The Much Avoided Latin-rooted-English List

qroqqa commented on the list the-much-avoided-latin-rooted-english-list

Hmm. Something like 60% of English may be based on Latin, but something like 30% of this list is Greek. To quote a character in Stoppard's The Invention of Love, 'Latin and Greek are two entirely separate languages spoken by distinct peoples living in different parts of the ancient world.' If some of the Greek words happened to pass through Latin on their way to us, probably quite as many actually came to us from French.

March 19, 2009