Questions about languages

[Toasty]

Just out of curiosity, what percentage of the English language is made up of words that come from French and German? I was wondering because the English language became influenced by the French language during the Norman Conquest. Moreover, English is one of the Germanic languages.

When a foreign word enters the English language, is that word supposed to retain its original pronunciation or is it supposed to change? The way that the Japanese drink "sake" is pronounced in English is not the way that Japanese speakers would say it. The way that the word "croissant" is pronounced by a lot of English speakers is not the way that French speakers would pronounce it.

 

[Pergamum]

Here is a good place to start.

http://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/history_middle.html

 

[Jake]

I think the breakdown is that about 60% of our words are Latin-based (from French and from Latin more directly, as influenced by the church, scientific literature, etc.), 30% Germanic, and the rest from a hodgepodge (some Celtic, some Greek, and plenty of "random" ones). Think about how many more "modern" words we have that are made from various Latin roots as well, which is part of why the Latin percentage is higher.

Also, I found this which might help. Didn't look close enough to see where the pie graph is sourced from, but it more or less meets what I said: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_influence_in_English

 

[Jack K]

It might also be helpful to see a weighted breakdown based on how frequently the words are used by the average English speaker. It seems to me we have many words of Latin origin that are seldom used, while those of Germanic origin tend to be more common.

 

[TylerRay]

It might also be helpful to see a weighted breakdown based on how frequently the words are used by the average English speaker. It seems to me we have many words of Latin origin that are seldom used, while those of Germanic origin tend to be more common.

That's because the Anglo Saxon (Germanic) retained more influence among the common folk after the Normans took over, and introduced Norman French (Latin-based) as the language of the gentility.

Thus, in polite company, the Germanic cow on the table became French beef, and the Germanic chicken became French poultry.

 

[TylerRay]

Here's a rough way to categorize the different words in the English language:

1. Germanic words from Old English (Anglo Saxon)

2. Words incorporated from Norman French -- These entered the English language because they were popular with the gentry after the Norman conquest. The influence of Norman French was was indicative of a cultural shift among the aristocracy.

3. Words adapted from other languages -- These are anglicized versions of words from other languages.

4. Words borrowed from Classical languages -- Greek and latin terms lifted directly from the original languages for technical usage.

5. Words borrowed from other languages -- This is the popular way of bringing in words from other languages in our own day. There seems to have been a shift (maybe around the turn of the 20th century?) from adapting foreign words to importing them in a pretty much unaltered form.

 

[blood-bought]

I will upload some images for you:

 

[blood-bought]

This is from Wikipedia:

 

[Toasty]

View attachment 4317

Here is a good place to start.

http://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/history_middle.html

Thanks for the link. That is a good website. I like the audio clips.

 

[Reformed Fox]

At this point a majority of English words are Latinate in origin. However, as was noted above, the most used words are all Germanic. The best way I heard it described is that the bones are German and the flesh is Latin.

I do know that if one takes the 100 most used words in (written) English only one ("oil" I think) is Latin in origin. Jumping up to the the 1000 most used words the percentage drops to something like 55% Germanic.

It is also worth noting that the question of percentages is somewhat misleading. There are close to 500,000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary and it is estimated that 50,000 of these are obsolete. Exactly what constitutes obsolete is somewhat subjective. Estimates of a total English word count run between 1,000,000 and 2,000,000. It also depends whether you are referring to words used, vocabulary, or words total. Other subjective problems involve whether some, all, or no conjugations should be included. As a Germanic language English has many verb conjugations and counting all forms would skew the word count heavily in that direction, especially if one considers words used, not the vocabulary as a whole.

- In terms of words used I doubt that one will drop below 50% Germanic for any length of time. All the most frequently used words are Germanic.

- In terms of vocabulary, the percentage will vary widely. 2,500 words will allow one to express the majority of ideas, if somewhat awkwardly. I would guess at this point most of the words are Germanic. The active vocabulary of someone without higher education experience is 5,000, and with such education 10,000. A vocabulary of 20,000 words is sufficient to understand all but the most technical English writing. A figure of around 35% Germanic, 50% Latin is about right.

- In terms of total words we run into a great deal of difficulty. English is very liberal in word adoption and there is no governing body to determine what is and is not a "real" word. Sweeping broadly, perhaps half of the words used in English have not even been recorded, but even then the 35% Germanic, 50% Latin would still hold true.