English is a Germanic language, having a grammar and core vocabulary inherited from Proto-Germanic. However, a significant portion of the English wordhoard comes from Romance and Latinate sources. Estimates of native words (derived from Old English) range from 20%–33%, with the rest made up of foreign borrowings (—these estimates are based on the raw counts of dictionary entries; the actual percentage of native words used in normal English ranges from 70%–85%). A large number of these borrowings come directly from Latin, or through one of the Romance languages, particularly Anglo-Norman and French, but some from Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish; or from other languages (such as Gothic, Frankish or Greek) into Latin and then into English. The influence of Latin in English is therefore purely lexical and limited solely to loanwords taken from Latin etymons.
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The Germanic tribes who would later give rise to the English language (the Angles, Saxon and Jutes) traded and fought with the Latin speaking Roman Empire. Many words (some originally from Greek) for common objects therefore entered the vocabulary of these Germanic people via Latin even before the tribes reached Britain: anchor, butter, camp, cheese, chest, cook, copper, devil, dish, fork, gem, inch, kitchen, mile, mill, mint (coin), noon, pillow, pound (unit of weight), punt (boat), sack, street, wall, wine.
Christian missionaries coming to Britain in the 6th century and 7th century brought with them Latin religious terms which entered the English language: abbot, altar, apostle, candle, clerk, mass, minister, monk, nun, pope, priest, school, shrive.
During this time, the Catholic Church had a monopoly on intellectual property in Anglo-Saxon society; in which they used to exert great influence on the development and expansion of the Old English language. Catholic monks mainly wrote or copied text in Latin, the prevalent Mediaeval lingua franca of Europe. However, when monks occasionally wrote in the vernacular, Latin words were translated by finding suitable Old English equivalents. Oftentimes, a Germanic word was adapted and given a new shade of meaning in the process. Such was the case with Old English gōdspell for Latin evangelium. Previously, the Old English word simply meant "good news", but its meaning was extended in Old English to fit a religious context. The same occurred for the Old Germanic pagan word blētsian, which meant "to sacrifice, consecrate by shedding blood". It was christened by Old English scribes to eventually become our word bless.
Whenever a suitable Old English substitute could not be found, a Latin word could be chosen instead, and many Latin words entered the Old English lexicon in this way. Such words include: biscop "bishop" from Latin episcopus, Old English teped "carpet" from Latin tapetum, and Old English sigel "brooch" from Latin sigillum. Other words came in, even though an adequate term already existed, and this caused enrichment of the Old English vocabulary: culcer and læfel "spoon" from Latin coclearium and labellum beside Old English spōn and hlædel (Modern English ladle); Old English forca from Latin furca "fork" next to Old English gafol; Old English scamol "chair, stool" from Latin scamellum beside native stōl, benc and setl. Oftentimes, the Latin word was severely restricted in sense, and was not widespread in use among the general populace. Latin words tended to be literary or scholarly terms and were not very common. The majority of them did not survive into the Middle English Period.
The Norman Conquest of 1066 gave England a two tiered society with an aristocracy that spoke Anglo-Norman and a lower class that spoke English. From 1066 until Henry IV of England ascended to the throne in 1399, the royal court of England spoke a Norman language that became progressively Gallicised through contact with French. However, the Norman rulers made no attempt to suppress the English language, apart from not using it at all in their court. In 1204, the Anglo-Normans lost their continental territories in Normandy and became wholly English. By the time Middle English arose as the dominant language in the late 14th century, the Normans had contributed roughly 10,000 words to English, of which 75% remain in use today. Continued use of Latin by the Church and centres of learning brought a steady, though dramatically reduced, influx of new Latin lexical borrowings.
During the English Renaissance, from around 1500–1650, some 10,000 to 12,000 words entered the English lexicon, including lexicon. Some examples include: aberration, allusion, anachronism, democratic, dexterity, enthusiasm, imaginary, juvenile, pernicious, sophisticated. Many of these words were borrowed directly from Latin, both in its classical and medieval forms. In turn, Late Latin also included borrowings from Greek.
The dawn of the age of scientific discovery in the 17th and 18th centuries created the need for new words to describe newfound knowledge. Many words were borrowed from Latin, while others were coined from Latin roots, prefixes, and suffixes, and Latin word elements freely combine with elements from all other languages including native Anglo-Saxon words. Some of the words which entered English at this time are: apparatus, aqueous, carnivorous, component, corpuscle, data, experiment, formula, incubate, machinery, mechanics, molecule, nucleus, organic, ratio, structure, vertebra.
As with Latinate/Germanic doublets from the Norman period, the use of Latinate words in the sciences gives us pairs with a native Germanic noun and a Latinate adjective:
Note that this is a common linguistic phenomenon, called stratum in linguistics – one sees analogous phenomena in Japanese (borrowing from Chinese for scientific vocabulary, and now English), and in Hindi/Urdu (Sanskrit, with many Persian borrowings), among many others.
It is not always easy to tell at what point a word entered English, or in what form. Some words have come into English from Latin more than once, through French or another Romance language at one time and directly from Latin at another. Thus we have pairs like fragile/frail, army/armada, corona/crown, ratio/reason, and rotund/round. The first word in each pair came directly from Latin, while the second entered English from French (or Spanish, in the case of armada). In addition, some words have entered English twice from French, with the result that they have the same source, but different pronunciations reflecting changing pronunciation in French, for example chief/chef (the former a Middle English borrowing and the latter modern). Multiple borrowings explain other word pairs and groups with similar roots but different meanings and/or pronunciations: canal/channel, poor/pauper, coy/quiet, disc/disk/dish/desk/dais/discus.
As new technologies are invented, Latin continues to be mined for borrowing or coining new English words: altimeter.
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