I like my language very much and fascinated by the etymology of the myriad of words that has entered the English language through conquest of and conquest by the British nation, which one had an immense presence in all parts of the world.
In sheer numbers it has more words and phrases and the curious habit of adding prefixes or suffixes to make another word, such as visible and invisible or labyrinth and labyrinthine. While it may not be as romantic as French or Spanish nor ornamental as Farsi, it is certainly rich in descriptive terms, groups of animals of all sorts have special words to describe them, such as a pride of lions, pod or school or team of dolphins etc etc etc.
An English civil servants curiosity about the similar sounding words in English German Farsi and Sanskrit led to the theory, now fully accepted of a group of people who might have spoken an ancient common tongue, Indo-European.
When I was introduced to the farsi word mibusamet and cotlet, I wondered whether the words bus came from bisou in French and more obviously cotlet could have French origin in the word, côtelette, small cut of meat.
Bill Bryson, a prolific american author, has a book The mother tongue in which he with his characteristic sense of humour lays bare the history of our language, named after a tribe from the German Danish border, Angles or Engels and of course the other tribe of Saxons. After the 1066 CE war of Norman conquest thousands of words arrived from France as well of new words , a thousand of which were coined by just Shakespeare alone ( leapfrog, excellent, lonely and majestic). American Indian tribes contributed their names for things the Europeans were unfamiliar with Tobacco, Hammock, hickory, squash, raccoon etc. English has a prodigious contribution from Spanish and Dutch languages as well. The diversity that is India which was under British rule for a couple of centuries padded the English language with Avatar, Chutney, cot, Bangle, Bungalow etc.
In 2024 , more foreigners speak and write (some excellent writers in English from India alone, Amitav Ghosh, Pankaj Sharma and hundreds of others) English than native speakers. USA inundated with immigrants has their own peculiarities , and speak an English far removed from the King’s English.
Good Night from me, in Miami
