% of English words from Latin and Greek

[Stephen Gmail]

This is digging up very old and unreliable memories, but I believe I  
read at some point that about 50 percent of English vocabulary was  
Latinate in origin (including all those French words the Normans  
introduced) and 45 percent Anglo-Saxon in origin, while only about 5  
percent came from third languages. Although the Anglo-Saxon words were  
older and were very hard to replace with later Latinate/French words,  
the latter normally taking more nuanced meanings rather than directly  
replacing the Anglo-Saxon word, the greater Latinate percentage was  
explained by the greater ease of forming new words by recombining  
other words and particles. Many – most? – Greek words would have  
been included in the Latinate bunch, I think, having been filtered  
through Latin before reaching English, but I'm guessing here. I don't  
know if the old Norse, Dutch, and modern German words English absorbed  
would have been included in the Anglo-Saxon group, but I imagine they  
would. That would leave languages like Yiddish (only a Germanic half- 
brother), Hindi, Tahitian, the Native American languages, etc., to  
make up the remaining 5 percent.

Best,

Stephen Hughes


El 04/11/2009, a las 0:04, Wilson Gray escribió:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: % of English words from Latin and Greek
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 4:53 AM, Margaret Lee <mlee303 at yahoo.com>  
> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header  
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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Margaret Lee <mlee303 at YAHOO.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: % of English words from Latin and Greek
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> If I recall correctly, I once read=A0that about 60 percent of  
>> English words=
>> come from Latin, and about 20 percent from Greek.=A0Many years ago,  
>> I used=
>> to teach a course called Vocabulary Development, and I think this  
>> was in o=
>> ne of the course textbooks at the time.=20
>> =A0
>> Margaret Lee
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> Margaret G. Lee, Ph.D.
>> Adjunct Professor of English & Linguistics
>> Department of English
>> Hampton University=20
>> Hampton, VA 23668
>> 757-727-5769(voice);757-727-5084(fax)
>> margaret.lee at hamptonu.edu
>> mlee303 at yahoo.com
>>
>> --- On Sun, 11/1/09, David A. Daniel <dad at POKERWIZ.COM> wrote:
>>
>>
>> From: David A. Daniel <dad at POKERWIZ.COM>
>> Subject: Re: % of English words from Latin and Greek
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Date: Sunday, November 1, 2009, 5:33 PM
>>
>>
>> It's all Greek to me.
>> :)
>>
> Well, as a Greek friend of mine liked to say, "It's all mathematics  
> to me." ;-)
>
> -Wilson
>> __________________________________________
>> We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On  
>> Behalf Of
>> Michael Sheehan
>> Sent: Sunday, November 01, 2009 1:24 PM
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: % of English words from Latin and Greek
>>
>>
>>
>> This may be an impossible question, but does anyone have any idea
>> (even rough) as to what percentage of English words came directly  
>> from
>> Greek and what percentage directly from Latin? Complicating things,  
>> of
>> course, is that many Latin words derived from Greek forms.
>>
>> Mike Sheehan
>> wordmall at aol.com
>>
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>
>
> --
> -Wilson
> –––
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint  
> to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> –Mark Twain
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-------------------------------------
Stephen Hughes
Mobile +34 607 710 159
Tel & Fax +34 916 406 137
sehughes80 at gmail.com

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