Frequently Asked Questions
The English Language
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What is the proportion of English words of French, Latin, or Germanic origin?
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It is very hard to make this estimate, particularly as many words reached English, for example, from Latin by way of Norman French. However, the result of a computerized survey of roughly 80,000 words in the old Shorter Oxford Dictionary (3rd edition) was published in Ordered Profusion by Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff (1973). They reckoned the proportions as follows:
- Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%
- French, including Old French and early Anglo-French: 28.3%
- Old and Middle English, Old Norse, and Dutch: 25%
- Greek: 5.32%
- No etymology given: 4.03%
- Derived from proper names: 3.28%
- All other languages contributed less than 1%
Other questions in this section:How many words are there in the English language?
Is it true that English has the most words of any language?
What is the diffence between Old English and Anglo-Saxon?
What is the proportion of English words of French, Latin, or Germanic origin?
Why don't you introduce some form of phonetic spelling?
Why is 'w' pronounced 'double u' rather than 'double v'?
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