent text for some religion classes.

[pbhjpbhj]

You're right re [N]RSV in CoE. But I think of Anglican - perhaps wrongly - as extending outside CoE to encompass a range of reformed Protestant communions. I've seen NIV used in CoE too, but yes NRSV too and more often.

[rsynnott]

> I particularly like the irony of the far-right going on about English identity on a march in London before going to have a lager and chicken tikka masala before heading home to a bungalow and putting on their pyjamas... :)

Stewart Lee had a good bit about this:

> [..] > ‘Bloody Beaker folk. Coming over here, rowing up the Tagus Estuary from the Iberian Peninsula in improvised rafts. Coming here with their drinking vessels. What's wrong with just cupping up the water in your hands and licking it up like a cat?’

Racism always tends towards the silly, of course, but British ethnic nationalism particularly so, given the history. What’s ’British’, anyway?

[simonask]

Yeah, I share your fascination.

My understanding is that Old English vocabulary mostly predates Viking invasion, but even then the colonizers would have a large shared vocabulary with (non-Celtic) British natives, who would be the descendants of Anglo-Saxon settlers a couple of centuries earlier.

[mc32]

Well you had the Norman invasion; acquired lots of Norman French words yet fought the French several times over the centuries. One thing doesn’t have to do much with the other.

[jfengel]

The Roman influence is limited mostly to place names. Otherwise Latin had basically disappeared from the island.

Latin influences English as a learned tongue, used by clerics and academics. Other than that most of it comes via French, when the Normans brought it.

[TFNA]

> The Roman influence is limited mostly to place names. Otherwise Latin had basically disappeared from the island.

Recent research, namely an article by Lars Nooij & Peter Schrijver [0], suggests that a population speaking Latin/Romance may have remained present in Britain until the late first millennium. Granted, the effect of this local Latin would have been on Welsh more than English.

[0] https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110776492-004