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[not verified in body] [4] [page range too broad] English borrowed many words from Old Norse, the North Germanic language of the Vikings, [5] and later from Norman French, the Romance language of the Normans, which descends from Latin. Estimates of native words derived from Old English range up to 33%, [6] with the rest made up of outside ...
The English language has borrowed many words from other cultures or languages. For examples, see Lists of English words by country or language of origin and Anglicisation. Some English loanwords remain relatively faithful to the original phonology even though a particular phoneme might not exist or have contrastive status in English.
The following are lists of words in the English language that are known as "loanwords" or "borrowings," which are derived from other languages.. For Old English-derived words, see List of English words of Old English origin.
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 ...
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 ...
Throughout its history, English has not only borrowed words from other languages but has re-combined and recycled them to create new meanings, whilst losing some old words. Dictionary-writers try to keep track of the changes in languages by recording (and, ideally, dating) the appearance in a language of new words, or of new usages for existing ...
Late Old English borrowed some grammar and core vocabulary from Old Norse, a North Germanic language. [11] [12] [13] Then, Middle English borrowed vocabulary extensively from French dialects, which are the source of approximately 28% of Modern English words, and from Latin, which is the source of an additional 28%. [14]
An exception to this is Hong Kong Cantonese, which has many words from English due to British rule in the city until 1997. [26] Taiwan also tends to borrow more words directly from English. [25] However, English grammar did have an influence on Chinese due to the amount of material being translated between the two languages during the ...