The most common nouns in the English language
June 22, 2006
The most common noun in the English language is "time""The thing that struck me when I put together this list was that 90% of the top 100 words were one syllable, and that a large proportion were actually from Old English, meaning the basic words we use all the time in basic sentences are from before the Norman Conquest," the project manager said.Posted by céline, in Culture, on June 22, 2006
"We always put the focus on new words, changing language and words from other countries, but in reality the basic language we use has been the same for hundreds and hundreds of years."
That's interesting. I have been writing about the way language changes recently on my blog. I have been wondering whether it changes very suddenly (catastrophically) or gradually. I cited the Norman invasion of Britain as potentially being a catastrophic event for the English language, but here you suggest that the core of the language remained unchanged. Do you know if there is a list of these 100 words somewhere on the internet?
Posted by Jonathan on July 1, 2006 11:00 AMThe change wasn't particularly fast, though, after the Norman Conquest. For a long time, the aristocracy spoke French while the working classes spoke Old English and the clergy spoke Latin. It took a fair while for these forms to mould together. I love the way some words illustrate class difference as well, for instance 'pig' and 'swine' are Old English and German and could be found in the farmyard where the poor worked, but as soon as the meat is on the table, it is called 'pork', a French word, because that was the posher people's domain.
Posted by Eric Bateson on July 7, 2006 4:38 PMPrevious: June 20, 2006
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