Chapter II.

A Lesson from the Celtic Impact

When studying a second language or reflecting on our native language, questions
appear. We question many things: Why do we speak this way? Why is this
language so different from this one? Meaningless do? Ing ending for verbs or
nouns? As the author says sometimes languages rules just seem to make no
sense.
These logical and illogical rules must came from somewhere, or someone. For
instance, nowadays the following sentence He is the kind of boy I would never go
out with makes sense and is not considered to be wrong. What about in the
seventeenth century? In that time there was a rule which said that sentences
couldnt end with a preposition. Why? Probably because Latin didnt do it, and
since Latin was a language of prestige English shouldnt either.
If someone says or writes Imnt going out with you! ( Im not going out with you) he
or she would probably be crucified. If someone relates a fragment of any of
Shakespeares plays, people would consider him/her fancy, elegant, exquisite. But
why? Middle English evolved from Old English. Could an Old English speaker have
considered Shakespeares language elegant? Not. Language changes, its rules, its
grammar, its words. Its just like a matter of fashion, we dont complain because
flared trousers are not used anymore.
The author exposes that nowadays people complain about the misuse of English.
Nouns turned into verbs, they used referring to a singular, etc. This happens
because we are not comfortable with the unfamiliar, we already learned some
rules. I think that the only way we can deal with this is by facing the fact that
languages change, they have always had. In order to understand them better we
have to take into account the cultural differences, therefore the influences they
had, and still have. The Celtic influence on English is where we have to start
looking for the sake of understanding all the logical and illogical rules.