Latin influence in English

This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (October 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Latin influence in English" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (October 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Although English is a Germanic language, it has significant Latin influences. Its grammar and core vocabulary are inherited from Proto-Germanic, but a significant portion of the English vocabulary comes from Romance and Latinate sources. A portion of these borrowings come directly from Latin, or through one of the Romance languages, particularly Anglo-Norman and French, but some also 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, therefore, is primarily lexical in nature, being confined mainly to words derived from Latin and Greek roots.

The Germanic tribes who later gave rise to the English language traded and fought with the Latin speaking Roman Empire. Many words for common objects entered the vocabulary of these Germanic people from 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 or and 7th century brought with them Latin religious terms. Some of these words are ultimately of Greek origin, as much of the technical language of Christianity developed from the Greek of the New Testament and the works of those fathers of the Church who wrote in Greek.

During this time, Catholic monks mainly wrote or copied text in Latin, the prevalent medieval lingua franca in Europe. When monks occasionally wrote in the vernacular, Latin words were translated by finding suitable Old English equivalents. Often, a Germanic word was adopted and given a new shade of meaning in the process. Such was the case with Old English gōdspell ("gospel") 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 adapted by Old English scribes and Christianized to become the word bless. Similarly fullwiht (literally, "full-being") and the verb fullian came to mean "baptism" and "to baptise" respectively, but probably originally referred to some kind of rite of passage.

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 tepid "carpet" from Latin tapetum, and Old English sigel "brooch" from Latin sigillum, 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. All told, approximately 600 words were borrowed from Latin during the Old English period.^[3] Often, the Latin word was tightly restricted in sense, and was not widely used by 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 which spoke Anglo-Norman and a lower class which spoke English. From 1066 until Henry IV of England ascended the throne in 1399, the royal court of England spoke a Norman language that became progressively Gallicised through contact with Old French. The Norman rulers did not try to suppress the English language, apart from not using it at all in their courts. 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 ten thousand words to English, three-quarters of which survive. Continued use of Latin by the Church and centres of learning brought a steady, though dramatically reduced, influx of new Latin lexical borrowings.

Since subjects like science and philosophy, including rhetoric and ethics, were communicated in Latin, the Latin vocabulary that developed for them became the source of a great many technical and abstract words. English words like abstract, subject, communicate, matter, probable and their cognates in other European languages generally have the meanings given to them in late Medieval Latin, often terms for abstract concepts not available in English. Translated works that contributed significantly included Chaucer's Boece and Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus's De proprietatibus rerum.^[4]

During the English Renaissance, from around 1500–1650, some 10,000 to 12,000 words entered the English lexicon, including the word 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.

In addition to a large number of historical borrowings and coinages, today Latinate words continue to be coined in English – see classical compounds – particularly in technical contexts. A number of more subtle consequences include: numerous doublets – two or more cognate terms from both a Germanic and Latinate source (or Latinate sources), such as cow/beef; numerous cases of etymologically unrelated terms for closely related concepts, notably Germanic nouns with a Latin adjective, such as bird/avian or hand/manual; complicated etymologies due to indirect borrowings (via Romance) or multiple borrowings; and usage controversies over the perceived complexity of Latinate terms.

As with Germanic/Latinate doublets from the Norman period, the use of Latinate words in the sciences has created pairs with a native Germanic noun and a Latinate adjective:

• animals: ant/formic, bee/apian, bird/avian, crow/corvine, cod/gadoid, carp/cyprine, fish/piscine, gull/larine, wasp/vespine, butterfly/papilionaceous, worm/vermian, spider/arachnid, snake/anguine (or serpentine), tortoise (or turtle)/testudinal, cat/feline, lion/leonine, rabbit/cunicular, hare/leporine, dog/canine, deer/cervine, reindeer/rangiferine, fox/vulpine, wolf/lupine, goat/caprine, sheep/ovine, swan/cygnean, duck/anatine, starling/sturnine, goose/anserine, dove/columbine, ostrich/struthious, horse/equine, chicken/gallinaceous, ox/bovine, pig/porcine, whale/cetacean, ape/simian, bear/ursine, human/hominine (gender specific: man/masculine, woman/feminine); these Germanic nouns can be made into adjectives by adding "-like".
• physiology: head/capital, body/corporal, ear/aural, eye/ocular or visual, nose/nasal, mouth/oral, tooth/dental, tongue/lingual, lips/labial, neck/cervical, shoulder/scapular, finger/digital, hand/manual, arm/brachial, foot/pedal, sole of the foot/plantar, leg/crural, thigh/femoral, chest/pectoral, nipple/papillary, brain/cerebral, mind/mental, nail/ungual, hair/pilar, lung/pulmonary, kidney/renal, blood/sanguine, heart/cardiac.
• astronomy: moon/lunar, sun/solar, earth/terrestrial, star/stellar.
• sociology: son or daughter/filial, mother/maternal, father/paternal, brother/fraternal, sister/sororal, wife/uxorial, uncle/avuncular.
• other: book/literary, edge/marginal, fire/igneous, water/aquatic, sea/marine, wind/vental, ice/glacial, boat (or ship)/naval, house/domestic, door/portal, window/fenestral, wall/mural, bridge/pontine, town/urban, sight/visual, ring/annular, tree/arboreal, bloom/floral, marsh/paludal, land (country)/national, sword/gladiate, king/regal, earl/comital, fighter/military, law/legal, church/ecclesiastical, bell/tintinnabulary, cooking/culinary, clothes/sartorial.

Thus Latin constitutes a linguistic superstratum for English just as Japanese has a Chinese superstratum and Hindustani has a Persian superstratum.

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 there are 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.^[5]

David Corson in The Lexical Bar (1985) defended the thesis that the large portion of Greco-Latinate words in Academic English explains the difficulties of working class children in the educational system. When exposed at home mainly to colloquial English (primarily Anglo-Saxon words), children may have more difficulty at school than their peers who have more access at home to academic words (often longer, more Greco-Latinate). This difference tends not to become less by education but greater, potentially impeding their access to academic or social careers. In various experiments and comparative studies Corson measured fewer differences between 12 year olds than 15 year olds due to their unfamiliarity with Greco-Latinate words in English and the way teachers deal with them. Corson's views were not always represented correctly. In his totally revised Using English Words (1995) the linguistic, historical, psychological and educational aspects have been integrated better.

• Bryson, Bill. The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way. New York: Avon, 1990.
• Corson, David. The Lexical Bar Oxford: Pergamon, 1985.
• Corson, David. Using English Words Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1995.
• Hughes, Geoffrey. Words in Time. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988.
• Kent, Roland G. Language and Philology. New York: Cooper Square, 1963.
• McCrum, Robert, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil. The Story of English. New York: Elisabeth Sifton, 1986.

• Wikiversity: English as a hybrid Romance-Germanic language