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goldenarm 10 hours ago

It's hilarious that most of these words are French

wongarsu 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

English has this weird dichotomy where most of the words in a typical sentence are Germanic, while most of the words in the dictionary are French.

Fun fact: according to a quick count by AI using web search, the previous sentence contains 21 words of Germanic origin, 2 of Latin origin, 2 of Greek origin and 1 of French origin. Also the etymology of the word Germanic is Latin, while that of the word French is Germanic

smitty1e 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes, English is a post-Hastings collision between Norman French and Anglo Saxon.

rhdunn 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Norman French due to the Norman invasion of 1066 resulting in Old English evolving into Middle English. You can see that in the words for animals vs meats (cow and boef/beef, sheep and mutton, etc.) where the Germanic people raised the sheep and the Norman aristocracy ate them.

A lot of the more common and simpler words are Germanic, as is the grammar (e.g. compound words like cupboard).

the_lonely_phon 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Depends is bratwurst a German word or an English one? You will hard pressed to find an American that doesn’t know thr word and what it means. You can buy them at just about any grocery store and they are a staple of many restaurants.

At some point the word becomes both. Sourced from its mother language and maybe even still meaning the same thing in both, but no less an English word than any other at this point.

nairboon 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Bratwurst is still a German word. It doesn't become English just because it's used by native English speakers. If you start to tweak it a bit, it could become an English word. Like "fish" vs. "Fisch" in German. Or "good" vs. "gut" in German.

mordechai9000 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It also had "weltschmerz" in the list, but I think I have only ever heard "ennui" used in English. They are both foreign words, but I would not have thought of weltschmerz as a loan word. Then again, maybe I am not reading the right texts.

10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]
[deleted]
graemep 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They are not. Quite a few have Latin roots and the like that corresponding French words share.

pessimizer 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Approximately 0.0% of those came into English through Latin, while around 100% came through Norman French.

grey-area 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Latin was commonly spoken amongst the educated at one time (served as a lingua franca across Europe) and used for religion and scientific discourse for even longer.

I_am_tiberius 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

French english speakers usually have a quite good vocabulary. Getting to the point of speaking english is a milestone that's quite difficult for french speakers though.

triceratops 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

English is the PHP of human languages.

GeoAtreides 8 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm not sure PHP deserved that...

classified 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

English also has a ridiculously high fraction of Latin too.

pessimizer 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Not from Latin but through French - the direct use of Latin in English is generally restricted to technical jargon and legal terms (that English often also share with the French.)

Latin isn't really any sort of parent to Old English afaik, even though the Romans ran Britain for a while.

zulux 9 hours ago | parent [-]

In order to stunt on the pors, English borrowed a fair amount of Latin and Greek directly - especially in law, philosophy, and the sciences.