Why is english derived from latin

Ben Davis May 25, Is English derived from Latin? Why is English so Latinized? Is English more like French or German? Is Denmark Dutch? Can English speakers read Dutch? Is German older than Dutch? Why are Dutch and German so similar? What languages are similar to Dutch? Is Dutch like English? The earliest period begins with the migration of certain Germanic tribes from the continent to Britain in the fifth century A. By that time Latin, Old Norse the language of the Viking invaders , and especially the Anglo-Norman French of the dominant class after the Norman Conquest in had begun to have a substantial impact on the lexicon, and the well-developed inflectional system that typifies the grammar of Old English had begun to break down.

The following brief sample of Old English prose illustrates several of the significant ways in which change has so transformed English that we must look carefully to find points of resemblance between the language of the tenth century and our own.

It is taken from Aelfric's "Homily on St. Gregory the Great" and concerns the famous story of how that pope came to send missionaries to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity after seeing Anglo-Saxon boys for sale as slaves in Rome:. The sense of it is as follows:. Again he [St. Gregory] asked what might be the name of the people from which they came.

It was answered to him that they were named Angles. Then he said, "Rightly are they called Angles because they have the beauty of angels, and it is fitting that such as they should be angels' companions in heaven. Other points worth noting include the fact that the pronoun system did not yet, in the late tenth century, include the third person plural forms beginning with th-: hi appears where we would use they.

Several aspects of word order will also strike the reader as oddly unlike ours. Perhaps the most distinctive difference between Old and Modern English reflected in Aelfric's sentences is the elaborate system of inflections, of which we now have only remnants. In addition, there were two imperative forms, four subjunctive forms two for the present tense and two for the preterit, or past, tense , and several others which we no longer have. Where does the English language come from?

New word of the month A new word is born: How do new words make it into dictionaries? British and American culture Where does the English language come from? Next in a series of articles on the English language and British and American culture.

Romance languages are so called because they are derived from Latin which was the language spoken in ancient Rome. The English word father is vater in German and pater in Latin.

They speak Old English.