A history of the English Language

66.
The Extent of the Influence.
To be sure, the extent of a foreign influence is most readily seen in the number of words 
borrowed. As a result of the Christianizing of Britain some 450 Latin words appear in 
English writings before the close of the Old English period. This number does not include 
derivatives or proper names, which in the case of biblical names are very numerous. But 
about 100 of these were purely learned or retained so much of their foreign character as 
hardly to be considered part of the English vocabulary. Of the 350 words that have a right 
to be so considered, some did not make their way into general use until later—were, in 
fact, reintroduced later. On the other hand, a large number of them were fully accepted 
and thoroughly incorporated into the language. The real test of a foreign influence is the 
degree to which the words that it brought in were assimilated. This is not merely a 
question of the power to survive; it is a question of how completely the words were 
digested and became indistinguishable from the native word-stock, so that they could 
enter into compounds and be made into other parts of speech, just like native words. 
When, for example, the Latin noun 
planta
comes into English as the noun 
plant
and later 
A history of the english language 82

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is made into a verb by the addition of the infinitive ending -
ian (plantian)
and other 
inflectional elements, we may feel sure that the word has been assimilated. This 
happened in a number of cases as in 
gemartyrian
(to martyr), 
sealmian
(to play on the 
harp), 
culpian
(to humiliate oneself), 
fersian
(to versify), 
gl
ē
san
(to gloss), and 
crispian
(to curl). Assimilation is likewise indicated by the use of native formative suffixes such 
as -
d
ō
m, 
-
h
ā
d, 
-
ung
to make a concrete noun into an abstract 
(martyrd
ō
m, martyrh
ā
d, 
martyrung)
. The Latin influence of the Second Period was not only extensive but 
thorough and marks the real beginning of the English habit of freely incorporating 
foreign elements into its vocabulary.