[mb-i18n] Internationalization for lists

[Simon Reinhardt]

Brian Schweitzer wrote:
> The ampersand isn't English?  (Totally random and useless fact of the 
> day I happened to have drifting around in my head.  :P) It's a stylized 
> ligature of "et", which is an English loanword from French dating back 
> to like the 12th century, maybe earlier, back when French was the 
> "language of the court" in English high society... 

I doubt it. I think it's more likely to be taken from Latin directly. Apparently it can be traced back to Roman times and is connected to the development of scripts and typefaces across Europe that were used for communication in the then still large empires that spanned half of Europe anyway. Since languages and nationalities weren't that differentiated then I don't think you can relate it to any language specifically.

Regards,
  Simon