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English is a Germanic language. It is a sister of Friszzian and Lowger German, a close relation of Dutch and a variously distant cousin of Icelandic, Swedish and Yiddish. But thanks to 15 centuries of invasion, invention and pedantry, almost twothirds of the modern English vocabulary is derived from Latin. English was born when tribal groups from what are now Denmark and northern Germany, most famously the Angles and Saxons, overran the former Roman province of Britain. The dialects spoken by the invaders, which would evolve into old English, were Germanic. From the beginning, however, Latin words were present. Long before they came to Britain, the Angles and Saxons had dealt with Roman merchants from whom they
learned such words as wine from the Latin wenum, pound from pandas, cheap from cowpo, and monger from mango. Other Latin words entered old English via interactions with the Romano British and Christian missionaries. The Latinization of English truly began, however, with the Norman conquest of 1066. For more than 300 years, Norman French based on vulgar Latin was the language of government and law in England. Latinate French words pertaining to these spheres flooded the English vocabulary. Sovereign and Parliament, Justice and Jury, Duke and Prince. Another Latinate word that entered English from French in the Norman period was ancestor. That brings us to this video's sponsor, My Heritage. My Heritage is a leading
service for genealogical research, offering users access to more than 33 billion historical documents. I found one of my grandfathers, for example, in the 1940 census. You don't need to know much about your family history to get started. Once you add yourself, your parents, and your grandparents, My Heritage will find information for you. Everything from relatives you can add to your tree to historical documents and photos. Sometimes you can add whole branches to your tree with the instant discoveries feature. As you can see, My Heritage discovered several documents relating to my grandfather's. My Heritage also allows you to upload and digitally repair family photos, such as this shot of my great
grandparents. You can even colorize black and white photos, revealing details like my great grandfather's stylish blue pants. To explore all these features and learn more about your family's story, follow the link in the description and start your 14-day free trial of My Heritage today. Returning to our topic. Later in the Middle Ages, as the influence of French waned, more words were imported directly from Latin. Some, like Reququum and Limbo, were religious. Others related to scholarship, allegory, library, desk, scribe. Growing interest in Roman law inspired the coinage of client, conviction, and prosecutor. The Renaissance witnessed an explosion of learned borrowings from Latin. In keeping with Latin status as
the language of scholarship, notable additions were made in the fields of medicine. Rabies, forceps, lumbago, physics, lens, pendulum, inertia, and mathematics, radius, series, formula. The most remarkable Renaissance coinages, however, were literary. Many of the 1700 or so words invented by Shakespeare had Latin roots, including summit, submerged, excellent, castigate, and obscene. Ben Johnson is responsible for defunct, and strenuous. Sir Thomas Elliot produced animate, exhaust, and modesty. Not all the latinate terms concocted by Renaissance wordsmiths persisted. The pitficial, obstupact, and vatimmonial were too beautiful for this world. But arbiter, omen, equilibrium, stimulus, and thousands more are still with us.
Borrowing from Latin continued at a more restrained rate until the 19th century when new sciences and new concepts elicited another generation of Latinate words. Aquarium, bonus, consensus, deficit, extra, etc. The 20th century added thousands more. Computer, molecule, satellite, and countless compounds crafted with Latin prefixes and suffixes like re and d or eyes, meant, shun, and able. In addition to its vast influence on vocabulary, Latin is responsible for some quirks of English spelling. Particularly in the 17th century, classically educated authors and editors altered numerous words to resemble Latin ancestors and analoges. Sometimes a new Latinate spelling changed a word's pronunciation. Adventure became
adventure, perfect became perfect, and verdict became verdict. More often, the changes were silent, like the P added to receipt, the C stuck in scissors, the B inserted into doubt, and the S in island. Generations of English teachers instructed their students to carefully avoid splitting infinitives and composed sentences that no prepositions dangled from. Both of these rules originated in or were at least argued by false analogy with Latin. For that matter, the basic terminology of English grammar, predicates, jirens, and all that jazz was taken directly from Latin. Such pedantry has sometimes given Latin a bad name. So does the fact that Latinate vocabulary liberally deployed degenerates into cescopedian
superfluity. In reaction, some authors and scholars have championed Germanic words. The 19th century author William Barnes wrote an outline of English speechcraft in which he argued such alternatives as kin elder for ancestor for carve for amputate and water load aqueduct. Most writers however appreciate the unparalleled expressiveness made possible by the complex heritage of English. Consider, for example, the slightly different connotations of these pairs of Germanic and Latinate adjectives, earthly and terrestrial, hidden and latent, timely temporal. There are whole clusters of English words borrowed directly and indirectly from the same Latin root. Amiable and amicable, frail and fragile, poor Popper and
impoverished. English allows you to get or obtain, to hug or embrace, to win freedom or liberty. A famous example of these expressive possibilities appears in the second act of McBth. Racked with guilt over his murder of Duncan, McBth fixates on the blood staining his hands. Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather. The multitudinous sees incarn making the green one red. The polyelabic latinate phrase multitudinous sees incarnadine means the same thing as the Germanic making the green one red. But there is no redundancy here. The English language, in short, would have been much simpler without Latin, but it would also have been immeasurably poorer. You too will be immeasurably
poorer if you don't check out my trip to Greece this October. There are a few spots still available. To learn more, follow the link in the description. You'll also find a link there for my Patreon, which is, I assure you, a veritable historical wonderland. Check out my sadly neglected other channels, Tollen Stone Footnotes and Scenic Roots to the Past. As a final reminder, you can get a 14-day free trial with My Heritage by following the link in the description. Thanks for watching.
