Yes, its rules and its grammar are based on Latin...
...thanks to the 18th and 19th Century Prescriptivists, that is.
I still say don't split the damned infinitives; it sounds horrible, and my linguistics prof in undergrad, the Oxonian grammarian, determined that it is in fact permissible to end a sentence with a preposition, so long as that preposition is part of a phrasal verb (like "put up with," which is a phrasal verb because it has a different meaning from either "put" or "put up"). See? There, now everyone's happy.
The cat and the miscegenation are out of the bag; I doubt it would be possible to re-Germanicise the language now (especially after heavy Latinate interference and several hundred years of French infusion courtesy of the Battle of Hastings).
(no subject)
...thanks to the 18th and 19th Century Prescriptivists, that is.
I still say don't split the damned infinitives; it sounds horrible, and my linguistics prof in undergrad, the Oxonian grammarian, determined that it is in fact permissible to end a sentence with a preposition, so long as that preposition is part of a phrasal verb (like "put up with," which is a phrasal verb because it has a different meaning from either "put" or "put up"). See? There, now everyone's happy.
The cat and the miscegenation are out of the bag; I doubt it would be possible to re-Germanicise the language now (especially after heavy Latinate interference and several hundred years of French infusion courtesy of the Battle of Hastings).