It is estimated that about 60% of English vocabulary can be traced back to Latin roots. This is largely due to the influence of Latin as the language of the Roman Empire and its subsequent impact on English through French, which itself has many Latin roots.

Nearly 50 percent of our words in English have Latin roots. Some students who take Latin in school say that learning Latin helps them understand the meanings of words in English.

Latin, due to the influence of the Roman Catholic Church.

Roman language of Latin had great influence on later cultures

- basis for many European languages (Spanish, Italian, some English)

"Influence" comes from the Latin, "influere" which means "to flow into". Post-Roman Era Latin introduced the term "influentia" which became "influence" in the French, which is where the English language took it.