@jayles:

Sumerian? You must've been reading works by Dr. Alfréd Tóth, right? Dr. Tóth is a big believer in the Sumerian-Hungarian origins rather than a Finno-Ugric one. It seems that this is an idea that is on the Hungarian lunatic-fringe. I have no thoughts about it either way; I try to stay open to new things.

I don't do much with Hungarian roots, so, at this time, I have only the following link to give:

1. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Hungarian_terms_derived_from_other_languages

I'll look around and see what I can dig up. I may be able to put forward a good book or two on the subject.

MfG

English > Latin

soothsaw > proverb

after think > repent

sour dough > leaven

medeful > meritorious

mooned > lunatic

sunstead > solstice

leechcraft > medicine

waterfright > hydrophobia

wanhope > despair

forewit* > prudence

inwit* > conscience

* compare 'nit wit' (not wise, no mind, not thinking), which is still said today.

These are examples of true word swaps. Sad is it not?

"That the English language has been enriched by the Latin influx is true, but it has been impoverished by it as well. Due to a Latin bias some English writers borrowed foreign words where home-born English would have done as well, and even better. Moreover, by this borrowing process English has lost the power of making compounds, a power still retained by the Germans in a high degree and which is not only useful but also expressive. Old English formed compounds from independent words quite freely. O. F. Emerson says "the word land was part of at least sixty-three compounds in Old English, while the word even 'evening' was used in twenty-six, and life in twenty-seven compounds, and illustrates the expressiveness of some by such words as life-busy, life-care, lifeday, life-fast 'having life,' life-ward 'guardian of life,' life-way, life-well 'living spring,' life-win 'joy of life,' all of which have not come down to modern times."---pg. 15, Journal of genetic psychology, Volume 12, 1905
edited by Granville Stanley Hall, Carl Allanmore Murchison

@Stanmund: "The first I knew such high life was possible was hanging out at a party bursting with blumpen upper classes dripping in bling. I kid thee not, one goer showed up kitted out in the most blinging fur coat ever seen by mankind..."

What does "blumpen" mean? Why use "thee" instead of "you"? Why "kitted"? There are many, many everyday words you could've chosen. 'Bling"? Okay, in German we have blinken (sparkle, twinkle, gleam), so I can live with that. I don't think hip-hop/rap artists picked it up from German, though.;-p

You also used Latin words: possible, party, & classes. Here is my take:

The first I knew such high-life was within reach was hanging out at a bash teeming with a high-borne crowd buried in bling. I kid you not, one guest showed up wearing the most blinging fur coat ever seen by mankind...

Instead of L. nausea and L. delicate >> M.Eng. queasy >

> 1425–75; late Middle English qweysy, quaysy; spelling/speaking of the English word might be influenced by A.N. queisier (Old French coisier)- both are from O.N. kveisa

Instead of L. enlarge >> M.Eng. biggen >> Big"gen\, v. t. & i. To make or become big; to enlarge. [Obs. or Dial.]--source: "biggen." Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary. MICRA, Inc. 30 Jul. 2011.

EX. "We need to biggen the film."

Instead of L. transient >> M.Eng. flitten or fleeting

Instead of L. measure >> M.Eng. mete (Old English metan, Old Saxon metan; cognate with Dutch meten, Old Norse meta, Gothic mitan, German messen to measure).

Meanings:

1.to distribute or apportion by measure; allot; dole (usually followed by out): to mete out punishment. >> to mete out punishment.

2. to measure (although archaic)

EX. "That board has already been meted."

EX. "Can you mete the height of that tree?"

To further understand how the English tongue became swamped with Latin loans, one may want to read 'The Civile Conversation" (c.1581) by George Pettie.

Pettie holds that borrowing from Latin is very worthwhile. He says, thusly, "...for it is in deed the ready way to inrich our tongue, and make it copious, and it is the way which all tongues have take to inrich them selves." His main thought was that somehow English was under developed, unlike French, Italian, and Spanish. The latter were rich because of their Latin base, and Latin was rich because of it's Greek loans.

Yikes! How unthoughtful of Mr. Pettie! The sad thing is that, in the 17th century when most of the marring to English was done, it was broadly held by many "scholars" that the flood of loan words from Latin-French and Greek were needed, and that these words had made English richer. For me, at least, this is an unsettled, open thought.

"Sir Thomas Elyot... was responsible for many Latin and Greek borrowings, like 'animate', 'education', 'encyclopedia', 'frugality', 'metamorphosis', 'modesty', 'obfuscate', and 'persist'. All these words occur in The Governor..."--Early modern English (1997)
By Charles Laurence Barber

What we hold true today, about Latin words, was true back then: meanings of Latin and Greek words are not obvious to readers who do not know Latin and/or Greek.

How did Sir Elyot get around this? He use English to explain the meaning of the new word. For example, he wrote things like this, "...the beste fourme of education or bringing up of noble children...". He already is linking the word "education" with "noble"...pretty sneaky. Sir Elyot firmly believes in, as he wrote, "the necessary augmentation of our language."

Anyway, if Sir Elyot and his ilk flooded English with Latin and Greek loans this way, it might work for bringing old and lost words back in to English.

Thoughts anyone?