Editing Latin influence in English (section)

==Consequences for English==
In addition to a large number of historical borrowings and coinages, today Latinate words continue to be coined in English – see [[classical compound]]s – particularly in technical contexts. A number of more subtle consequences include: numerous [[Doublet (linguistics)|doublets]] – two or more cognate terms from both a Germanic and Latinate source (or Latinate sources), such as cow/beef; numerous cases of etymologically unrelated terms for closely related concepts, notably Germanic nouns with a Latin adjective, such as bird/avian or hand/manual; complicated etymologies due to indirect borrowings (via Romance) or multiple borrowings; and usage controversies over the perceived complexity of Latinate terms.

===Noun/adjective doublets===
As with [[List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents in English|Germanic/Latinate]] [[Doublet (linguistics)|doublets]] from the Norman period, the use of Latinate words in the sciences has created pairs with a native Germanic noun and a Latinate adjective:
*'''animals:''' ant/formic, bee/apian, bird/avian, crow/corvine, cod/gadoid, carp/cyprine, fish/piscine, gull/larine, wasp/vespine, butterfly/papilionaceous, worm/vermian, spider/arachnid, snake/anguine (or serpentine), tortoise (or turtle)/testudinal, cat/feline, lion/leonine, rabbit/cunicular, hare/leporine, dog/canine, deer/cervine, reindeer/rangiferine, fox/vulpine, wolf/lupine, goat/caprine, sheep/ovine, swan/cygnean, duck/anatine, starling/sturnine, goose/anserine, dove/columbine, ostrich/struthious, horse/equine, chicken/gallinaceous, ox/bovine, pig/porcine, whale/cetacean, ape/simian, bear/ursine, human/hominine (''gender specific'': man/masculine, woman/feminine); these Germanic nouns can be made into adjectives by adding "-like".
*'''physiology:''' head/capital, body/corporal, ear/aural, eye/ocular or visual, nose/nasal, mouth/oral, tooth/dental, tongue/lingual, lips/labial, neck/cervical, shoulder/scapular, finger/digital, hand/manual, arm/brachial, foot/pedal, sole of the foot/plantar, leg/crural, thigh/femoral, chest/pectoral, nipple/papillary, brain/cerebral, mind/mental, nail/ungual, hair/pilar, lung/pulmonary, kidney/renal, blood/sanguine, heart/cardiac.
*'''astronomy:''' moon/lunar, sun/solar, earth/terrestrial, star/stellar.
*'''sociology:''' son or daughter/filial, mother/maternal, father/paternal, brother/fraternal, sister/sororal, wife/uxorial, uncle/avuncular.
*'''other:''' book/literary, edge/marginal, fire/igneous, water/aquatic, sea/marine, wind/vental, ice/glacial, boat (or ship)/naval, house/domestic, door/portal, window/fenestral, wall/mural, bridge/pontine, town/urban, sight/visual, ring/annular, tree/arboreal, bloom/floral, marsh/paludal, land (country)/national, sword/gladiate, king/regal, earl/comital, fighter/military, law/legal, church/ecclesiastical, bell/tintinnabulary, cooking/culinary, clothes/sartorial.

Thus Latin constitutes a [[stratum (linguistics)#Superstratum|linguistic superstratum]] for English just as [[Japanese language|Japanese]] has a [[Chinese language|Chinese]] superstratum and [[Hindustani language|Hindustani]] has a [[Persian language|Persian]]  superstratum.

===Indirect influence===
It is not always easy to tell at what point a word entered English, or in what form. Some words have come into English from Latin more than once, through French or another Romance language at one time and directly from Latin at another. Thus there are pairs like fragile/frail, army/armada, corona/crown, ratio/reason, and rotund/round. The first word in each pair came directly from Latin, while the second entered English from French (or Spanish, in the case of ''armada''). In addition, some words have entered English twice from French, with the result that they have the same source, but different pronunciations reflecting changing pronunciation in French, for example, chief/chef (the former a Middle English borrowing and the latter modern). Multiple borrowings explain other word pairs and groups with similar roots but different meanings and/or pronunciations: canal/channel, poor/pauper, coy/quiet, disc/disk/dish/desk/dais/discus.

===Sociolinguistical consequences===
David Corson in The Lexical Bar (1985) defended the thesis that the large portion of Greco-Latinate words in Academic English explains the difficulties of working class children in the educational system. When exposed at home mainly to colloquial English (primarily Anglo-Saxon words), children may have more difficulty at school than their peers who have more access at home to academic words (often longer, more Greco-Latinate). This difference tends not to become less by education but greater, potentially impeding their access to academic or social careers. In various experiments and comparative studies Corson measured fewer differences between 12 year olds than 15 year olds due to their unfamiliarity with Greco-Latinate words in English and the way teachers deal with them.
Corson's views were not always represented correctly. In his totally revised Using English Words (1995) the linguistic, historical, psychological and educational aspects have been integrated better.