English originated in Anglo-Saxo

See also Language and etymology

Word parts & types

lexemes

  • noun, verb, adjective and adverb "stems" (basic word by itself

morphemes

  • sounds that are added to lexemes to create new words
    • including prefixes, suffixes and stem changes
      • pre-, -ly, -en, -s

English word origin

The approximate extent of Old Norse and related languages in the early 10th century:
Old West Norse dialect
Old East Norse dialect
Old Gutnish dialect
Old English
Crimean Gothic
Other Germanic languages with which Old Norse still retained some mutual intelligibility

Angles / Anglo-Saxon

  • from the Angles, a Germanic peoples who migrated to the British Islands in the 400s-600s AD.
    • part of the Anglo-Saxon invasions
  • English is one of the "Anglo-Frisian" languages

Language origins of Modern English

Origins of Modern English
Germanic Old French Latin Greek Other Proper Names
26% 29% 29% 6% 6% 4%

The most common words in English

Top Ten Most Common Words in English
1) the (article) 6) in (preposition)
2) be (verb) 7) that (relative pronoun, dependent marker)
3) to (particle, preposition) 8) have (verb)
4) and (conjunction) 9) I (pronoun)
5) a (article) 10) it (pronoun)


English synonymous & part of speech word use

  • the English language has a huge number of words that have multiple definitions
  • other languages may be more explicit with distinct words that English will cover with a single word.
  • for example:

English words & parts of speech distribution

Parts of Speech frequency as percent of all words

parts of speech as percentage of all words

parts of speech as percentage of word usage, conversational v. formal/academic:

English Language Percent Frequency of Use of Parts of Speech
Adjectives Adverbs Conjunctions Determiners Nouns Prepositions Pronouns Verbs
Conversational 2.5% 5% 4.5% 4.5% 15% 5.5% 16.5% 12.5%
Formal/ Academic 10% 3% 5% 10% 30% 15% 4% 10%
Adjectives Adverbs Nouns Verbs

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