Word origins
Word origins
Main article: Lists of English words of international origin
One of the consequences of the French influence is that the vocabulary of English is, to a certain extent, divided between those words which areGermanic (mostly West Germanic, with a smaller influence from the North Germanic branch) and those which are "Latinate" (Latin-derived, either directly or from Norman French or other Romance languages).
The majority (83%) of the 1,000 most common English words, and all of the 100 most common, are Germanic.[] Conversely, a vast majority of more advanced words from subjects such as the sciences, philosophy, maths, etc. come from Latin or Greek. A noticeable number of words from astronomy, mathematics, and chemistry are from Arabic.
Numerous sets of statistics have been proposed to demonstrate the proportionate origins of English vocabulary. None, as of yet, is considered definitive by most linguists.A computerised survey of about 80,000 words in the old Shorter Oxford Dictionary (3rd ed.) was published in Ordered Profusion by Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff (1973) that estimated the origin of English words as follows:
Influences in English vocabulary
§ Langue d'oïl, including French and Old Norman: 28.3%
§ Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%
§ Other Germanic languages (including words directly inherited from Old English; does not include Germanic words coming from the Germanic element in French, Latin or other Romance languages): 25%
§ Greek: 5.32%
§ No etymology given: 4.03%
§ 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: 2%
§ Dutch: 1%
§ Other: 10%
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