Latin vs. Germanic influences on English

Wasn't Roman Latin (as opposed to Catholic Church Latin) written without spaces between words? Also, aren't many German words connected? I wonder if there is a connection?

English is definitely a Germanic languages since it is derived from the Angles and the Saxsons.

Also, I would think there are more French words in English than Latin since the Norman influence is stronger (re more recent) than the Roman influence.

Finally, were any Celtic words retained?

English 'get' can also mean 'become' - 'Things got worse', 'Things became worse'.

I wonder what the etymology of 'get' is. I don't think there's a similar word in either modern German or Latin, yet it sounds like a Germanic word. Using modern German is a bit tricky in classifying English, because English is a 'Low German' variant, coming from the German spoken near the North Sea, whereas modern accepted German is essentially 'High German' from further up the Rhine.

And in modern English it is usually possible to use both Germanic and Latinesque usages, as in "'Time' magazine founder Henry Luce' and "Henry Luce, the founder of the magazine 'Time'".

Moreover both modern French and modern English, unlike modern German and Latin, are virtually caseless and conjugationless. English in particular with its tendency to use the same word as, e.g., noun, adjective and/or verb, has some similarity to Chinese, though of course no historical relationship.

'You should hedge your investments'

'He bought future contracts as a hedge against....'

'Hedge funds were particularly active yesterday...'

'Don't hedge - speak out'

Originally posted by Styrbiorn get c.1200, from O.N. geta "to obtain, reach" (p.t. gatum, pp. getenn), from P.Gmc. *getan (cf. O.E. begietan "to beget," O.Swed. gissa "to guess," lit. "to try to get"), from PIE base *ghe(n)d- "seize" (cf. Gk. khandanein "to hold, contain," Lith. godetis "be eager," second element in L. prehendere "to grasp, seize," Welsh gannu "to hold, contain," O.C.S. gadati "to guess, suppose"). Meaning "to seize mentally, grasp" is from 1892. O.E., as well as Du. and Fris., had the root only in compounds (cf. beget, forget). Vestiges of O.E. cognate *gietan remain obliquely in pp. gotten and original pt. gat. The word and phrases built on it take up 29 columns in the OED 2nd edition. Slang get over "recover, rebound" is from 1687. Getaway "escape" is from 1852. Get-up "equipment or costume" is from 1847. Get-rich-quick (adj.) is from 1902. Get wind of "become acquainted with" is from 1840, from earlier to get wind "to get out, become known" (1722).

Thank you.

Originally posted by Capt. Lubber And so english has a vast vocabulary

Not exactly true, yeah there are words derived from different languages (like 'difficult' (rom.) vs 'hard' (ger.)), but what really puzzles me is why English has such a huge amount of loanwords. Really, if it gets only a little bit complicated, they start borrowing words from Latin. And the more academic you get, the less "English" remains.

For even a simple word like "possibility", English doesn't seem to have a native word, they instead pick a Latin word and add a suffix. In fact, all words ending on -ity are loanwords, along with many others. Now that happens in other Germanic languages at well, but to a far lesser extend, and those have their own native words. I bet Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, F�roese, Icelandic (that one for sure ) and Frisian all have a native word for "possibility" or "opportunity" like German and Dutch have (and Flemish and Afrikaans for nitpickers )