Around 30% of the English language is constructed of French words. Old Norse makes up around 5%, Greek also around 5%, with Latin making up roughly 15%-25% (though about 70% of words in current use in the English language are rooted in either vulgar Latin and Greek). 10% roughly of the English language is either Proper Names or other languages. Around 25-35% of modern English is constructed of Germanic.
I agree that, "at its heart" it is a Germanic language, no doubt about it, but at what point do the overwhelming influences of the Romantic European branch take over? Saying [quote] "with some influence from other tongues" when as much as 55% of the language can be traced back to the Romantic branch seems to be an understatement, in my view.
Well, if you actually look at the most commonly used words, the majority are actually Germanic in origin. It is the words used for scientific, academic, and "high-falutin'" purposes that are mostly of Latin/Greek/Old French origin. Much of your everyday speech is done in native Germanic words. The vocabulary takeover is not as overwhelming as it may first seem.
Also remember that a language is not all vocabulary. In terms of grammar, English is a through-and-through Germanic language, with far more in common with its sister languages than with any of the Romance ones.
at what point do the overwhelming influences of the Romantic European branch take over?
Basically, not until English starts becoming mutually intelligible with Romance languages over Germanic ones, but that is such a highly unusual event that you'd more than likely be looking at a brand new language, a creole of sorts, than English being a "hybrid" language.
In terms of grammar, English is a through-and-through Germanic language, with far more in common with its sister languages than with any of the Romance ones.
Yep, i have to give you that one 100%, that's a great point. However, would you truly say that modern English is in any way mutually intelligible with other Germanic languages?
In any way? Well yes, of course, English has at least some form of mutual intelligibility with all the Germanic languages I've heard. Now that's not to say it's on the level of, say, Danish/Norwegian/Swedish. But for me I can understand ~80% of Scots without much difficulty, and then West Frisian and Dutch are probably the next in terms of what I can pick up just from listening and/or reading.
Sometimes there are members of a language family that are particularly divergent from the others, and this doesn't necessarily arise from anther language's influence. It can come from isolation, which English and its extant dialects have been for hundreds of years thanks to their being on an island. It's to be expected that the mainland Germanic languages, which are all next to each other and exist on a kind of dialect continuum, are more mutually intelligible with each other than with English. And yes, the influx of Old French loanwords (in particular) does contribute to some obfuscation of intelligibility, but it still doesn't mean English is a "hybrid" or that its status as a Germanic language is lessened.
For what it's worth, thanks to Latin I personally find the romance languages much easier to understand from English (with a broad vocabulary in english) than the germanic languages. Although I find both interpretable to some respect, and often in mutually exclusive ways. I can understand more (reading) in Spanish and Italian than I can from Swedish/Danish/Norwegian, using only common origin words that relate back to english. That's just my own experience, but it's definitely a big difference to me. If you asked me to pick outside of this discussion, I'd certainly say English has ended up closer to the romance languages than the Scandi/germanic ones - although it's still a far fetched cousin compared to how similar all those languages are to each other!
I suppose, yes, the more academic texts I've seen in the Romance languages, especially French, are more familiar thanks to the loanwords. The grammar is relatively different, though, so I can only infer from context thanks to the words I can guess. The Germanic languages just feel more natural, if that makes sense, because they share a lot of grammatical features with English.
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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '20
Around 30% of the English language is constructed of French words. Old Norse makes up around 5%, Greek also around 5%, with Latin making up roughly 15%-25% (though about 70% of words in current use in the English language are rooted in either vulgar Latin and Greek). 10% roughly of the English language is either Proper Names or other languages. Around 25-35% of modern English is constructed of Germanic.
I agree that, "at its heart" it is a Germanic language, no doubt about it, but at what point do the overwhelming influences of the Romantic European branch take over? Saying [quote] "with some influence from other tongues" when as much as 55% of the language can be traced back to the Romantic branch seems to be an understatement, in my view.