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That's just the classic false attachment of Latin constructs to English usage. French, Italian etc. obviously derive from Latin while the Germanic languages do
by fidotron 12y ago
That's just the classic false attachment of Latin constructs to English usage. French, Italian etc. obviously derive from Latin while the Germanic languages do not, much to the disgrace of the self professed enlightened classes for the last several hundred years.
- bodyfour 12y agoI don't mean to defend the Latin crowd here, but your argument is flawed. It's true that English historically comes from the Germanic side of the tree -- starting with Old Frisian with later Old Norse influences. However, the last millennium has been a long process of romancification: * post-Hastings, all of the English ruling class spoke Norman French for centuries * the Latin church, which was for a long time the main source of literate people * a heavy dose of classics in school meant that the educated classes would consciously turn to Latin (and to a lesser extent Greek) when coining new words and phrases You're right that English is Germanic by heritage. However modern English vocabulary is probably as close to French than anything else. Knowing some rudimentary Latin does let you decipher a lot of etymologies.