Latin Influences on Old English

In this excerpt from Foreign Influences on Old English, a chapter from their book A History of the English Language, Baugh & Cable explain very carefully the Latin influences on Old English. They not only describe some historical points that contributed to such language contact, but also bring several examples that illustrate such process. They present, for instance, many words from the semantic field of trade, war and agriculture as the result of Romans and Germanic tribes’ contact throughout the continent. Besides, they make some references to the role of celts in the process of Latin transmission and to the influence of Christianity on the English vocabulary. They show how this process of christianizing Britain was extremely essential to such Latin effect upon the English language. This site is, therefore, an interesting tool for we understand the extent of the Latin influence in English.

An introduction to the theme

This page is an introduction of a book, and gives a broad overview about the theme. Firstly, it tells about the classical Latin and how it was spread through the Roman Empire. Then it quickly explains the influence of Latin on English, how they were related in the Indo- European family and why it had so much importance on the English we speak today. The nicest thing on this page is the "exercise" they give to the English speakers, so they can see clearly this influence. They give a text in German and after, the same test in Latin. English speakers can read much easier the last one, because of the vocabulary resemblance. It also has examples of differences in the pronunciation and punctuation of both languages, and gives hints to those who want to learn Latin.

The English language: borrowed words from Latin

Here we can find a list of 171 words that were borrowed from Latin. It does not bring a detailed reflection about the theme but it is a useful tool for we see some of such words. The site quickly group these words in some areas, such as business and trade, politics, Mathematics and names of months. Besides, the site brings several links through which we can search for some brief information about Language and Linguistics.

The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language – Google books

This site brings David Crystal’s book as an extensive material on English history with a short but interesting reference to the effect of Latin on English vocabulary. The author explains that Christian missionaries from Ireland and Rome were the great responsible for bringing many Latin words to the language. In this way, through examples and illustrations he briefly presents the reverberation of these lexical invasions in the Modern English.

Historical contextualization to the Latin influence on English

An historical overview

This page is a group on the Yahoo Network, called Analytical Indicant Theory. In one of its posts, a member of the group wrote the essay: "Latin and English: a historical overview". It is a great and well-informed text, especially because it explains the different phases of English adoption and assimilation of Latin: the Zero, First, Second, Third, and Modern periods. It is interesting to read because it gives many interesting examples of words which came from Latin and may be unknown by us.

What are the origins of the English Language?

This site brings an overview about the origins of the English language through a brief explanation about some languages that caused substantial impacts on the English lexicon. It does not specify the influence of Latin on English with details, but it helps us to understant the contextualization of the development of the language from Old English to Modern English.

History of English - Five Events that Shaped the History of English

Here we also have some brief information about the histoty of English that can be used as a quickly contextualization for the tremendous numbers of borrowings from Latin.

The development of English

This webpage is part of the Website "An English History and Its Development", which talks about the Latin and Greek influence on English, and also the French influence, since it has Latin origins as well. It is a shallow text, but it's very useful to have a first contact with the theme. It's also interesting because on the link "Table of Contents" you can read another texts about the English development.

“Teaching and Learning material”

This page contains, as it is said in the homepage, "materials for teaching and learning". This specific link leads to a list of another links related to English etymology. There's many websites talking about English history and others about Latin itself. Each one of them gives some brief information of this influence, but it's a nice website to learn more about English consolidation.

Online Books Samples

Latin Words in English Renaissance

On this website, you can read a passage of the book "Latin words in the English Renaissance - A survey with emphasis on socio-cultural aspects", written by Mathias Wick. You can have a great brief summary on the historical factors which made this influence happen. The pity is that there isn't the complete text - but to those who were interested on it, the book's available to be purchased by Internet.

History in English Words

This is another online book of which only few pages can be read, by Owen Barfield. It is interesting though, gives a nice taste of English history, and those who liked the book can buy it online.

The History of the English Language

This is another book sample about the history of English written by Oliver Farrar Emerson, that mentions, of course, the influence of Latin. On the pages that can be seen, there's many detailed description about the origins and the outside influences English had, including phonetical and lexical.

Webographies (of related themes as well)

Webography - Tatiana Alves:

http://www.theinfluenceoflatinonenglish.blogspot.com/

This webography presents some interesting links to sites about the influence of Latin on English. It is a good reference to a quick comprehension about the theme

Here there are some other webographies which may be useful to research about the theme as well:

Language Planning & Post-Colonialism
The English languages
The History of Old English
The Revival of Irish

An interesting tool for virtual researchers

Through Google Books, we can search for scientific books that are scanned in the Internet. Thus some of their pages or even chapters are put in the site in order to spread the specific study as a kind of a book preview.