You picked what is perhaps the only word that is nearest to being universal because it is very likely onomatopoeic. That wouldn't make it a very good example.
Languages are grouped together into families based on linguistical similarities and common or close origins and then subclassified into smaller groups; eg, the Indo-European (AKA "Indo-Germanisch") family divided into satem and centum languages (based on their words for 100) and then further divided into smaller groups (eg, Italic resulting in Latin which spawned the Romance languages, or Germanic splitting into West Germanic, North Germanic, and East Germanic each of which split further into individual languages).
On top of that, these languages rarely evolve (ie, develop and change, AKA "unfurl", over time) in total isolation, but rather are influenced by surrounding languages resulting in a kind of cross-pollination.
English is a good example, starting off as West Germanic (still is in its basic grammatical structure), influenced by Latin through Christian missionaries, influenced by
North Germanic Old Danish through the Danelaw (the eastern part of England settled by Vikings), then post-1066 acquiring a thick layer of French vocabulary through the French Vikings (AKA Normans, Norsemen who settled settled the northern coast of France, took local wives, and could not speak with their own children who grew up speaking their mother tongue, French), and in subsequent centuries continued to evolve while continuing to be influenced by other languages.
I would also point out that writing slows down change within a language. When all you have is oral transmission, large changes can happen within just a few generations (much like oral traditions such as the stories of the Old Testament), but once you have written it down then that creates a lot of resistance to change. For example, I can use what I learned of Koin Greek to decipher a lot of written Modern Greek even though two millennia have transpired, while we would have great difficulty understanding English from half a millennium ago.
The prehistory and history of Europe are filled with the immigration of entire peoples, some speaking an Indo-European language and some not. We still haven't figured out where the non-IE Finno-Hungarian and Basque groups came from, nor Japanese (which is unlike any other language, perhaps evidence of its divine origins through Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess, though some think it might be related to Polynesian).
Which brings us to the fundamental problem of trying to respond to goldenlightArchangel's bald assertions about "42 different languages and ethnic groups in Europe."
What the hell is he talking about? What assumptions and evidence go into his bald assertion conclusion? Do they even exist? Had he ever gone through the process of developing his thesis and arriving at his conclusion through any form of reason and consideration of the evidence? Or is he just regurgitating some nonsense that he had heard from some creationist source which had itself never gone through any process of actually arriving at that conclusion?
His usage of the number 42 looks suspicious. Why 42? Because that's the
The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything? (For the uninitiated still stuck out in the Outer Temple, the Ultimate Answer cannot be understood without knowing the Ultimate Question) That makes him sound like a QAnon conspirator whose writing was read aloud: the base of operations for the lizard people ruling us is Deep Space Nine (I shit thee not!). Should we also note that this talk of lizard people posing as human sounds virtually identical to the 1980's sci-fi TV show,
V. I guess one thing we cannot expect of conspiracy theorists is originality.
A few quotes about English:
"English is the results of the efforts of Norman men-at-arms to make dates with Saxon barmaids in the 9th century"
(H. Beam Piper, from "Fuzzy Sapiens")
"English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar."
(unknown)
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."
(James D. Nicoll)
Trivia:
According to verbivore Richard Lederer, some vocabulary sizes:
English 616,000
German 185,000
Russian 130,000
French 100,000
English adds about 5000 new words per annum
about 25% of English vocab comes from "Anglish"
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