"not far short of 50% have come into the language from French or Latin."

June 4, 2014 8:57 AM

Borrowed words in English: tracing the changing patterns

from All Things Linguistic

posted by the man of twists and turns (2 comments total)

Good post, twisty.

I don't think I can sign up to this comment, though;

AngloSaxons seemed to view their fellow Germanic’s “Viking invasion” with far less familial love than they viewed the Norman conquest three centuries later.

You think William's conquest was less traumatic than Cnut's? You don't even remember Cnut's, do you?
posted by Segundus at 1:26 PM on June 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

Very cool! Although it would be nice if they gave a few more examples of loan words from languages. Maori, for example - obviously things like pakeha or whare, but those still sound like Maori words to me rather than English loan words. Mako, on the other hand, is apparently a Maori loan word and I just thought it was English (ha). Obviously this will vary a lot according to where you live. Kiwis (there's another one) are obviously more fluent in NZ English and would use a lot more of them. But Portuguese loan words! Like what? Yes I know there is a magical thing called the internets but I am lazy, I want more to the article.
posted by Athanassiel at 3:26 AM on June 5, 2014