> There's a well-attested history of English and the rest of the Germanic languages that puts English fairly firmly in the West Germanic family along with Frisian and Saxon, and at a greater distance, Dutch and standard German.
I make no claim to be fit to enter this debate, but I feel it worthwhile to mention Stephen Oppenheimer's "The Origins of the British" which
… demonstrates that the Anglo-Saxon invasions contributed just a tiny fraction (5%) to the English gene pool. Two thirds of the English people reveal an unbroken line of genetic descent from south-western Europeans arriving long before the first farmers. The bulk of the remaining third arrived between 7,000 and 3,000 years ago as part of long-term north-west European trade and immigration, especially from Scandinavia - and may have brought with them the earliest forms of English language.
Whether it does so demonstrate, I (as noted) am not not qualified to say!
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Nicholas J A Sanders ___________________ semiotek
+44 [0]7092 153 409 nix at semiotek.org ___________________
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