For a 22 year old to be telling someone with a Ph.D. and over 35 years of experience in linguistics, that his "knowledge" is just "generalised googled tripe", is about as 'boxed in' as I've seen in my many years here on SIO.

Let us take a look at English of 1000 years ago. Unlike Latin or Greek or Albanian (three major branches of indo european), virtually no English-speaking person can understand the English language of 1000 years ago (unless, they have training in it). Take a look at Beowulf:

Hwaet, we gar-dena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon!
oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
monegum mægþum meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas, syððanærest wearð...

Do you understand a single word? No, unless, of course, you have studied Old English. You know who understands this text? Well, an Icelander! Icelandic is not just a germanic language but it's the oldest germanic language. English roots are in Danish, German and Icelandic. Meanwhile, there have been influences, notably from French, which was the language of the ruling class. Other influences, say from Indonesian (orangutan), Nahuatl (chocolate), Turkish (bazaar), etc. have been very minor. You mention "native languages" and I wonder what you mean. Perhaps you mean Gaelic (celtic). Two issues here. The influence exists but it's not as big as germanic. Second issue is that even Celts are not native of Britain but invaders from central Europe (from Hallstat around 6th c. BCE).

The more native language of the UK is Pictish but there is hardly any evidence of such influence. You might, rightly, ask "how can linguists infer that there is no influence from a language such as Pictish which, after all, is extinct?" Well, the answer is that no word has been found that does not obey the phonological and structural rules of germanic. To give an example, for another major indo european language that, unlike English, did have a little influence from native languages, let us take Greek. Greeks came to Greece long time ago, 2000 BCE, say. They meet people speaking another extinct language called Pelasgian. This is documented in classical Greek texts (of about 500 BCE). For example, the word for sea in Greek is thalassa (both in ancient and modern Greek, as you might know if you've been to Greece). But linguists know that this word has nothing to do with any other indo European language, Sanskrit notwithstanding. So the infer that it must be Pelasgian. No such words have been found in English.

It is therefore clear that English has had no pictish influences. Anyway, English didn't even exist when the Picts became extinct.

You say "English is as much Germanic as it is Norman or Saxon or Celtic ". But when we say Germanic we, indeed, include Saxon. Saxon is Germanic. What does Norman mean? It comes from Norse, ie Norway. They invaded France and adopted the Frankish language. Later, this influenced England too. Indeed, as we said, English does have French influence but its basis is Germanic (Saxonic). Do you know how they say English in Irish? Sasanach. Which means Saxon. Similarly in Welsh and in Cornish. That is, the Celts recognized the English as people of different origin and different language.


Hope this helps.