Talk:Foreign-language influences in English

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Linguistics: Etymology

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[Untitled][edit]

An anonymous IP added "(70%)" after "French language"; I have removed it as vague and unhelpful: does it mean that 70% of the English vocabulary is originally French (surely not, and what of the words that were originally Latin or Germanic?), or does it mean that 70% of the foreign vocabulary in English comes from French (and again, what about the Latin words that came through French)? —No-One Jones 06:41, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I've added an "around 30%" after French language, with a link to a page explaining what is meant by that. -- Danny Yee 05:14, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Language order[edit]

I think the languages should be ordered (at least roughly) by order of importance. As it stands, a reader might go away thinking Afrikaans had been as significant a lexical source for English as Latin! -- Danny Yee 05:14, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I thought the Scandinavian languages had some influence, for example "window" norwegian "vindöy" and there are many words that rimes both in Scandinavian languages and English (i.e. "ear-hear"="öra-höra" "hat-cat" ="hatt-katt"

Arabic[edit]

This article says nothing about Arbic influence in English. However, there are many words, for example alcohol or admiral.

Polish?[edit]

And what about vodka, solidarity, pierogi?? Kowalmistrz 13:07, 28 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Times?[edit]

Could someone add the dates that the languages started to affect English. It would really be helpful. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.49.223.172 (talk) 23:36, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Times?[edit]

Any times for when these influences took place? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.54.54.234 (talk) 12:54, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Great requests both, and I have formalised them by adding it in a section tag, calling for ties to scholarly sources that discuss the relation of language influxes with historical cultural events (such as waves of immigration, the introduction of digital virality, etc.). We can only hope a linguist or other specialist takes an eventual interest. Cheers. 2601:246:C200:2895:50A4:1A9C:A12F:635A (talk) 16:11, 19 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Russian[edit]

Removed material on Russian. The impact of Russian on English has been exceedingly marginal, and nowhere near notable enough to warrant inclusion in an article of this scope.

Also removed Afrikaans, for the same reason. Moved Nahuatl words to the Spanish section. Rearranged paragraphs into a more logical order.

What is missing is a words borrowed from various North American, Australian, African, and other native languages. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 01:01, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Germanic[edit]

This article is written in such a way that one might walk away from it unaware that English is a solidly Germanic language, with a Germanic structure, and the core vocabulary Germanic, though with significant Latin imports and technical terminology. The languages are not grouped in any sort of order based on importance of the influence of those languages, and the largest entries seem to be Spanish, Dutch, and Arabic, all of which have entries longer or as large as German and Latin.. the German entry mentions "Some influence" from "old German languages"... this is insane. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.142.165.186 (talk) 21:27, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You are right. If you know Northern German ("Plattdütsch") and compare it to English, the similarities are obvious. The author of the article seems to confound Northern German with Dutch. At first, I thought this article is a deliberate joke.

I was about to make this comment. If you remove all these "foreign" words and the Germanic words, there would be no words left in the English language. The Angles and Saxons were Germans. I am also not convinced about words of Dutch origin - they themselves are of Germanic or Latin origin. Why is Santa Claus from Sinterklaas and not from Sankt Nicolaus (German) or even Sanctus Nicolaus (Latin or maybe even partly Greek)? Skamnelis (talk) 15:25, 27 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Where are the percentages in the pie chart coming from?[edit]

Please see Talk:English_language#"29% of modern English words". Wolfdog (talk) 18:49, 31 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

French is Latin[edit]

French is Latin -GogoLion (talk) 17:02, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A reminder and an exhortation[edit]

Per WP:VERIFY and related policies and guidelines, Wikilinks do not fulfil the requirement that all non-sky-is-blue content be sourced—a wikilink to another article is not a source (per WP:VER)!

This is true regardless of how well-sourced might be the article referenced; sources must be copied and moved into new articles. If text is moved, its sources should move with it. (And poor text, unsupported by reliable citation, should clearly never be moved into a new article.)

Doing this wrong at the start is just creating problems for others to fix later, and is a disservice to the encyclopedia. ("Move fast and break things" is not a useful editorial mantra.) We look down upon drive-by tagging. we should likewise loathe the sloppy and unscholarly additions of unsourced text—here, the indiscrimante examples (see the 17 April 2021 IP edits, and edits before and after)—that invite such valid fault-finding.

Most busy subject matter experts will not wade into a morass such as this. But since article and section tags were afixed, I wanted to begin providing solutions as well (and so the checking and reformatting of all existing citations). It will be up to someone in lexicography or linguistics to sort the rest. [signed] a former prof. 2601:246:C200:2895:50A4:1A9C:A12F:635A (talk) 16:08, 19 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Agony[edit]

This article is agony to read due to the various “not verified in body” tags. If this is someone trying to prove a point, then rewrite the article already or just get over it. 2601:644:4285:6690:91F8:E899:9CCC:4096 (talk) 19:33, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]