Latin....... the start of modern languages

[Plotinus]

People sometimes speak as though Latin (and the Romantic languages) on the one hand, and the Germanic ones on the other hand, existed in a sort of vacuum until post-Roman times. But don't forget that there was Latin influence on the Germanic languages before Christianity even got there. For example (I got all these from Peter Jones' Learn Latin):

street (strata)
butter (butyrum)
mile (mille)
wine (winum)
pin (penna)
pillow (pulvinus)
wall (vallum)
sack (saccus)

Unlike most "Romance" or Latinate words in English, these are "common" words rather than slightly fancy. And you can see that they have changed a bit more from their Latin roots than most of those Latinate words. These are words that the Saxons picked up through dealing with the Romans before they came to Britain at all. So there was some influence from Latin upon English - which can still be discerned now - even before those later influences which have been mentioned, such as Catholic missionaries in the early Middle Ages, the Norman conquest, and the machinations of early modern linguists.

Of course, English is still far more Germanic than Latinate, as has been said; my point is just that we shouldn't think of these as utterly distinct categories even in antiquity.

 

[scherbchen]

I'd actually go with needle (German: Nadel) over pin, but I can see it. Wine and street are obvious latin loan-words since we didn't really have those back then.

I know I am a freak, but I just spent 5 minutes thinking about west-Germanic words in the English language (based on their resemblance to German), some of these will be off. I'll spoiler them so as not to bore you

Spoiler :

arm/Arm, beard/Bart, hair/Haar, finger/Finger, ring/ring, naked/nackt, red/rot, brown/braun, green/grün, white/weiß, light/Licht, hound/Hund, nose/Nase, breast/Brust, lips/Lippen, ear/Ohr, young/jung, gross/groß, long/lang, old/alt, grass/Grass, new/neu, fire/Feuer, shoe/Schuh, can/kann, silver/silber, gold/Gold, stone/Stein, welcome/willkommen, paper/Papier, book/Buch, wild/wild, mouse/Maus, bear/Bär, god/Gott, sword/Schwert, pike/Pike, hoof/Huf, glass/Glass, alone/alleine, many numerals, rat/Ratte, copper/Kupfer, loud/laut, needle/Nadel, hay/Heu, ball/Ball, blue/blau, mask/Maske, house/Haus, ship/Schiff, dead/tot, good/gut, hat/Hut, cap/Kappe, star/Stern, light/leicht, kiss/Kuss, blood/Blut, father/Vater, brother/Bruder, mother/Mutter, sister/Schwester, uncle/Onkel, bed/Bett, cold/kalt, warm/warm, fish/Fisch, heart/Herz, calf/Kalb, bull/Bulle, cow/Kuh, to drink/trinken, to run/rennen, to swim/schwimmen, hold/halt, wound/Wunde, hand/Hand

 

[Mirc]

Just to nitpick:

Actually both "uncle" and "Onkel" come from Latin "avunculus" ...

And "long" is also a loanword from Latin, though it entered through Germanic languages, the word came from Latin "longus".

Other examples of common English words that come from Latin would be "mountain", "valley", "river", "castle", "lake", etc. Edit: And "really", of course. And "course", BTW. And "example", "common", "number", "language", etc. And "etcetera" also.

Anyway, considering the huge number of words in English, it's no wonder that we can find lots of words from any language in English.

 

[scherbchen]

longus *facepalm*

I was actually wondering about some basic words describing nature which are not corresponding to the ones we have in German. *sky* is north-germanic, that one I knew.

*valley* I would imagine comes from the French, same goes for *river*, *lake* and *mountain* (montagne, only one I still remember) but I'm just shooting in the dark here. I just don't see any reason why latin words should have replaced these basic words for pretty common real-life counterparts. On the other hand, Spanish has *valle*, *lago* and *montanya* (excuse me for using "ny") and the German words for these don't even come close... so... huh.

anyways, english rocks! spanish rules! latin stinks! woohooo!!

 

[Sofista]

They come from Latin:

valley=vallis
river=riparia (vulg.)
lake=lacus
mountain= montanea (vulg.), from "mons" (mount)

Say Mirc, how has Romanian fared with similar common usage words?

 

[Mirc]

Vale
Riu
Lac
Munte

They are all of Latin origin, just shortened, cutting the incredibly complicated system of terminations in Latin. There are whole sentences that I can write and that are fully intelligible in Italian (in fact I think I could find whole newspaper articles that are almost fully intelligible, but IDK for sure).

 

[scherbchen]

I see, so what is the reason that those words were incorporated into what was to become Old English but not into German? Any ideas?

PS: the best move English ever made was to cut the Germanic declension system. but honestly... english has to have the worst pronounciation-to-written-language ratio of any living language.

 

[Mirc]

PS: the best move English ever made was to cut the Germanic declension system. but honestly... english has to have the worst pronounciation-to-written-language ratio of any living language.

Except East Asian languages...

 

[Bast]

I see, so what is the reason that those words were incorporated into what was to become Old English but not into German? Any ideas?

Not sure. Probably had to do with the fact that the Romans conquered all of what is to become England whereas they only conquered parts of Germany. I'm still confused by this as I thought Old English was brought over by the invaders after the fall of the Roman Empire and they displaced the Romano-British?

PS: the best move English ever made was to cut the Germanic declension system. but honestly... english has to have the worst pronounciation-to-written-language ratio of any living language.

We still have the last vestiges of this through the "Saxon Genitive". But that itself is now an outdated term. If you think about it French - a direct descendant of Latin - also lost the declension system. I'm not sure if it's better or for worse. I do know that German syntax is very hard because it relies on word order and on declension. It's either here nor there. Whereas Latin and Russian and others rely entirely on declension and not word order.

 

[Bast]

Actually, as I said earlier in this thread, the vocabulary isn't all that different as long as you stick to basic words referring to everyday concepts and objects. A surprisingly long list. Probably easier to spot for a German than for a native English speaker.

It depends. Having studied some German I personally do not think they share an extensive vocabulary. Simple words aren't enough. If you want to look hard enough English also shares simple word cognates with just about every other Indo-European language.

I think the big difference is that when creating new words English looked outward - French, Latin etc.. and borrowed - whereas German tended to look inward and use its own stems to create new words. That I think made the vocabularies so different.

 

[Plotinus]

Not sure. Probably had to do with the fact that the Romans conquered all of what is to become England whereas they only conquered parts of Germany. I'm still confused by this as I thought Old English was brought over by the invaders after the fall of the Roman Empire and they displaced the Romano-British?

The language that would become English was indeed brought over by the Anglo-Saxons. The degree to which they "displaced" the Romano-British or simply mingled with them is disputed (I understand that scholars today lean more towards the latter), but the languages of the Romano-British were certainly pretty much extinguished. For example, there is very little influence from the Celtic languages upon English, except in place names and a few other elements. Culturally and linguistically, the Anglo-Saxons did displace the Romano-British, although genetically the story might not be quite so simple. So I doubt that much Latin entered the language that way.

The greater influence of Latin upon the Anglo-Saxon language can probably be explained by thinking of other contacts that the Anglo-Saxons would have had with Latin-speakers. For example, the Anglo-Saxons were a trading people who had trading links with people on the continent all the way to Byzantium. They probably picked up a fair few Latin words that way, no doubt as they travelled miles past lakes and mountains to stand on streets, buy pillows and butter, and carry them home again in sacks.

 

[scherbchen]

I think the big difference is that when creating new words English looked outward - French, Latin etc.. and borrowed - whereas German tended to look inward and use its own stems to create new words. That I think made the vocabularies so different.

And that is why we are allowed to have words with 20 syllables!

 

[Traitorfish]

Not sure. Probably had to do with the fact that the Romans conquered all of what is to become England whereas they only conquered parts of Germany. I'm still confused by this as I thought Old English was brought over by the invaders after the fall of the Roman Empire and they displaced the Romano-British?

It's really the Norman conquest you have to look at- Roman influence was largely expunged from Britain by invading Germanic tribes (Saxons, Angles, Jutes and Frisians) after the withdrawal from Brittania. The Norman conquest brought French influence to Britain, including most of the commonly used Latin-derived words.

 

[scherbchen]

that's what I said -.-

wait... didn't I?

 

[Felix Luce]

Good point, but most of those words are, as I said, relatively uncommon, while words like "it", "what" and "say" occur very regularly.

We can't really make a sentence entirely out of "say", "it", "what", &c., now, can we?

You can't deny it, modern grammar has to thank Latin profusely.

 

[Traitorfish]

We can't really make a sentence entirely out of "say", "it", "what", &c., now, can we?

"I ate a ham sandwich for lunch today." "Who wants to go for a drink after work?" "What are the odds on that horse?" "I wonder where I left my keys..."
Entirely Germanic, entirely functional sentences.

Of course, it's quite true that only using Germanic words would make it incredibly difficult to communicate effectively, but the point is that Latin-derived words are not fundamental to the language. It's quite possible to construct a Germanic-only sentence, but incredibly difficult to construct a Latin-only sentence, let alone one that is every likely to be used.

 

[Plotinus]

You can't deny it, modern grammar has to thank Latin profusely.

I don't really see how English - a language where word order is essential and there is virtually no inflection - owes much, grammatically, to Latin, where inflection is essential and word order largely a matter of whim. As far as I can tell, the similarities between them are those common to most Indo-European languages. For example, I don't see any more grammatical similarity between English and Latin than between English and ancient Greek. In fact, probably rather less (Greek and English both have articles, for example, which Latin didn't acquire until the thirteenth century).

Grammatically speaking, modern German owes more to Latin than English does - as I understand it, the habit of putting verbs at the end of sentences emerged as the result of a conscious attempt to imitate Latin. I might be wrong though.

 

[Felix Luce]

"I ate a ham sandwich for lunch today." "Who wants to go for a drink after work?" "What are the odds on that horse?" "I wonder where I left my keys..."
Entirely Germanic, entirely functional sentences.

Of course, it's quite true that only using Germanic words would make it incredibly difficult to communicate effectively, but the point is that Latin-derived words are not fundamental to the language. It's quite possible to construct a Germanic-only sentence, but incredibly difficult to construct a Latin-only sentence, let alone one that is every likely to be used.

I'm really not denying the Germanic roots of English. Just saying that we couldn't do with only one or the other (as you eluded to). Our language in itself is a mix of the two (and others, of course).

Sorry for that last part I said, I sounded ignorant; I didn't mean to make Latin sound THAT influential! Just that, you must admit, without it there would be quite a few troubles.

(Thinks to himself: Wow, I just repeated what we have already agreed upon and have gotten us no-where. How so like me.)

 

[kulade]

The Germanic framework for English is a fine language in itself, but Latin vocabulary has been used over the years to fill in empty spots or in some cases for verbal variety. For example, we the verbs "oversee" and "supervise" mean the same thing and come from two words of the same meaning but the former is of Romantic descent and the latter of Germanic.

Of course Latin-base words in English should be separated into two categories, one whose words come from the Norman invasion (mostly simple words) and the other whose words were ablated for Latin in the late middle ages, like abstract nouns in "-tion."

 

[Plotinus]

For example, we the verbs "oversee" and "supervise" mean the same thing and come from two words of the same meaning but the former is of Romantic descent and the latter of Germanic.

The other way around, surely?

What's also interesting is words that have parallel etymology but completely different meanings - for example, "understanding" and "substance".