The core of the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to t ...

descends from the Old English language, brought from the 500s with the Anglo, Saxon, and Jutish settlers to what would be called England. The bulk of the language in spoken and written texts is from this source. As a statistical rule, around 70 percent of words in any text are Old English. Moreover, the grammar is largely Old English. A significant portion of the English vocabulary comes from Romance and Latinate sources. Estimates of native words (derived from Old English) range from 20%–33%, with the rest made up of outside borrowings. A portion of these borrowings come directly from

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

, or through one of the Romance languages, particularly Anglo-Norman and French, but some also from Italian, Portuguese, and

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: ** Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Ca ...

; or from other languages (such as

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

, Frankish or

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

) into Latin and then into English. The influence of Latin in English, therefore, is primarily lexical in nature, being confined mainly to words derived from Latin roots. While some new words enter English as slang, most do not. Some words are adopted from other languages; some are mixtures of existing words (

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsdead languages.

Word origins

A computerized survey of about 80,000 words in the old ''

Shorter Oxford Dictionary The ''Shorter Oxford English Dictionary'' (''SOED'') is an English language dictionary published by the Oxford University Press. The SOED is a two-volume abridgement of the twenty-volume ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED''). Print editions ...

'' (3rd ed.) was published in ''Ordered Profusion'' by Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff (1973) that estimated the origin of English words as follows: * French: 28.30% * Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24% *

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, ...

– inherited from Old English, from Proto-Germanic, or a more recent borrowing from a Germanic language such as

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

; does not include Germanic words borrowed from a Romance language, i.e., coming from the Germanic element in French, Latin or other Romance languages: 25% * Greek: 5.32% * No etymology given: 4.04% * Derived from proper names: 3.28% * All other languages: less than 1% A survey by Joseph M. Williams in ''Origins of the English Language'' of 10,000 words taken from several thousand business letters gave this set of statistics: * French (langue d'oïl): 41% * "Native" English: 33% * Latin: 15% * Old Norse: 5% * Dutch: 1% * Other: 5%

Languages influencing the English language

Here is a list of the most common foreign language influences in English, where other languages have influenced or contributed words to English.

Celtic

Celtic words are almost absent, except for dialectal words, such as the Yan Tan Tethera system of counting sheep. However, hypotheses have been made that English syntax was influenced by Celtic languages, such as the system of continuous tenses was a cliché of similar Celtic phrasal structures. This is controversial, as the system has clear native English and other Germanic developments.

French

The French contributed legal, military, technological, and political terminology. Their language also contributed common words, such as the names of meats: ''veal'', ''mutton'', ''beef'', ''pork'', and how food was prepared: ''boil'', ''broil'', ''fry'', ''roast'', and ''stew''; as well as words related to the nobility: ''prince'', ''duke'', ''marquess'', ''viscount'', ''baron'', and their feminine equivalents. Nearly 30 percent of English words (in an 80,000 word dictionary) are of French origin.

Latin

Most words in English that are derived from

are scientific and technical words, medical terminology, academic terminology, and legal terminology.

Greek

English words derived from

include scientific and medical terminology (for instance -phobias and -ologies), Christian theological terminology.

Norman

''Castle'', ''cauldron'', ''kennel'', ''catch'', ''cater'' are among Norman words introduced into English. The Norman language also introduced (or reinforced) words of Norse origin such as ''mug''.

Dutch

There are many ways through which Dutch words have entered the English language: via trade and navigation, such as '' skipper'' (from ''schipper''), '' freebooter'' (from ''vrijbuiter''), ''

keelhauling Keelhauling ( Dutch ''kielhalen''; "to drag along the keel") is a form of punishment and potential execution once meted out to sailors at sea. The sailor was tied to a line looped beneath the vessel, thrown overboard on one side of the ship, and ...

'' (from ''kielhalen''); via painting, such as ''

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

'' (from ''landschap''), ''

easel An easel is an upright support used for displaying and/or fixing something resting upon it, at an angle of about 20° to the vertical. In particular, easels are traditionally used by painters to support a painting while they work on it, normally ...

'' (from ''ezel''), ''

still life A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, m ...

'' (from ''stilleven''); warfare, such as ''

forlorn hope A forlorn hope is a band of soldiers or other combatants chosen to take the vanguard in a military operation, such as a suicidal assault through the kill zone of a defended position, or the first men to climb a scaling ladder against a defend ...

(from ''verloren hoop''), ''beleaguer (from ''beleger''), ''to bicker'' (from ''bicken''); via civil engineering, such as '' dam'', ''

polder A polder () is a low-lying tract of land that forms an artificial hydrological entity, enclosed by embankments known as dikes. The three types of polder are: # Land reclaimed from a body of water, such as a lake or the seabed # Flood plain ...

'', ''

dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, fl ...

'' (from ''duin''); via the

New Netherland New Netherland ( nl, Nieuw Nederland; la, Novum Belgium or ) was a 17th-century colonial province of the Dutch Republic that was located on the east coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva ...

settlements in North America, such as ''

cookie A cookie is a baked or cooked snack or dessert that is typically small, flat and sweet. It usually contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of oil, fat, or butter. It may include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips, ...

'' (from ''koekie''), ''

boss Boss may refer to: Occupations * Supervisor, often referred to as boss * Air boss, more formally, air officer, the person in charge of aircraft operations on an aircraft carrier * Crime boss, the head of a criminal organization * Fire boss, a p ...

'' from ''baas'', ''

Santa Claus Santa Claus, also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Kris Kringle, or simply Santa, is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring children gifts during the late evening and overnigh ...

'' (from ''

Sinterklaas Sinterklaas () or Sint-Nicolaas () is a legendary figure based on Saint Nicholas, patron saint of children. Other Dutch names for the figure include ''De Sint'' ("The Saint"), ''De Goede Sint'' ("The Good Saint") and ''De Goedheiligman'' ("The ...

''); via Dutch/

Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans g ...

speakers with English speakers in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring count ...

, such as ''

wildebeest Wildebeest ( , , ), also called gnu ( or ), are antelopes of the genus ''Connochaetes'' and native to Eastern and Southern Africa. They belong to the family Bovidae, which includes true antelopes, cattle, goats, sheep, and other even-toe ...

'', ''

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

'', ''

boer Boers ( ; af, Boere ()) are the descendants of the Dutch-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controlled this a ...

''; via French words of Dutch/Flemish origin that have subsequently been adopted into English, such as ''

boulevard A boulevard is a type of broad avenue planted with rows of trees, or in parts of North America, any urban highway. Boulevards were originally circumferential roads following the line of former city walls. In American usage, boulevards may b ...

'' (from ''bolwerk''), ''

mannequin A mannequin (also called a dummy, la