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English is the 'most Latin' of the Germanic languages because of the norman conquest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_conquest_of_England http://en.wikipedi
by felxh 13y ago
English is the 'most Latin' of the Germanic languages because of the norman conquest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_conquest_of_England http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_conquest_of_England). Since then, you could almost say that english has a double vocabulary; one anglo-saxon (germanic) and one norman-french (romanic). This is why english has so many synonyms and allows for very nuanced expressions (as mentioned by the parent post).
- forinti 13y agoI know, I receive Webster's Word of the Day and most of them are Latin words: really easy for anyone who speaks a Romance language. The last five were: incipient; indissoluble, indoctrinate, infantilize, inscrutable. So maybe Webster should have two mailing lists. One for anglo-saxons and one for speakers of Romance languages.
- felxh 13y agoFunny, I was just googling for that :). The best I could find: http://www.quora.com/English-language/Is-there-a-thesaurus-that-includes-only-Anglo-Saxon-synonyms http://www.quora.com/English-language/Is-there-a-thesaurus-t...