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tarheel91 on 24 April 2009
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sc94597 said:
highwaystar101 said:
Vetteman94 said:
Well our country may not be old, but I would like to say we have had more significant inventions than any other country.


Except Egypt, they invented Beer, that trumps eerything we have ever done

I know I said I'm out of this thread, but this just had to be replied too.

British inventions include

  • The computer
  • Penicilin
  • World wide web
  • Jet engine
  • Microphone
  • Steam engine
  • Electric transformer
  • Light bulb (Joseph Wilson Swan)
  • Flushing toilet
  • Calculus
  • Electromagnet
  • The police
  • Telephone
  • Radio
  • Insulin
  • Beta-blockers
  • English language (what are you speaking?)

That's not even covering 5% of them I reckon, and not even including the scientific advances we gave the world such as Laws of gravity and the theory of Evolution.

Also, that's just Britain, let's get Persia, Holland, Germany and Mesopotamia in on this act, they even kick our asses.

P.S. that's it from me for now.

I'm fine with all of them except the bolded. You CANNOT invent a language. Languages are formed from dialects of other languages becoming more distinct until they are so distinct that they are not able to be understood by any of the root(s) language(s). In the case of english it was formed by germanic dialects from angles and the saxons with the addition of latin roots from the french spoken by the Normans, and tons of smaller additions from other languages. The germanic language that English,German,Dutch,and all germanic languages root from came from the Indo European languages which include all languages that fall into these categories(Albanian, Anatolian,Armenian,Balto-Slavic,Celtic,Germanic,Hellenic,Indo-Iranian,Italic, and Tocharian.)  Then indo-european rooted even more to older languages, and you could go on until you find a root language that was spoken by the humans that lived in Africa. So no, the English didn't "Invent" the English language, and no they weren't the only ones to make contributions to it.

 

 

Edit: Oh and btw, Americans or any other English speakers of whom are of English decent and have Anglo Saxon ancestors have the same stance as English citizens of whom have Anglo-Saxon ancestors in stating that they "invented" the language, if it were true that you could "invent" a language.

 

Yeah, although English began to develop in England, it's hardly something they invented.  English started off as Low German that ended up being mixed with French, and then Latin.  Plus, a language continues to develop over time, and you can't really say it's ever done and invented.

 

@Kasz: Although bits and pieces were developed well before England, modern Calculus can mainly be attributed to Sir Isaac Newton (English) and Leibniz (German).  Still, though, it's half English half German, and we wouldn't have a lot of useful things like dy/dx notation for derivatives without Leibniz.  I don't think you can really claim calculus for England.