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Hello Suomi Reader, I am quite aware of words of French origin. Not only am I native English speaker who speaks French, but I also have lived in a French speaking country and have taken graduate level classes on the history of the French language.
Yes, there are many French words used in day to day English. But most words of French origin are simply not used in regular speech by English speakers. But most words in English, regardless of origin, are rarely if ever used by English speakers. So when someone argues that "English is 28% French" (or in this case, 40% French), it must be pointed out that most of these words making up that 28% are not regularly used by the common English speaker. In practical terms, we can observe an American or Englishman on the street, and see that we tend to stick to Germanic words. When writing a college paper, the words of Latin origin become much more prevalent. Nonetheless, most words of Latin origin that exist in our language remain on the back-burner, as do the vast majority of words in the English language regardless of origin.
For example, a recent Harvard study headed by Jean Baptiste-Michel estimates that there are over 1 million words in the English language, and over 170,000 excluding inflections and regional terms. But still, the vast majority of these words are rarely if ever used. Native English speakers have a working knowledge of at best only around 20,000-40,000 thousand of those words thought his or her lifetime. As you can see in the Harvard study, of the 100 most used words, 97% are of Germanic origin while only 3% are of Latin origin, and as we delve into those that are less commonly used, the percentage of words of Latin origin dramatically increase. And as you can also see, the 100 most used words make up about 50% of our daily vocabulary and the 1000 most used words make up about 90% of our daily vocabulary. Even if someone only knows the 2,000 most used words in the English language, they will comprehend about 95% of our speech! And as already asserted, the majority of these 2,000 most used words are of Germanic origin.
So while in a dictionary it appears that English is 28% French and 28% Latin, the reality in practicalterms is that common English vocabulary is very Germanic. If by chance you have a subscription to the peer-reviewed journals of Science Magazine, the study can be found here, if not a brief overview can be found here.
All the words in bold are either identical or eerily close to their french counterpart....still a hefty % dont you think?
All the words in bold are either identical or eerily close to their french counterpart....still a hefty % dont you think?
I suppose that depends on one's opinion of "hefty".
According to what you've highlighted, only 15% of the words are of either French or Latin origin. That is, out of 432 words, you have highlighted around 65. Similar to Dutch and German. And this is despite the fact that I was (and am) trying to write in somewhat formal (and therefore more "frenchified") English.
All the words in bold are either identical or eerily close to their french counterpart....still a hefty % dont you think?
You've missed quite a few.
I'm highlighting in red the words from French/Latin that you didn't bold.
Quote:
Hello Suomi Reader, I am quite aware of words of French origin. Not only am I native English speaker who speaks French, but I also have lived in a French speaking country and have taken graduate level classes on the history of the French language.
Yes, there are many French words used in day to day English. But most words of French origin are simply not used in regular speech by English speakers. But most words in English, regardless of origin, are rarely if ever used by English speakers. So when someone argues that "English is 28% French" (or in this case, 40% French), it must be pointed out that most of these words making up that 28% are not regularly used by the common English speaker. In practical terms, we can observe an American or Englishman on the street, and see that we tend to stick to Germanic words. When writing a college paper, the words of Latin origin become much more prevalent. Nonetheless, most words of Latin origin that exist in our language remain on the back-burner, as do the vast majority of words in the English language regardless of origin.
For example, a recent Harvard study headed by Jean Baptiste-Michel estimates that there are over 1 million words in the English language, and over 170,000 excluding inflections and regional terms. But still, the vast majority of these words are rarely if ever used. Native English speakers have a working knowledge of at best only around 20,000-40,000 thousand of those words thought his or her lifetime. As you can see in the Harvard study, of the 100 most used words, 97% are of Germanic origin while only 3% are of Latin origin, and as we delve into those that are less commonly used, the percentage of words of Latin origin dramatically increase. And as you can also see, the 100 most used words make up about 50% of our daily vocabulary and the 1000 most used words make up about 90% of our daily vocabulary. Even if someone only knows the 2,000 most used words in the English language, they will comprehend about 95% of our speech! And as already asserted, the majority of these 2,000 most used words are of Germanic origin.
So while in a dictionary it appears that English is 28% French and 28% Latin, the reality in practicalterms is that common English vocabulary is very Germanic. If by chance you have a subscription to the peer-reviewed journals of Science Magazine, the study can be found here, if not a brief overview can be found here.
% is pronounced "percent" in English, and comes from Latin "per centum". It's not pronounced "by hundred".
"Street" comes from Latin "(via) strata" which means "paved (road)". In Italian: "strada".
Straße and prozent in German. Stræde in Danish, and sträte in some Swedish dialects. Procent in both Swedish and Danish as well. Guess thats the same Latin origin.
What I find strange is that some here seems to think that English is somehow a pidgin of Latin and Germanic, and that other Germanic languages (German, Dutch, Frisian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian) for some reason has little to no Latin influences. Latin influences on other Germanic languages (except Icelandic and Faroese) are very, very evident as well, but the languages are still very much without any doubt, Germanic.
Last edited by Helsingborgaren; 10-03-2014 at 07:50 PM..
Location: Near Tours, France about 47°10'N 0°25'E
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SuomiReader
% is pronounced "percent" in English, and comes from Latin "per centum". It's not pronounced "by hundred".
"Street" comes from Latin "(via) strata" which means "paved (road)". In Italian: "strada".
Street is related to German Strasse rather than Italian. If street/straat/strasse might look similar to latin forms like strada is more likely because of indo European link between romance end germanic languages.
Ps: "french" is not a word of latin origin, and certainly not derived form french language itself, but comes from franks, which is not a romance word. The ending "...ench" is typically germanic. In romance languages the ending would be like "frances/francais/francese" quite different from the ver germanic looking english equivalent.
Location: Near Tours, France about 47°10'N 0°25'E
2,860 posts, read 5,232,156 times
Reputation: 1957
Quote:
Originally Posted by SuomiReader
English has way more French loanwords than any other Germanic language. This is well attested, and not limited to rare or high register words. Everyday words such as "very", "real, "huge" come from French. Anyone acquainted with another Germanic language knows that this is far less the case in the other Germanic languages.
In my experience, if we rank the Germanic languages in terms of the amount of French loanwords in their vocabulary, it would be English #1, Dutch #2, German #3. I'm less acquainted with the Scandinavian languages.
Excepted that "very" of "huge" are not similar to their french equivalents at all. Very is transted to "très", not into "vrai"...
The explanation if french etymology from "vrai" is not obvious, very can be as likely derived from their other germanic counterparts: waar, waer, waer, alvoru, etc. Once again indo-european relations.
What we say is not that English hasn't borrowed french/latin in its vocabulary, it surely does. But we say that contrary to what many english-speakers seem to think it is not a specificity of english only. The proportion of french/latin words in English lies between 10-15%, wich is very far to be somehow half latin as so many people here like to believe. The proportion of Enlgish words with latin etymologies (which are often very germanized in their spelling/pronouciation) might be higher than in other germanic language it is a question of few percents... Around 10% in english, maybe around 5% in german or Dutch, that is Not a big deal since the huge large majority of words in those languages (english included) clearly germanic, around 85 to 95%.
Yeah, it really is that way. German/Russian is more for classical stuff and Dutch/Danish/Ukrainian for casual conversations on folk festivals.
Btw, how similar are Ukrainian and standard Russian? Are they mutually intelligible?!
Standard Russian and STANDARD Ukrainian are mutually intelligible - very much so, but Ukrainian dialects - that's a somewhat different story.
They explain in Wikipedia where and why these different dialects came about ( including the dialect of Southern part of Russia by the way, adjacent to Ukraine.)
Reminds me of everything Magnus P. was saying about the whole variety of Scandianvian dialects. The only difference is, that Russian came as a refined and modernized version of what once used to be "Ukrainian language." I mean obviously, the inhabitants of Kiev and Yaroslavl and Vladimir were speaking one and the same language back in time, when the country was not separated yet into "Ukraine" and "Russia." But in case of Scandinavia one language ( say Norwegian) doesn't come as a "modified and refined" version of Swedish, although they seem to be mutually intelligible.
In case of German, however, there seems to be more of a parallel in this respect, if to take in consideration "standard German" and all the dialects out there, all the versions of basically the same language - Danish and Dutch including.
I took a look at a Dutch Etymology Book. Straat/Street/Strasse etc is indeed derived from Latin (via) Strata. It was already derived before the 6th century AD, because after that the t changes into d like in Strada. Even the Celtic word for street is derived from it, f.ex. Welsh Ystryd.
But now it gets really interesting because Strata is derived from Old Greek Stratos or Stornunai or Sanskrit Strnati. So it is safe to assume that it is a very old, propably Indo-European word that is nor Latin nor Germanic but from a older source.
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