Features of the English language

English has changed so much in the last 1500 years that it would now be hardly recognizable to the Anglo- Saxons who brought the language across the North Sea. Although they would be able to recognize many individual words, they would not recognize the way those words are put together to make sentences.

SIMPLICITY OF FORM. Old English, like modern German, French, Russian and Greek, had many inflections to show singularand plural, tense, person, etc., but over the centuries words have been simplified. Verbs now have very few inflections, and adjectives do not change according to the noun.

FLEXIBILITY. As a result of the loss of inflections, English has become, over the past five centuries, a very flexible language. Without inflections, the same word can operate as many different parts of speech. Many nouns and verbs have the same form, for example swim, drink, walk, kiss, look, and smile. We can talk about water to drink and to water the flowers; time to go and to time a race; a paper to read and to paper a bedroom. Adjectives can be used as verbs. We warm our hands in front of a fire, if clothes are dirtied, they need to be cleaned and dried. Prepositions too are flexible. A sixty-year old man is nearing retirement; we can talk about a round of golf, cards, or drinks.

Another strength is the flexibility of function of individual words. Look at these uses of the word 'round':

There was a round table (adjective) He bought a round of drinks (noun) He turned round (adverb) He ran round the field (preposition) The car tried to round the bend too quickly (verb)

OPENNESS OF VOCABULARY. This involves the free admissions of words from other languages and the easy creation of compounds and derivatives. A lot of world languages have contributed words to English. The new words have made English what it is today, an effective medium of international communication.

Arabic	admiral, algebra, mattress
Spanish	mosquito, cigar, canyon
Italian	piano, violin, spaghetti
Dutch	yacht, boss, deck
Hindi	pyjamas, shampoo, bungalow
Turkish	yoghurt, kiosk
Japanese	tycoon, karate
Malay	bamboo, compound
Hungarian	coach, paprika
Classical Greek	theatre, astronomy, logic
Gaelic	whisky
Russian	vodka, sputnik
Finnish	sauna
Chinese	tea, silk
Portuguese	marmalade
Czech	robot
Basque	bizarre
Farsi (Iranian)	lilac
Carib	canoe
Australian Aborigine	kangaroo, boomerang
Modern French	rendezvous, cafe
Modern German	kindergarten

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