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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First of all, the Roman Empire absolutely did stretch into England and England was a major part of the empire for almost 500 years, and quite important trading partner before and after.
Second, latin was in large use in England since the time of the Romans. Third, Many words came from other sources in english, such as French, Dutch, German, and many from old norse.
Its of absolutely no surprise that latin is found in English. It’s the opposite, if there was no latin, that would be really odd.
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