The perception of English as a 'linguistic thief' is an old and culturally ingrained one.

Images of a
human representative of the English language following other languages down dark alleys in a
manner analogous to a common criminal are all too common when one is asked about the linguistic
origins of the English language. Even from as early as the 1570s, linguists such as John Florio noted
that if every language, had his owne words again, there would but a few remaine for the English
men.. Such a perception clearly has some historical truth, and the language that we call 'English'
has been influenced syntactically, lexically, and phonetically by France and the later colonial
ventures of the British empire than by the language spoken by the Anglo-Saxons themselves Old
English. And even Old English, the language stated proudly by pro-English prescriptivists as the
English language of which Modern English is a worthy decedent, is a Germanic, and not a Brittonic
language. However, this view, though useful in understanding the history of the 'English' language,
fails to properly acknowledge the intrinsic nature of language, and takes specific aim at English
when it is in fact a necessary condition of communicative speech itself, that it be essentially the
result of a gradual process of linguistic evolution, with each step along the way providing only a
trivial innovation from its predecessor.
It is no secret that the language of Old English is a syntactical mess compared to the language that
we speak today. Nouns were subject to grammatical gender, instead of the natural gender used
today; verb conjugations were much more numerous; it had three grammatical numbers instead of
the modern two. The syntax is so radically different in fact, that as a Germanic language, it is
generally agreed to have more in common with modern German, than with the English which is
descended from it. Such a difference is by no means a coincidence, and for this change English
speakers have the French, and not the English, to thank. Any amateur historian should be well
aware of the story of the Battle of Hastings, where, long story short, the Norman 'William the
Conqueror' conquered England in an eponymous victory over King Harold II. What the amateur
historian may not know is the impact that such a victory had on the language that we speak. The
Norman conquest brought with it more than just a new army or king, it also brought the French
language, which was to have a profound influence on how speak today. With the French speaking
Normans in charge of the country, gone were the dozen articles, the grammatical genders, the dual
number, and many more. With these developments 'English' came to be influenced just as much by
Old French as by Old English, with Modern English syntax sharing very little in common with the
highly inflectional Old English. For this particular reason, the Norman conquest of England at the
Battle of Hastings can be seen to be every bit as influential on the development of English as the
Anglo-Saxon invasion in the fifth century.
Lexically the Norman conquest can be seen to be just as influential. From the Normans England
took many governmental and official words such as 'sovereign' (from 'sourverain'), 'clerk' (from
'clerc'), and 'parliament' (from 'parlement'), as well as many synonyms for already existing animals
such as 'royal' ('kingly'), and 'pork' ('swine'). This influence was so great that the number of words
derived from Old French is estimated to be approximately 10,000. This expansion of the English
vocabulary continued when the English would be not the conquered as before, but the conquerors,
with England taking many culturally specific words such as 'yoda' (from Hindi), 'zombie' (from
Haitian), and 'boomerang' (from Indigenous Australian languages). Meanwhile a substantial change
was taking place in phonetics, which is now known as the 'Great Vowel Shift'. The Great Vowel
Shift saw an increase in the use of diphthongs, a general increase in tongue height when
pronouncing vowels, and a decline in the total number of vowels. For instance, 'a', became 'e', and
'o' became 'u'. No consensus exists among linguists as to the origin of this curious phenomenon, but
one thing is clear: that it was because of foreign influence on the language, be that in the form of
foreign immigration to England after the Black Death, or in the form of a French accent of prestige
that had developed.
From this it can be seen that syntactically, lexically, and phonetically, the English language is hardly
one that arose autonomously. But what such a concession fails to recognise is that the heteronomous
nature of English is not anything to be ashamed of, nor is it anything unique. It was aforementioned
that English is a Germanic language, what was not mentioned was that one could go even broader

than to describe it as a Germanic language, and note that it is an Indo-European language, or if one
wished to narrow the categories, then they could choose either West Germanic or Anglo-Frisian as
the linguistic division which they wish to impose. This hierarchy is not unique, analogous
hierarchies exist for every single language, and furthermore, this is not coincidental, each division is
indicative of the evolution that English, and all languages have gone through, just as as a biologist
can track the evolution of a species by looking at their species, genus, family, and so on, a linguist
can track the historical changes of a language by looking at its place on the linguistic tree. The
evolution of a language, while often marked by major events such as the Norman conquest of
England, is necessarily gradual, and at no point can one say that the introduction of a new word, or
inflection, constitutes the development of a new language, the classification of which is always
clouded in ambiguity and uncertainty. If English can be compared to the common thief then it is not
alone in such, existing in a world in desperate need of a police force.