Foreign-language influences in English
The vocabulary of the English language has been shaped by extensive borrowing throughout its history. English descends from Old English, a West Germanic language, but much of its vocabulary consists of words borrowed from other languages. A survey of 75,150 words in the third edition of the Shorter Oxford Dictionary found that words originating in the French and Latin languages together accounted for most of its entries. Other studies have produced different estimates, and the proportions vary depending on the corpus and the frequency of the words examined. The most common English words remain predominantly of Old English (Germanic) origin. English has borrowed words from many other languages, including Greek, Old Norse, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, German, Arabic, and numerous Indigenous and Asian languages.
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