This list contains Germanic elements of the English language which have a close corresponding Latinate form. The correspondence is semantic–in most cases these words are not cognates, but in some cases they are doublets, i.e., ultimately derived from the same root, generally Proto-Indo-European, as in cow and beef, both ultimately from PIE *gʷōus.
The meaning of these words do not always correspond to Germanic cognates, and occasionally the specific meaning in the list is unique to English.
Word origins
A computerised survey of about 80,000 words in the old Shorter Oxford Dictionary (3rd ed.) was published in Ordered Profusion by Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff (1973)[1] that estimated the origin of English words as follows:
Influences in English vocabulary
Langue d'oïl, including French and Old Norman: 28.3%
Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%
Germanic languages – inherited from Old English, from Proto-Germanic, or a more recent borrowing from a Germanic language such as Old Norse; does not include Germanic words borrowed from a Romance language, i.e., coming from the Germanic element in French, Latin or other Romance languages: 25%
Greek: 5.32%
No etymology given: 4.03%
Derived from proper names: 3.28%
All other languages: less than 1%
A survey by Joseph M. Williams in Origins of the English Language of 10,000 words taken from several thousand business letters gave this set of statistics:[2]
French (langue d'oïl): 41%
"Native" English: 33%
Latin: 15%
Old Norse: 5%
Dutch: 1%
Other: 5%[3]
NB: "This pronunciation guide is mainly for English speaking readers. The pronunciation of Greek and Latin words in other languages, such as Dutch or German or Spanish, is quite different."
Andrea Dudithio interprete. E libro: Dionysiou Halikarnaseos ta heuriskomena, historika te kai rhetorika, syngrammata : Dionysii Halicarnassei scripta quae extant, omnia, et historica, et rhetorica. E veterum librorum auctoritate, doctorumq; hominum animadversionibus quamplurimis in locis emendata & interpolata; cum Latina versione ad Græci exemplaris fidem ... collata & conformata ... Addita fragmenta quædam, cum Glareani Chronologia, & duplici appendice. Additæ etiam notæ ... Adjecti præterea duo ... indices; alter graecus; alter, Latinus (MDLXXVI [1586])
Duke Databank of Documentary Papyri electronic corpus of all Greek and Latin texts found on papyri, ostraca or wooden tablets which have been published in discrete volumes or in series.