There is benefit to all in learning Latin. I cannot explain it, it's one of those things you just have to experience.<p>Not to mention that it will become a gateway drug... Attic Greek, Sanskrit, Syriac, Aramaic... I don't know them just yet, but Latin makes me want to learn it all!<p>Nice article.
Etymonline.com is one of my favorite websites. I had no idea it had a blog though - thanks for posting. I love the description of English as “Built from half-Frenchified Roman marble and local wattle-and-daub.”
BTW: The image on the page is "Der Abend" ("The evening") from Caspar David Friedrich's "Tageszeitenzyklus" ("Time of Day Cycle") from 1821/22. The reproduction on the page seems to be somewhat overexposed. Wikipedia has it a lot darker: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Caspar_David_Friedrich_-_Tageszeitenzyklus,_Der_Abend_(1821-22).jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Caspar_David_Friedri...</a> -- I personally have not yet seen the original painting, but in view of other Caspar David Friedrichs and considering its title, the darker version seems more accurate to me.
I dreame of a setmoot wishtongue that riddes English of the mute endes and comes again to the grounde and wefte that Roman-speak still ownes.<p>He writes, he is a writer. I sleepe, I be a sleeper. For truth, there is Anglish, but the end speakes akin to a Scotch pirater. My setmoot wishtongue has a lilt like Swedish chef.<p>Read Chaucer aloude and he singes.
Some of these sw-words are old norse, eg<p><pre><code> sware - "to answer"
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modern swedish = svara "to answer"<p><pre><code> sweger - "mother in law"
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modern swedish = svägerska "mother in law"<p><pre><code> sweor - "father in law"
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modern swedish = svärfar "father in law"