It’s all of the above and then some. A good read on the subject is John McWhorter’s “Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue.” It’s intended for a non-technical/popular audience and doesn’t get too deep into the weeds so you don’t need a degree in linguistics to follow it.
I wonder how much of that is due to french and how much from german/saxon dialects. French love mute consonants and wildly different vowel sounds.
It’s all of the above and then some. A good read on the subject is John McWhorter’s “Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue.” It’s intended for a non-technical/popular audience and doesn’t get too deep into the weeds so you don’t need a degree in linguistics to follow it.