English has been this vacuum cleaner of a language, because of its history meeting up with the Romans and then the Danes, the Vikings and then the French and then the Renaissance with all the Latin and Greek and Hebrew in the background.
Tags: background, meeting, language, history

Other Quotes by "David Crystal"

What turns teenagers on more than the Internet these days? If you can get a language out there, the youngsters are much more likely to think it's cool.
Tags: think, internet, you, cool
'Spell it Out' rose to be number 4 on the best-selling Amazon chart - ahead of 'Fifty Shades of Grey!' Who ever would have thought that spelling would one day beat sex - even if it was for only a few hours!
Tags: ahead, rose, sex, day
It took three years to put Shakespeare's words together, there were a lot of words to be studied and a lot of words to be sorted out, and it proved to be a major project.
Tags: project, three, together, words
Anyone interested in language ends up writing about the sociological issues around it.
Tags: up, about, writing, language
It hasn't been a problem with Ben, I think we worked together very well, we don't have rows.
Tags: well, problem, think, together
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