There's a lot of complexity when looking in to the origins of European languages mostly from people using broad terms that they were familiar with at the time of writing but are unfamiliar when we try to understand them many centuries later.
Even such a simple term as Latin. Which Latin do you mean? There's several variations from the very early Roman Latin, later Roman-Greco Latin, and even later than that Germanic Latin.
Yes, languages always fascinated me too. Over the centuries a few different people have tried to develop a universal language and they've got a bit of media attention at the time but their made up languages are soon forgotten again, mostly because we already have a common universal language and it's been around for a long time. Go to any country in Europe and it's not difficult to find someone that speaks English.
English is not one language, it's a combination of four languages.
Go back to around 1000 bc and the people living in the British Isles were quite primitive and simple peoples living simple lives. The only common domesticated animals they had for meat were Pigs. Pig is one of the very few words of those original languages that we still use. All of the words that have "ough" or "augh" in their spelling are also from those early languages.
Around 600 bc Celts started sailing to the British Isles, sometimes raiding, sometimes trading, and sometimes settling there and becoming part of the local communities. The Celts introduced all sorts of new things that the British tribes didn't have words for, so naturally they picked up the Celtic words. The Celts spoke a Germanic language closely related to modern day Flemmish.
Nearly all the words we use regarding household and farming are of German origin. Most of them we spell differently but use the same sounds when speaking.
Cow = Kau
House = Haus
Oven = Offen
Then there's a few odd ones that we spell the same way but say them differently. Knife for example.
There was about 500 years of the language settling down with that and becoming a stable new language, then came the Romans.
Once again the Romans introduced a whole heap of new things that the people didn't have words for, so they used the Roman words. Almost all of our words regarding civil infrastructure are Latin. In written language all of these words look so familiar to people that speak Spanish but we pronounce them so differently that we struggle to understand each other. Plumbing, education, sanitation, etc.
The Romans hung around for about 400 years then left again. Once again the language settled down and evolved and became it's own language. That lasted for around 700 years, then came the French.
The Brits saw France as a much more advanced and civilised society than their own and were envious, to this day they still regard anything from France as being fashionable and upmarket. They were also fascinated with the French royalty and their legal system and wanted the same in their own lands. French royalty had a massive influence on British royalty and it was in the royal courts that we saw the most influence, even to the point of British royalty speaking French rather than English.
So we adopted French language for almost anything that was seen as the sole privilege of the upper classes.
We breed Pigs but we don't eat pig meat, we eat Pork. (porc)
We breed cows (kaus) but we don't eat cow meat, we eat Beef. (beoff)
Parliament is a French word, from the verb Parle - to speak.
Advanced education and all the sciences were also the sole privilege of upper classes and so we use French words for almost everything to do with sciences and arts as well.
So the English language is roughly 30% German, 30% Latin, and 30% French. The remaining 10% is made up of words from original languages spoken by various different peoples from the British Isles and words from other languages that we have adopted along the way.
It's also why I always prefer to use British English spelling, because the original spelling contains hints of the languages of origin for different words.
