Why do so many of our words come from Latin?
English (and most other Western-European languages) adopted many words from Latin and Greek throughout history, because especially Latin was the Lingua Franca all through Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and later.
Why does English has such a large number of words that are of Latin Romance origin?
The reason for this is historical. English was originally a Germanic language, related to Dutch and German, and it shares much of its grammar and basic vocabulary with those languages. Very large numbers of French and Latin words entered the language.
Why did English borrow words from Latin?
The abstract noun borrowing refers to the process of speakers adopting words from a source language into their native language. “Loan” and “borrowing” are of course metaphors, because there is no literal lending process. Few Germanic words, on the other hand, passed into Latin.
How did Latin influence Old English?
Latin (L) influenced the development of Old English (OE) more than any other non-West Germanic language with which OE came into contact. Through the influence of Irish insular script, OE scribes adopted the L alphabet. They did so with only slight modification and the retention of certain runic letters.
Why Latin has more influence in English language?
Advantages: The Latin influence accounts for the huge increase of English vocabulary through loans, coinages and hybridization. Most of these words fill the gap in the native stock of words, especially in case of abstract nouns and adjectives.
Why Latin has influenced English vocabulary more than Greek has?
Their language, not suprisingly, influenced English. Since their language (French) was a Romance language descended from Latin, this gave Latin an indirect influence on English. Latin also influenced Old English directly because of the Roman Conquest of England.
Why does English borrow so many words from other languages?
Borrowing and lending of words happens because of cultural contact between two communities that speak different languages. Often, the dominant culture (or the culture perceived to have more prestige) lends more words than it borrows, so the process of exchange is usually asymmetrical.
What is the origin of the word “Slavic”?
The word “Slavic” however goes back in time and is derived from a more basic word SLOVO which means “word.” Maybe, it would have been much more appropriate to refer to “Proto-Indo-European” as SLOVIK which would be directly symbolic of a simple word-based language in ancient times.
Why are so many English words Latin-based?
It is a West Germanic language that developed far away from Rome. And yet, over 60\% of English words are Latin-based. These tend to be the longer and fancier words, so the more syllables you add, the higher the percentage. How did this happen?
What is the historical distribution of Slavic languages?
Historical distribution of the Slavic languages. The larger shaded area is the Prague-Penkov-Kolochin complex of cultures of the sixth to seventh centuries, likely corresponding to the spread of Slavic-speaking tribes of the time. The smaller shaded area indicates the core area of Slavic river names (after Mallory & Adams (1997 :524ff) ).
What is the Proto-Slavic * g lenite?
For many Common Slavic dialects—including most of West Slavic, all but the northernmost portions of East Slavic, and some western parts of South Slavic—Proto-Slavic * g lenited from a voiced velar plosive to a voiced velar fricative ( [ɡ] → [ɣ] ).