People
often take their language for granted. Only a few bother to learn the history
behind their own mother tongue or what words and phrases in their language's
vocabulary are actually words that come from another language. Take the English
language for instance. There are many words used in the English language that
are borrowed from such languages as German, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian,
Japanese, and Chinese. These languages mentioned are all languages still spoken
by millions, if not billions, of people today in various parts of the world.
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But there
are also words in the English language that come from one of the so-called dead
languages of the world – Latin. Without being aware of it, adult English
speakers have been using Latin words for much of their lives. Latin gave rise
to what is known as Romance Languages, a category where French, Spanish,
Portuguese, Italian and many other related languages rose from.
