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The origin of English Words
Native words
Native
words, though they constitute only 30% of the English vocabulary, are the most
frequently used words, they constitute 80% of the 500 most frequent words
complied by Thorndyke & Longe (The Teacher’s Wordbook of 30000 Words.
New York, 1959).
Native words
are subdivided into two groups: Indo-European & Common Germanic.
The oldest
layer of words in English is words met in Indo-European languages. There are
several semantic groups of them:
# words denoting kinship: father
(Vater, pater), mother (mutter, mater), son (Sohn, сын), daughter (Tochter, дочь),
# words denoting important
objects & phenomena of nature: the sun (die Sohne, солнце), water (Wasser, вода),
# names of animals &
birds: cat (Kazte, кот), goose
(Gans, гусь), wolf (Wolf, волк),
# names of parts of a human
body: heart (Herz, сердце),
# some of the most often used
verbs: sit (sitzen, сидеть), stand (stehen, стоять),
# some numerals: two
(zwei, два), three
(drei, три).
A much
larger group of native vocabulary is Common Germanic words (German, Norwegian,
Dutch, Icelandic). Here we can find the nouns: summer, winter, storm, rain, ice,
ground, bridge, house, life, shoe; the verbs: bake, burn, buy, drive, hear,
keep, learn, make, meet, rise, see; the adjectives: broad,
dead, deaf, deep etc., conjunctions (except “because” and “during”), auxiliary
verbs, modal verbs, all the numerals (except “second, dozen and million”), all
pronouns (except the Scandinavian “they, their, them”), the adverbs
(again, forward, near), prepositions (after, at, by, over, under,
from, for).
Common
Germanic part of the English vocabulary contains a great number of semantic
groups. The following list will illustrate their general character:
ankle, breast, bridge, bone, calf, cheek, chicken, coal, hand, heaven, hope,
life, meal, shirt, ship, summer, winter and many more.
Native words
possess an important formal feature: they are mostly monosyllabic. There are
some borrowed monosyllabic words (e.g. large, table, etc.), but as a rule
borrowed words are polysyllabic; compare such synonym words, as life
– existence, time – duration, take – accept, where the first members of
the pairs are native and the second ones are borrowings.
Native words
have a great worldbuilding capacity, form many phraseological units, they are
mostly polysemantic.
Borrowings
Borrowing
words from other languages has been characteristic of English throughout its
history. More than two thirds of the English vocabulary is borrowings. Mostly
they are words of Romanic origin (Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish).
Borrowed words are different from native ones by their phonetical morphological
structures & by their grammatical forms. It is also characteristic of
borrowings to be non-motivated semantically.
English history is very rich in different types of contacts with other
countries that is why it is very rich in borrowings. The Roman invasion
(вторжение), the adoption of Christianity, Scandinavian & Norman conquests of the
British Isles, the development of British colonialism & trade &
cultural relations served to increase immensely the English vocabulary. The
majority of these borrowings is fully assimilated in English in their
pronunciation, grammar, spelling & can be hardly distinguished from native
words.
The term source
of borrowing should be distinguished from the term origin of borrowing. The
first should be applied to the language from which the borrowing was taken into
English. The second, on the other hand, refers to the language to which the
word may be traced. Thus the word paper < Fr papier < Lat papyrus <
Gr papyros has French as its source of borrowing & Greek as its
origin.
English
continues to take in foreign words, but now the quantity of borrowings is not
so abundant (обильный) as it was
before. English now has become a giving language; it has become a
lingua franca (смешанный язык, используемый людьми из разных стран) of the 21st century.
Borrowings can be classified
according to different criteria:
a) according to the aspect,
which is borrowed,
b) according to the degree of assimilation,
c) according to the language from which the word was borrowed.
Classification
of borrowings according to the language from which they were borrowed
Romanic Borrowings
Latin
Borrowings
Some
scientists point out four periods of Latin borrowings in the old English. The
first 3 came during the Old English period (up to the 12-th century) and they
are called Early Latin borrowings. The 4-th layer refers to the period of
Renaissance (the 15 – 16 centuries).
The 1-st
layer of Latin borrowings penetrated (проникать) into the Old English dialects during the first centuries before the
appearance of the Anglo-Saxons in Britain. All the Latin borrowings of the 1-st
layer came through oral communication and denoted everyday concrete things and
actions.
The 2-nd
layer of Early Latin borrowings appeared after the 5-th century. Among words of
Romanic origin borrowed from Latin during the period when the British Isles
were a part of the Roman Empire, there are such words as: street, port, wall etc.
The 3-rd
layer of Early Latin borrowings appeared in the period after the 6-th century.
Many Latin & Greek words came into English during the Adoption of
Christianity in the 6th century. At this time the Latin alphabet was
borrowed which ousted the Runic alphabet. These borrowings are usually called
classical borrowings. Here belong Latin words connected with religion: altar,
cross, dean, & Greek words: church, angel, devil, anthem (гимн) and names of animals, plants
and minerals unknown in Britain: lion, tiger, oil, chalk, rose, lily, names
of unspecified meanings: school, history, noon.
The 4-th
layer of Latin & Greek borrowings appeared in English during the Middle
English period due to the Great Revival (Ренессанс) of Learning. These are mostly scientific words because Latin was the
language of science at the time. These words weren’t used as frequently as the
words of the Old English period, therefore some of them were partly assimilated
grammatically, e.g. formula – formulae. Here also belong such words as: memorandum,
minimum, maximum, veto.
Classical
borrowings continue to appear in Modern English as well. Mostly they are words
formed with the help of Latin & Greek morphemes. There are quite a lot of
them in medicine (appendicitis, aspirin), in chemistry (acid, valency, alkali –щелочь), in technology (antenna, biplane, airdrome, engine),
in politics (socialism, militarism), names of science (zoology, physics). In
philology, most terms are of Greek origin (homonym, archaism, lexicology).
French Borrowings
Borrowings of French Words
(the 1-st layer, XII-XIV cc.)
In the year
of 1066 the English army was defeated by the Normans, who came from France and
spoke French. The Normans became the rulers of the country and for more than
200 years the French language was widely used in England at the Court, in the
Parliament; it was the language of art and literature, and it was widely used
by aristocracy and in military spheres. This process was so intensive and
powerful that is changed the whole nature of the English vocabulary.
They’re the
following semantic groups of French borrowings:
a) words relating to
government: administer, empire, state, government;
b) words relating to military
affairs: army, war, banner, soldier, battle;
a)
terms of
law: advocate,
petition (ходатайство, прошение), inquest (следствие), sentence, barrister (барристер – адвокат, имеющий право выступать в высших судах);
b)
words
relating to fashion: luxury, coat, collar, lace, pleat,
embroidery (вышивание);
c)
words
relating to jewelry: topaz, emerald, pearl;
d)
words
relating to food & cooking: lunch, dinner, appetite, to roast, to stew;
e)
words
connected with religion and science: lesson, rule, order, blame;
f)
abstract
words: pity, glory, existence, matter;
g)
names of
town trades and objects of trade: tailor, butcher, painter, furniture, dress.
The 2nd layer of French borrowings
In the 17th
century another wave of French loan-words came into English. It was connected
with political, cultural and military influence of France in Western Europe at
that time. This influence was especially strong in the aristocratic circles in
Britain due to the restoration of monarchy after the English revolution of the
17th century. Words were borrowed from French into English after
1650, mainly through French literature, but they were not numerous & many
of them aren’t completely assimilated. There are the following semantic groups
of these borrowings:
a)
words
relating to literature & music: belle-lettres (худ. литература),
conservatoire, brochure, nuance;
b)
words
relating to military affairs: echelon, fuselage, maneuver;
c)
words relating to buildings & furniture: entresol,
chateau (шато), bureau;
d)
words
relating to food & cooking: regout, cuisine (кулинарное искусство).
Italian Borrowings
Cultural
& trade relations between Italy & England brought many Italian words
into English. The earliest Italian borrowings came into English in the 14th
century; it was the word bank (from the Italian banko
– bench). Italian money-lenders (ростовщик) & money-changers (меняла) sat in the
street on benches. When they suffered losses, they turned over their benches,
it was called banco rotta from which the English word bankrupt originated. In
the 17th century some geological terms were borrowed: granite,
bronze, lava. At the same time some political terms were borrowed: manifesto,
bulletin.
But mostly
Italian is famous for its influence in music & in all European languages
musical terms were borrowed from Italian: basso, tenor, solo, duet, trio, quartet,
opera, operetta, piano, violin.
Among the 20th-century
borrowings we can mention gazette (официальный орган печати), incognito, autostrada, fiasco, fascist,
dilettant, graffiti (рисунок или надпись, нанесенный с помощью царапин на твердую поверхность) etc.
Spanish Borrowings
Spanish
borrowings came into English mainly through its American variant. There are the
following semantic groups of them:
a)
trade terms:
cargo
(груз), embargo (эмбарго, запрет);
b)
names of dances & musical instruments: tango,
rumba, habanera (испанский танец кубинского происхождения),
guitar;
c)
names of
vegetables & fruit: tomato, potato, tobacco, cocoa, banana,
ananas, apricot etc.
Germanic Borrowings
English
belongs to the Germanic group of languages & there are borrowings from
Scandinavian, German & Dutch languages, though their number is much less
than the number of borrowings from Romanic languages.
Scandinavian Borrowings
By the end
of the Old English period English underwent a strong influence of Scandinavian
due to the Scandinavian conquest of the British Isles during the 8–10
centuries. Scandinavians belong to the same group of peoples as Englishmen
& their languages had much in common. As a result of this conquest there
are about 700 borrowings from Scandinavian into English.
Scandinavians
& Englishmen had the same way of life, their cultural level was the same,
they had much in common in their literature, therefore there were many words in
these languages which were almost identical.
There were
many words in the two languages, which were different, & some of them were
borrowed into English, e.g. such nouns as: bull, cake, egg, kid, knife, skirt, window
etc., such adjectives as: flat, ill, happy, low, odd, ugly, wrong,
such verbs as: call, die, guess, get, give, scream & many others.
Even some
pronouns & connective words were borrowed which happens very seldom, such
as same,
both, till, fro, though, & pronominal forms with th:
they,
them, their.
Scandinavian
influenced the development of phrasal verbs, which didn’t exist in Old English;
at the same time some prefixed verbs came out of usage, e.g. ofniman,
beniman. Phrasal verbs are now highly productive in English (to
take off, give in etc.
German Borrowings
There are
some 800 words borrowed from German into English. Some of them have classical
roots, e.g. in some geological terms, such as cobalt, zinc, quarts, wolfram.
There were also words denoting objects used in everyday life which were
borrowed from German: iceberg, lobby, rucksack, Kindergarten
etc.
In the
period of the Second World War the following language units were borrowed: Volssturm,
Luftwaffe, SS-man, Buderswehr, Gestapo, gas chamber & many others.
After the Second World War the following words were borrowed: Volkswagen,
Gaistarbaiter, Ostarbaiter etc.
Dutch Borrowings
Holland
& England have had constant interrelations for many centuries & more
than 2000 Dutch words were borrowed into English. Most of them are nautical
[`no:tikl] (морской) & were mainly borrowed
in the 14th century, such as freight (перевозка грузов), skipper, pump, keel, dock, reef,
deck, leak (течь) & many others.
Some of them
were borrowed into Russian as well, e.g. шкипер, киль, док, риф.
Russian Borrowings
Besides the
two main groups of borrowings (Romanic & Germanic) there are also
borrowings from a lot of other languages.
There were
constant contacts between England & Russia & they borrowed words from
one language into the other. Among early Russian borrowings there are mainly
words connected with trade relations, such as: rouble [ru:bl],
kopeck [`koupek], pood, sterlet, vodka, sable, & also words
relating to nature, such as: taiga, tundra, steppe etc.
There is
also a large group of Russian borrowings, which came into English through
Russian literature of the 19th century, such as: Narodnik,
`moujik, duma, zemstvo, volost, ukase etc, & also words which were
formed in Russian with Latin roots, such as: nihilist [`nai(h)ilist], intellegenzia, Decembrist etc.
After the
October Revolution many new words appeared in Russian. They were connected with
the new political system, new culture, & many of them were borrowed into
English, e.g. collectivization, udarnic, Komsomol etc & also translation
loans, e.g. shock worker, collective farm, five-year plan, Young Communist League,
Soviet power etc.
One more
group of Russian borrowings is connected with perestroika, such as: glasnost,
nomenklatura, apparatchik etc.
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