Comment on You got it, buddy
porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml 8 hours agoSure, but many of those words for specialised doctors came to English through French, not directly from Latin or Greek. And I don’t think that you can reasonably argue that English words with French origins aren’t by now a native part of the language. We use many of the same names in Dutch too, coming from French loanwords.
yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de 8 hours ago
Wasn’t English’s French influence mostly over by this point? The Norman conquest added a bunch of French vocabulary but by the 1700’s, England was a stable colonial power.
And for very frequently used terms - like anatomical terms - the English root remained mostly intact and loanwords weren’t used. Arm, nose, shoulder, knee, elbow etc. are not French in origin.
I suspect it could be remnant of nobility separating itself from the common people. By only ever referring to anything with its Latin term, you can distinguish the wealthy, highly-educated from the poorer, lesser-educated people. After all, if you spoke Latin and/or Greek those terms make a lot of intuitive sense.
porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml 6 hours ago
French remained influential in the courts, higher education, and elite society long after it stopped being the “official” language. That last part is totally right.