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Latin to english words9/12/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() Many others have been adapted to English morphology, but still clearly reveal their classical origins. (Here we see proof that not all short, blunt words are Anglo-Saxon.) Some common English words are spelled exactly as they were in the Latin of Julius Caesar: area, focus, actor, index, forum, consensus, data, item, video, referendum. These can be very simple in form and obvious in meaning: mile, wine, cheese, city, school, church, farm, joy, grief, nice, fine, poor. ![]() Not all Anglo-Saxon vocabulary is limited to words of one or two syllables but we seldom have any problem understanding the longer Germanic forms, such as wonderful, womanhood, lighthearted, nevertheless, overwhelmingly, and unfriendliness.Īlongside this huge stock of native words, one finds at least an equal number of Latin (and/or Greek) loan-words, which entered English at various stages in its evolution. So are the most common everyday nouns, verbs, and adjectives-for example, words for family relationships ( mother, father, sister, brother), for number concepts ( one, two, ten, hundred) and for fundamental aspects of daily life ( house, home, bread, water, hay, harvest, cow, horse, sun, moon eat, drink, talk, laugh, make love good, bad, old, young). Because the grammatical structure of the language is Germanic, the functional linking words (prepositions, conjunctions, and articles) are solidly Germanic: to, from, and, but, however, when, since, the, an. On account of this historical diversity, English is magnificently supplied with the raw material of words, often having several synonyms for a single concept. As we shall see in later chapters, the English language has had a most unusual history, having been subjected over the centuries (like the British Isles themselves) to waves of foreign influence. ![]()
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