As far as I’ve been taught, English is not a romance language like French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish or Romanian. The Roman Empire didn’t stretch as far as the United Kingdom, and English is an Anglo-Saxonic language closer to German or Dutch than, say, Italian. So… how come words like “ambulance” (ambulat) and “transition” (transit) seem to be directly ripped from the original Latin?
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An additional factor that I’m not sure anyone has mentioned yet: Latin was the standard language for academic scholarship in most of Europe from the medieval period until the 1700s, when academics tended to start writing in the dominant local language instead. Famous British works such as Newton’s *Principia* were written in Latin, and many academic disciplines retained some Latin jargon even after they switched to English.
Also both the Germanic and Romance languages are ultimately descended from proto-Indo-European, so that’s the source of some similarities.
> “ambulance” (ambulat)
“Ambulance” was borrowed from French around the early 19th century, and became a common English word during the Crimean War.
> “transition” (transit)
Apparently that word was borrowed directly from Latin in the 15th century, but I can’t find any more details.
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