The English language doesn't exist – it's just French that's badly pronounced

Tone and Purpose of the Original Claim

• Many read the “English is badly pronounced French” line as intentional trolling or a tongue‑in‑cheek way to reframe the historic rivalry.
• Some enjoy the provocation; others are annoyed by people taking it literally or using it to score cultural points.
• Several point out the author explicitly isn’t trying to “win” a linguistic argument, just offer a different perspective on shared history.

Origins and Structure of English

• Strong consensus: English is structurally a Germanic language. Its core grammar, word order, and very common short words are Germanic.
• English and German are related “sibling” languages, both descending from Proto‑Germanic; English does not descend from modern German.
• Old Norse and other Germanic dialects also shaped English; one commenter even links an argument that modern English aligns more with North Germanic than usually acknowledged.

Vocabulary: French, Latin, Germanic Layers

• Multiple comments stress that French’s influence is primarily lexical, via Norman French and later French/Latin prestige.
• Examples illustrate doublets where French/Latinate forms are formal and Germanic forms everyday: beef/cow, purchase/buy, cardiac/heart, inquire/ask, etc.
• One summary cited: ~28% French, ~28% Latin, ~25% Germanic sources by raw dictionary count, though others note this overweights obscure Latin/scientific terms versus common Old English words.
• Class history after 1066 is used to explain meat/animal splits and legal/elite vocabulary coming from French.

Literary Tradition and Historical Depth

• A side debate compares Old English (e.g., Beowulf) with early French texts (e.g., Chanson de Roland).
• One side claims French has a “longer” or more continuous literary tradition as its medieval texts resemble modern French more.
• Others call this goalpost‑moving, arguing both languages changed drastically and that counting “Old English” differently from “Old French” is arbitrary.

Gender, Cases, and Grammar

• Several praise English for largely lacking grammatical gender, calling this a simplification versus many Indo‑European languages.
• Others argue that what really matters for concision is case/declension, not gender itself; German’s case system allows compact, precise distinctions.
• A distinction is drawn between English having sexed pronouns (he/she) versus grammatical gender on nouns.

Language Mixing, Purity, and Regulation

• A recurring theme: all European languages are mixtures (Latin + Celtic + Germanic + others); “pure” language is seen as a fiction.
• French itself is described as Vulgar Latin heavily influenced by Frankish and other substrata; a commenter jokes that French is “bad Latin and Gaulish.”
• The role of the Académie française is criticized as symbolic more than effective; its prescriptive decisions are portrayed as ignored in practice, especially regarding modern vocabulary.

Global Role and Prestige (Lingua Franca)

• One hotly debated claim from the book: that French “equipped” English to become the global lingua franca and this should be seen as a victory for francophonie.
• Some see this as clever trolling or unfalsifiable nationalism; others note French really was the main diplomatic language before English took over after WWII.
• Many agree English’s global dominance is tied far more to British and American geopolitical and economic power than to its internal linguistic makeup.

Impact on Other Languages and Everyday Use

• Nordic commenters lament English’s spread displacing precise native terms; Danish in particular is said to be increasingly Anglicized.
• Examples from Quebec and family anecdotes highlight heavy French–English code‑switching (“franglais”) and mutual borrowing in real speech.
• Several people note as native speakers of one language reading another, they feel the “other” often sounds like that language badly pronounced—underlining the subjective nature of such claims.