Are most regional words just remnants of other languages like Viking or German?
Clive: They’ve all come from somewhere if they’re regional words. Of course you should remember that people invent new words, but they’re inventing them using languages that have come from somewhere. Given the history of Great Britain, those languages are from all over the world – it’s this which gives English a lot of its richness and which enables people all over the world to feel some connection with it. BM: What is the most ancient dialect in Britain? Clive: If we’re talking about languages within Great Britain, we need to be thinking about the Celtic languages like Gaelic, Welsh and Cornish because they were spoken by the Britons who were here long before the Anglo-Saxons came. As far as dialects are concerned (and just focussing on English), because language changes all the time there are no dialects that, in pure sense, are very old. However, most dialects have very old features in them and these features are sometimes the ones that people criticise most today. tolkny1: I think
