I was watching a video linked in this answer and it made the following claim:


  [...] like most words in English is derived from German.


That got me thinking. While I know that Germanic languages have greatly influenced English, so have the Latin and Celtic ones (and various others to a greater or lesser degree). Is it true that more than 50% of the English vocabulary is derived from Germanic roots?

More generally, can someone point me to data on this? I imagine attempts have been made to quantify the contribution of different languages to English; what were the results? What percentage of the language comes from each source?

Ideally I would like to see this expressed in terms of % of words but I am aware that, at least to some linguists, attempting to quantify vocabulary is anathema (to give a simple reason, all languages that allow number construction have an infinite  vocabulary by definition), so alternative approaches to quantifying this are also welcome.


Question: use of verb "accord"
Answer: In this sense, verb "accord" means to grant.  The sentence means that the societal recognition automatically granted to rich white people was withheld from black citizens no matter how rich.  The noun "accord" means an agreement that often includes two parties mutually granting or withholding rights and privileges.  Thus the phrasing "accorded to" in the passive and the word "social" modifying "treatment," tell us that this is a societal agreement.