Why is English so weirdly different from other languages?

By John McWhorter

Originally published on Aeon: https://aeon.co/essays/why-is-english-so-weirdly-different-from-other-languages

English speakers know that their language is odd. So do people saddled with learning it. The oddity that we all perceive most readily is its spelling, which is indeed a nightmare. But English is weird in other ways, too. Why, for instance, do we say beef and pork for cow and pig meat, while other languages just use the same word? Why do we have so many irregular verbs? And why does English seem to borrow so heavily from other languages yet still feel so distinct?

The answer lies in history, conquest, and a peculiar talent for absorbing and transforming influences. English’s weirdness began with its transformation in the mouths of non-native speakers, and it’s been shaped by invasions, trade, and cultural mash-ups over centuries.

A Germanic Start, Then a French Makeover

English began as a Germanic language, brought to Britain by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes in the 5th century. Old English, as it’s called, was a guttural, consonant-heavy tongue, not unlike modern German or Dutch. If you read Beowulf, you’d see words like hwaet (what) or scite (shit) and recognize the family resemblance to other Germanic languages. But then came the Normans.

In 1066, William the Conqueror and his French-speaking posse took over England. For centuries, French was the language of the elite, while English was relegated to the peasants. This wasn’t just a linguistic snub—it reshaped English profoundly. The Norman influence is why we have French-derived words like justice, parliament, and beauty alongside Germanic ones like law, folk, and good. It’s also why we say beef (from French boeuf) and pork (from porc) for the meat but cow and pig for the animals—French was the language of the dining table, English of the farm.

This split created a linguistic class system. English retained its Germanic bones but got a French wardrobe. No other Germanic language went through such a drastic makeover. German, for example, doesn’t have this kind of dual vocabulary; it just uses Rindfleisch for beef (literally “cow meat”). English’s French infusion made it less “pure” but richer and more flexible.

Viking Contributions and Grammar Weirdness

Before the Normans, the Vikings left their mark. From the 8th to 11th centuries, Norse raiders settled in Britain, speaking Old Norse, a language close enough to Old English to cause some serious linguistic mingling. They simplified English grammar, stripping away complex case endings and gendered nouns that other Germanic languages like German still have. Why do we say “the table” instead of declining it into different forms like German’s der Tisch, dem Tisch, den Tisch? Thank the Vikings, who were less fussy about grammar.

This simplification made English more accessible but also weirder. Most Germanic languages have a rigid structure—think of German’s obsession with word order or Icelandic’s preservation of Old Norse complexity. English, by contrast, became a grammatical free spirit, relying heavily on word order (I love you vs. You love I) rather than inflectional endings. This makes it easier to learn but harder to master, as the irregular verbs (go/went, be/am/is) and quirky prepositions (in, on, at) pile up.

The Great Vowel Shift: Pronunciation Chaos

Then there’s the pronunciation mess, courtesy of the Great Vowel Shift. Between the 14th and 17th centuries, for reasons linguists still debate (possibly urbanisation or post-plague population shifts), English speakers radically changed how they pronounced vowels. Words like bite, which once sounded like “beet,” shifted to their modern sound. This is why English spelling is so maddening—our orthography fossilised before the shift, leaving us with words like food and good pronounced differently despite similar spellings.

No other language went through such a dramatic vowel upheaval at the same time. French, Spanish, and German have quirks, but their spelling and pronunciation are far more consistent. English’s vowel shift, combined with its already messy borrowing habits, turned it into a phonetic minefield.

Borrowing Like a Magpie

English’s habit of gobbling up words from other languages is unmatched. Latin gave us audio and video, Greek philosophy and democracy, Arabic algebra and coffee, Hindi shampoo and bungalow. The Oxford English Dictionary lists over 600,000 words, dwarfing the vocabularies of most other languages. German, for instance, has about 180,000 words, and French around 100,000.

This borrowing isn’t just about quantity—it’s about how English adapts. When it takes a word like sushi from Japanese or croissant from French, it doesn’t just adopt it; it makes it feel English. We don’t italicise sushi or pronounce it with a Japanese accent. We anglicise it, bending it to fit our phonetic and cultural norms. This magpie-like quality makes English a global sponge, soaking up influences while still maintaining its core identity.

Why English Feels So Strange

So why does English feel so weird? It’s a Germanic language that got a French facelift, a Viking haircut, and a vowel system that went rogue. It borrows shamelessly, adapts aggressively, and shrugs off grammatical complexity that other languages cling to. It’s not just one thing—it’s the cumulative effect of invasions, trade, and a knack for reinvention.

Compare it to, say, Spanish, which evolved more linearly from Latin, or Japanese, which has remained relatively insulated from external linguistic influence. English is a mongrel, a hybrid of hybrids, shaped by centuries of cultural collisions. That’s its strength and its strangeness. It’s why English can feel like a puzzle even to native speakers, and why it’s both a global juggernaut and a linguistic oddball.

John McWhorter is a linguist and professor at Columbia University. His work explores the evolution of language and the peculiarities of English.