The German Language

[abaris]

I've been told that linguist think of English as a bastard language. But I thought that was just American English, because of all the people who came here from Europe.

Do you know how many linguistic elements featured into creating that language? Different German dialects, some of which are still hard to understand, even with German as a first language. French, because of William. Before that, Latin, which has also influenced German and French. And of course Spanish, Italian and Portugese. The languages on the Iberic Peninsula also have Arabic elements, which is hardly surprising, given that the Maurs ruled over large parts for several centuries.