Latin and Its Influence on English Language

By: Sharon White
Submitted: 2007-01-17 11:29:10
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Latin is one of the most ancient languages and even now it is widely used almost in various fields such as: medicine, learning, science, technology, etc. Latin has been influencing English throughout its history. Its authority on English was profound as the Roman army and merchants gave new names to local objects such as: pise 'pea', catte 'cat', cetel 'kettle', candel 'candle' and a numerous number of other common words. The influence of Latin on Old English was profound because Latin was considered the language of a highly developed civilization. For several hundred years, while the Germanic Tribe who became the English were still occupying their home land, they had various relations with the Romans through which they acquired a considerable number of Latin words. Not only did Latin influence the vocabulary of the English language, but its syntactic style had an impact on the English of the 16th century. Marcus Tullius Cicero work was particularly imitated, as there was a search for an oratorical contrast and balance.

Latin's contribution to modern English has not been more than just derivatives. The concept of grammar also came from the artificial structure of Classical Latin which can be defined as the Latin used for poetry, oratory, and by the upper classes. Early English had no grammar, no rules. Latin provided an example of excellent grammatical structure and an oratory contrast that English eventually adopted.

Latin has probably impacted legal English the most, as it shares with science a concern for precision. The language used in the legal system is simple, universal and rhetoric. The word have made the statements to be phrased in such a way that we can see its applicability yet specific enough individual circumstances. The law has to remain constant so the language has to be precise enough so cases will be treated consistently and fairly. This is the reason why it has adopted such a complex grammatical structure.

Words from Latin roots have also entered Modern English through the modern Romance languages, especially French and Italian. English-speakers assimilate a variety of foreign words. They dropped endings without much thought. As a result, we now retain foreign characters like the French c, and the German B.

The English language has drawn from Latin mainly in its vocabulary, but also in its grammar. These loans are grouped, by time and substance, into four periods -- the Zero, First, Second, Third, and Modern. Each of these has distinctive characteristics, both of the Latin words adopted and the process of assimilation undergone. Latin words have also been adopted to English through Modern French and Modern Italian (grouped under the Modern Period) and Norman French (the Third Period).

The Zero Period

It includes all English words whose etymology traces back to Germanic tribes in contact with Romans on the continent. These are all short words, easily adaptable to the inflections of early Germanic languages. The tribes' dealings with the Romans were centered in military matters, cooking, trade, and commerce, especially with wine merchants. Words current in Modern English with recognizable forms include camp (L campus), kettle (OE cytel, L catillus, catinus), cheap (OE ceap), and wine (OE win, L vinum).

The First Period

This period includes words borrowed during Julius Caesar's English adventures (55 BC) and the Roman Conquest (43-449 AD), but almost none of these1 survived the Teutonic and Norman invasions. In fact, most Celtic words in Modern English either were borrowed recently (slogan, shillelagh) or continued as place names (Kent, Devon, Cumberland). The most interesting Latin-Celtic-Old English path is that of -chester, with its variants -cester and -caster, as found in Manchester, Gloucester, and Lancaster. In Celtic, it is ceaster, from the Latin castra (encampment).

The Second Period

This period, dating from Augustine's mission of 597, is divided into two main sub-periods, the Early and the Benedictine. The Early Second Period includes words taken by the English to describe their new religion (mass, pope; from the Old English maesse, papa; and the Latin missa, papa), but also household words (cap, plant; from the Old English caeppa, plante; and the Latin cappa, planta) and those relating to education (Latin and school; from the Old English scol; and the Latin Latinus, schola). The amount and miscellany of the borrowings show the extent of Christianity's immediate impact on seventh-century Britain. In this part of the Second Period, direct translation of Latin terms is characteristic. Thus, the Late Latin trinitas (three) is the Old English prines (literally, three-ness), and the Late Latin resurrectio (resurrection) is the Old English aerist, from arisan (to arise).

The Third Period

The Third Period begins in 1066 with William the Conqueror. With the Norman invasion came their language, Norman French, which was related more closely to Latin than was English. Because of this closeness, words adopted from French (usually of a more colliquial character) are considered along with those drawn from Latin itself (often more learned, and first found in written language). The dual sources of Middle English vocabulary are still apparent today: word pairs such as example/exemplary and machine (sh)/machinate (k) show the differences between words with Norman and Latin roots. This period is the first time that untranslated Latin words are introduced wholesale, in both prose (Trevisa's translation of De Proprietatibus Rerum) and poetry (Dunbar et al.). As one Latin-English translator complained in the early 1400s, 'There is many words in Latin that we have no proper English accordance therto.'2 Almost all of these aureate terms passed into general use only after being reintroduced. Others still current were from Wycliffe's Bible, and gained currency through constant use.

The Modern Period

The Modern Period begins with the advent of Modern English, usually dated to 1500.3 By the time of Thomas Eliot, the classical languages were entering English mostly as compounds, either with English or previously-assimilated words, or with other classical roots. An incomplete list of widely used classical roots includes -ation, -ana, -ite, -ism, ex-, co-, -ist, and de-, while scientific English uses many more specialized ones : mille-, matri-, menti-, and reticul-, though these often come ultimately from the Greek.

Latin roots are also apparent in commercial names, especially of high-tech companies (Sun Microsystems, from the Greek micro, as in the Late Latin microcosms), but also in many from the early days of this century (Bovril, from the Latin bovis)4. Classically derived names seem to give credence to claims to knowledge and capability5.

Assimilation of Latin words into English

Having treated when, how, and why Latin words are used in English, the next question is "how have these Latin words assimilated into English?" English words like harp, cousin, chime, chesnut, prove, and truck certainly don't advertise their Latin roots (Late Latin harpa, Latin consobrinus, Latin cymbalum, Latin castanea, Latin probus, and the Latin trochaicus, respectively)11. Yet, linguists and etymologists can somehow trace the history and forms of English words, and recognize patterns in the changes they undergo.

Other patterns have been recognized that not only reveal an English word's source, but can also help date its adoption. The two most important of these were palatal diphthongization, in which some vowels preceded by palatal consonants were changed to diphthongs, and the i-umlaut (or i-mutation), in which the value of some accented vowels was changed. The other prominent area of change in adopted words was in their accenting, which sometimes led to more vowel mutations. These changes all took place in English, so their presence can tell us only by when a word must have been adopted; other changes can tell us before what time a word must have been used in English. The most important of these was in the Latin itself, and is the change that took place when a word was simplified by speakers of Vulgar Latin13. Others were changes in the forms adopted by other Germanic languages, but these are often only speculation.

The other major change words underwent after adoption was simplification, either dropping a case ending (Latin cornu -- English horn14) or dropping syllables. Syllables were especially likely to be lost from words of the Zero Period (learned by continental Germanic tribes), who found it hard to decline even shortened words from Vulgar Latin in their heavily-inflected Old High and Low Germans.

Latin's Impact on English Grammar

Latin's contribution to modern English has not been based solely on derivatives. The very ideas of grammar also came from the artificial structure of Classical Latin (the Latin used for poetry, oratory, and by the upper classes). Early English was in no way an artificial or learned language, and had no grammar, no rules, nothing but conflicting precedent15 in everything: spelling, word order, declension, and conjugation.

In this structural vacuum, those who wanted order were forced to create it, which they did by imposing classical grammar on the language16. These early grammarians are the source of the stigma on ending a phrase with a preposition, of the choice we have today between who/which (identified with the Latin qui) and that as a relative pronoun17, and with the absolute participle, whose first use in English was direct translation from the Latin. While the last is a benefit, the first two lead to unnaturally worded phrases, and have no justification other than classical grammar.

Latin's Overall Impact

Latin is so large a part of English that, even if we wanted to, we could not purge ourselves of even one tenth of our words derived from it. Even our grammar, which has been influenced less than our vocabulary, would be amazingly different without its Latin base. But, is all that we have received from Latin useful?

Our grammar has been turned on its head by classical scholars, and our vocabulary does not need the amount of words that it has. If one idea has just one word derived from each language contributing the most to Modern English (Greek, Latin, Saxon (Germanic), and Norman French), we would still have useless synonyms. "Everything in moderation," though a clich? is still true; Modern English would be simpler and more efficient if there had been less of a Latin influence. But, the flip side of the phrase is that everything is necessary, if only in (relatively) small doses. What would English be like without our Latin-derived vocabulary, or our knowledge of the classics? Without this most crucial components, English would not be English.

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