|
One of the differences between English and many other languages is that there isn't any regulatory group guiding the language. No L'Académie française, Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung, Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española.
The evolution of English should, as a result, be more open and fluid. It allows English to borrow liberally from any language. No group can say, "No, no, no! That isn't English." In other words, English is a thoroughly crowd-source language.
Some of the oddities of English spelling were introduced by folks (I tend to think that they were fools) who tried to guide the language and popularized the idea that spelling should indicate the original source of the word. "Qu" tends to show French, for example. There are others that show Latin, Greek, and such. One problem being that these folks where sometimes wrong in their etymology.
|