>>31482030Remember the history of England.
First stage) Early Celtic settlers
Second stage) Romans invade and conquer the place, build a bunch of cities
Third stage) German people called the Anglo-Saxons invade, create Germanic kingdoms in England
Fourth stage) Normans invade, conquer and rule England, becoming the upper class.
Fifth stage) English people reassert themselves over the monarchy.
The original celtic language was almost completely wiped out, remaining only on the fringes of Scotland and Ireland.
The Romans contributed a bit of culture, but most importantly the cities and roads. Although their language influence didn't remain.
The anglo-saxon language was Germanic. The Germanic people love compound-words, stringing words together to create bigger words with a combined meaning.
The French people included lots of words with silent letters and overly-effluent spellings. They are the ones that radically changed the language in its character. They also had a massive impact on the British culture. They built castles all over England to suppress any thoughts of rebellion, and this gave the English a really anti-authoritarian streak which is probably what gave rise to modern democracy and america itself.
That is why English is such a tricky language. It's basically two languages mixed together.
The Franks themselves were Germanic people. But they were heavily influenced by the Romans. Their language and culture was greatly influenced by the Latin culture, that's why it's so different.