lesschumras: The changes were more than a few cursewords. It including “pairs” such as the Germanic cow for the live animal (cared for by Anglo-Saxons, and French beef for when the Normas ate it. Depending on the subject matter, English vocabulary is often half French. Whereas English in 1066 was close enough to German that a translator wasn’t needed, today it is totally foreign to German and probably closer to French. In addition, the whole process resulted in messed up spelling (English is written as it was pronounced when printing was introduced in Europe in the 15th century, and while the language was still forming) and much simpler grammar (minimal use of gender, almost no use of case, almost no use of the subjunctive – though still over a dozen tenses).
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