English Language Vocabulary Lesson on the origin of English Words (English Etymology)

Hello everyone, this is Marc. How are you today? Why does English have such a variety of words in its lexicon? And where did it get it from? Well, to answer to this question, we have to go back a few centuries, okay? So, English has had a lot of invasions from different tribes, different ethnic groups. Even before the arrival of the Romans under Emperor Claudius in AD 43, Great Britain had had an invasion of the Celts and had influenced the language already spoken there. When Latin arrived, obviously, there was a huge transformation in the language and culture of Great Britain at that time. Latin introduced words that were unknown. Latin didn't last that long, actually, half a millennium. And right after came the Anglo-Saxons. The Anglo-Saxons changed the language and it became a West Germanic language. And now it's called or it's referred to Old English. But the Anglo-Saxons didn't last long either and arrived the Norse and the Normans. So, obviously, the Norse changed a lot of words and words like starting with SK, even now skirt, for example, stayed in the language or were changed to SH. And then we have the Normans and the Normans also introduced new words, French words, old French words that have stayed in the language. And now is about 45% of the language, of the English language, is from the Norman roots. So now let's have a list of some of the words that contributed to the language. The Celts left some words in the language, but now have become names. So, for example, we have avon, which means river, and also we have dover, and this means water in Celtic, in the Celtic language, and also is a name right now. Latin words have to do with plants, animal, food, household. So we have wine, we have kettle, we have cheese, cat, and so on. Anglo-Saxon words are a mixture of everything. So we have apple, we have they, them, pronouns he, she, etc. Norse words, we have again score, bank, birth, etc. All words starting with SK, for example, like skirt, and I mentioned that before. Norman words are actually 45% of the English vocabulary. So there is a vast quantity of Norman words, and there are like, for example, royal, property, pork, beef, etc., etc. So these are the major contributors to the language. And so we said Latin, Celt, okay, the Celts. We have the Normans, obviously, the Norse, and the Anglo-Saxons. So as you may know, a language doesn't stop from evolving. And throughout history, we can see this in English. So when the discovery of America happened, the English language was modified a little by some words that were introduced to the language. So we have words like raccoon, chipmunk, tortilla, condor, puma, okay, jaguar. So as Great Britain became a world empire, it absorbed a lot of words from many regions of the world. So we have in Australia and New Zealand, we have kiwi, for example, or we have dingo, we have boomerang. Also, we have Indian words such as guru, pajamas, we have curry, obviously, etc. Arabic and Turkish also contributed to the English language. We have bazaar, we have kebab, we have coffee, etc. One student once asked me to teach pure English. And I answered to him, or I gave a question to him, but what's pure English to you? So pure English doesn't exist. Language is alive, and so is influenced by many cultures and by many situations in life. So it evolves. And we cannot say a language is pure or not. Or can we? So if you write under this video, is your language pure? Answer to this question, yes or no, and why. I hope you enjoyed the lesson, and I hope to see you next time. Please don't forget to share. Have a great day. Bye-bye.