Are half the words in English from French?

More or Less: Behind the Stats

BBC

Business, Mathematics, Science, News Commentary, News

4.6 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 7 October 2023

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Are almost half the words in the English language of French origin? It’s a claim one of our loyal listeners found surprising. Tim Harford talks to Dr Beth Malory, lecturer in English Linguistics at University College London, who explains why so many words derived from French have ended up in English. Presenter: Tim Harford Producer: Daniel Gordon Series Producer: Jon Bithrey Editor: Richard Vadon Sound Engineer: Graham Puddifoot (Picture: A French dictionary showing the entry 'Dictionnaire' Credit: NSA Digital Archive / iStock / Getty Images Plus)

Transcript

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0:00.0	LiveSless Ordinary is the podcast from the BBC World Service, bringing you extraordinary
0:05.7	personal stories from around the globe.
0:08.6	Search for LiveSless Ordinary wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
0:19.6	Thank you for downloading the more or less podcast.
0:23.4	We are weekly guides, the numbers and the news and in life, and I'm Tim Halford.
0:28.2	Could half the words I'm speaking be of French origin?
0:32.1	Or for that matter, half of all the English words you've ever heard.
0:36.5	Our loyal listener, Lawrence, or Long Hall's potato, thought this idea sounded a bit
0:42.2	uncriabler to him.
0:44.0	He spotted a comment piece in the UK newspaper The Times, which stated, today, almost half
0:50.1	the words in English are French in origin.
0:53.5	I encountered this very bold assertion this morning, can it really be true?
0:57.3	A flabbergasted Lawrence asks.
0:59.9	The journalist who wrote the article, Tomiwa Awaladeh, shared the source where he found
1:04.2	that statistic.
1:05.2	It's a website called summerlingui.com.
1:08.9	It put the figure at 45% and I'll put my stamp of approval on the claim that 45% is
1:15.4	indeed almost half.
1:17.9	But the claim raises more questions than it answers.
1:21.2	How might summerlingui.com have reached this conclusion?
1:24.8	And what does it even mean?
1:27.0	I'm to seek out an expert.
	...

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