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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 ...
All told, approximately 600 words were borrowed from Latin during the Old English period. [2] 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.
English has generally preserved the original spelling when borrowing words; and even more importantly, English began to be widely written and printed during the Middle English period: the later development of modern English included a Great Vowel Shift and many other changes in phonology, yet the older spellings, which are no longer phonetic ...
English is the only one of the top ten major languages with no associated worldwide regulatory body with the power to promulgate spelling changes. [citation needed] English is a West Germanic language that has borrowed many words from non-Germanic languages, and the spelling of a word often reflects its origin. This sometimes gives a clue as to ...
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 ...