English has incorporated many words from Latin and there are some people who are unfamiliar with linguistics who assume that English is, in fact, a Latin-based language. English is, of course, a Germanic language which has been greatly influenced by Latin. While many of the Latin origin words in English have come into the language from French, English has taken some directly from Latin.
The Romans raided Britain, invaded it, colonized it, and deserted it. Julius Caesar attempted to invade Britain in 55 BCE, but failed. The following year he returned with a larger force looking for slaves and tributes, but found insufficient quantity of either and withdrew. From 43 CE until 410 CE, however, part of the island was controlled by the Roman Empire.
The Roman invaders brought to Britain new developments in agriculture, urbanization, industry, and architecture. In general, Roman civilization was limited to the Midlands and the southeast. It was in this region where the Romans built their walled towns and villages. They built connecting roads in an attempt to reproduce their sunny Mediterranean life in what was, for them, a wet, cloudy, and distant outpost. The Roman legacy in Britain includes some of the major cities on the island, including London, Manchester, and York.
Archaeologically, there are many Roman ruins in Britain, but linguistically the nearly four centuries of Roman control had only a minimal impact on the development of the English language. In fact, Britain is one of the few parts of the Roman Empire which does not have a Romance language (Romance languages evolved from Roman Latin). Some of the words which English has incorporated from this era include camp, toll, pound, mile, chalk, copper, butter, cheese, wine, plant, cup, dish, kitchen, wall, and pillow.
During the reign of King Alfred (871-899), scholars translated many of the classic Latin texts into the vernacular (Old English). King Alfred brought together scholars to begin a process of educational reform. During the eleventh century, teachers and scholars set up schools for education students in English and Latin. However, following the Norman Conquest in 1066, the focus was on French and Latin.
During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, England was actually trilingual: English was the language of the countryside; French was the language of administration, culture, and courtiership; and Latin was the language of the church, education, and philosophy.
While Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400) did his major work in English, he brought the learned vocabulary of the universities into his works. Among the English words from Latin which are first attested to Chaucer are: acceptable, alkali (originally Arabic, but comes into English from the Latin), annoyance, arrogant, and cinnamon.
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Chaucer is shown above.
From 1500 to 1700, the vocabulary of the English language increased dramatically. New words were borrowed from science, classical scholarship, and practical technology. New words were coined from Latin and Greek to express technical concepts as well as to enrich or beautify the English language.
Many of the words which came into English during this time were “inkhorn” words: words which were coined directly from Latin or Greek for an educated effect. Such words marked the user as being educated, but they were also ridiculed by some who felt that these “inkhorn” words had little rational basis in the history of the English language. Alexander Gill (1654-1635), the headmaster of St. Paul’s School (and, consequently, John Milton’s teacher), advocated the exclusion of new words and “inkhorn” terms. He saw this as resulting in a diluted, bastard English which would lead to a kind of linguistic fall.
Some examples of these “inkhorn” words would include: autograph, meditate, erupt, disregard, anachronism, allurement, and capsule.