post subject
Posted: Tue 05 Jul 2016, 14:19
Hi fmiguel,
The English language is an odd mixture. The colonization by the Angles and Saxons had already established a Germanic base spoken by almost everyone in "Britain" --but not Scotland nor Wales-- when England (Anglo-land) was conquered by the Normans: (Northman=Norse=Scandinavians speaking "French" having previously conquered most of France). French, like Spanish, is rooted in Latin.
Conquest brings new rulers. Colonization brings a substantial new population.
Since the feudal overlords had to speak to the peasantry and vice-versa, what eventually emerged was a language that had dropped word endings (case and gender) and included some words with German and some words with Latin roots. About 60% of English words --the short ones-- have German ancestry. Most multi-syllablic words have Latin ancestry.
Consequently, English offers at least two words which probably correspond to the Spanish "retraso". One is "delayed", from "old French" and probably Latin: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=delay.
The other is "slow", from the German. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=slow, related to "sluggish" and the animal "sloth". Slow also can have the meaning "dull" (mentally), so probably comes closest to the Spanish "retraso".
I usually write "delayed" when I want to suggest some external hindrance; "slow" when I don't have such excuse.
Two things make English even more difficult.
By the time the Normans re-introduced the “Romance
The English language is an odd mixture. The colonization by the Angles and Saxons had already established a Germanic base spoken by almost everyone in "Britain" --but not Scotland nor Wales-- when England (Anglo-land) was conquered by the Normans: (Northman=Norse=Scandinavians speaking "French" having previously conquered most of France). French, like Spanish, is rooted in Latin.
Conquest brings new rulers. Colonization brings a substantial new population.
Since the feudal overlords had to speak to the peasantry and vice-versa, what eventually emerged was a language that had dropped word endings (case and gender) and included some words with German and some words with Latin roots. About 60% of English words --the short ones-- have German ancestry. Most multi-syllablic words have Latin ancestry.
Consequently, English offers at least two words which probably correspond to the Spanish "retraso". One is "delayed", from "old French" and probably Latin: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=delay.
The other is "slow", from the German. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=slow, related to "sluggish" and the animal "sloth". Slow also can have the meaning "dull" (mentally), so probably comes closest to the Spanish "retraso".
I usually write "delayed" when I want to suggest some external hindrance; "slow" when I don't have such excuse.
Two things make English even more difficult.
By the time the Normans re-introduced the “Romance
