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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 ...
This is regarded as marking the end of the Old English or Anglo-Saxon era, as during this period the English language was heavily influenced by Anglo-Norman, developing into a phase known now as Middle English. The conquering Normans spoke a Romance langue d'oïl called Old Norman, which in Britain developed into Anglo-Norman. Many Norman and ...
According to one study, [clarification needed] the percentage of modern English words derived from each of various language groups are as follows: * Latin (including scientific/medical/legal terms), ~29%; * French or Anglo-Norman, ~29%; * Germanic, ~26%; and * Others, ~16%. [citation needed] The English language descends from Old English, the ...
This is a list of Latin words with derivatives in English language. Ancient orthography did not distinguish between i and j or between u and v. [1] Many modern works distinguish u from v but not i from j. In this article, both distinctions are shown as they are helpful when tracing the origin of English words. See also Latin phonology and ...
But one of the consequences of long language contact between French and English in all stages of their development is that the vocabulary of English has a very high percentage of "Latinate" words (derived from French, especially, and also from other Romance languages and Latin).
English words gave way to borrowings from Anglo-Norman following the Norman Conquest as English lost ground as a language of prestige. Anglo-Norman was used in schools and dominated literature, nobility and higher life, leading a wealth of French loanwords to enter English over the course of several centuries—English only returned to courts of law in 1362, and to government in the following ...
Nonetheless, the largest transfer of Latin-based (mainly Old French) words into English occurred in the Middle English period. Another source of loanwords was Old Norse , which came into contact with Old English via the Scandinavian rulers and settlers in the Danelaw from the late 9th century, and during the rule of Cnut and other Danish kings ...
Words of Chinese origin have entered European languages, including English. Most of these were direct loanwords from various varieties of Chinese.However, Chinese words have also entered indirectly via other languages, particularly Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese, that have all used Chinese characters at some point and contain a large number of Chinese loanwords.