Quite the interesting read, where we learn that the Viking made the language ‘easier’ but left some pieces reminiscent of other languages in there, “hanging on like a dead bug on a windshield”.
English is Not Normal (aeon)
Also fun insight into our use of the well-known multiple sources, for example, in ‘doublets’
such as the English/French pairs begin and commence, or want and desire. Especially noteworthy here are the culinary transformations: we kill a cow or a pig (English) to yield beef or pork (French). Why? Well, generally in Norman England, English-speaking labourers did the slaughtering for moneyed French speakers at table.
The point, though, is to say something interesting. Without saying something vacuous.
The common idea that English dominates the world because it is ‘flexible’ implies that there have been languages that failed to catch on beyond their tribe because they were mysteriously rigid. I am not aware of any such languages.