Introduction to the Francophone World

Word Origins: Did You Know?

French belongs to a family of languages known as Romance languages. There are five major Romance languages in the world, and all of them evolved from the Latin language of the ancient Roman civilization. You can still see the origins of Latin in many French words today. For example, consider the origin of the French word lait, which means "milk." The Latin word for "milk" is lac or lactis.

In the table below, you can see that the main Romance languages all have similar words for "milk" since they all come from the Latin language.

 

Words for "Milk"
Latin: lac, lactis	Italian: latte
	French: lait
	Spanish: leche
	Portuguese: leite
	Romanian: lapte

You may be wondering why the English word milk is so different from the Romance languages. Although English has borrowed many words from Latin, English actually evolved from Germanic languages. You can see the origin of the English language in the German word for "milk," which is milch. Influence from Latin on the English language can be seen in the English word lactic, which means "pertaining to milk."