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> Only around one in four English words is Germanic in origin, whereas half of English words are Latinic or Romanic. Are you measuring by fraction of words in
by munificent 2y ago
> Only around one in four English words is Germanic in origin, whereas half of English words are Latinic or Romanic.
Are you measuring by fraction of words in a word list, or fraction of words in a typical utterance? Word usage is highly non-uniform, so you'll get very different ratios between the former and latter.
- Suppafly 2y ago>Are you measuring by fraction of words in a word list, or fraction of words in a typical utterance? I think he's measuring the first, which gives a skewed picture, the latter is why english is considered a germanic language. The core of the language is all germanic words and you can still get by reasonably well without using any of the french/latin additions. Generally if a word is smaller and less 'fancy' it's of germanic origins, if it's longer and 'fancier' it's probably of romance origins.