Elijah Brockway

Yeah, but it's not as drastic as let's say... Spanish and Italian. And yes, it was.

No, never would have happened. It's the South African thing again, they'd have had to slaughter huge amounts of peasants to make them accept it. English peasants are stubborn SOBs.

The Gaels' were basically the same, remember. At one point Ireland was known as 'Scotland' and both languages went 'extinct' (both have about 5000 speakers each) before they could change too much. And I've always thought that English is what happened when the Normans tried to make the peasants of Angland (most of England minus a lot of Devon and Cornwall and pretty much all the north) learn their language and the pair just met a halfway point. Up until Edward III (I think) the nobles spoke Norman and the peasants their bastardised Anglo-Norman, but Edward III changed that by forcing/heavily suggesting the nobles to speak the peasants tongue. This was either because he hated them or got pissed off at all the taxes he was losing due to the local barons not understanding the peasants, who could then trick them into thinking they'd taken the correct amount of money.

Well, from what I've seen, English is the weird one on the British Isles. Irish and Scottish are similar to the point where I could understand a Scottish guy if he didn't have an accent while Welsh is like what English or Anglo-Saxon or whatever must have once been like.

I've only very recently looked into languages seriously, and I haven't gotten that far east. Sorry for the assumption.

Ahh, well the first five or so are the best IMO. Not that the others are bad, but the starting few were just that good! I have finished the series, and can tell you that this is one series that you need to see through till the end. :D

How far along are you? lol, that's such a weird question. :P

Very much so. :D