where do english words come from 2

8/13/2019 Where Do English Words Come From 2

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fromfrom? Part II? Part II31 October 2007


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Germanic invaders and are still used inModern English.

Some are rammatical words such as be

in, that, while others are lexical words:

, , .

Nucleus central mass; common wordsof the language


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concrete; e.g.

, ,chest (OE cest), ear (are), eye(age), foot (ft),hand hand heart heorte

The natural landscape: field, hedge, hill, land,meadow,wood;

Domestic life: door, floor, home, house;

, , , ,


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The conditions of cultural contact between the Celts and the

invading were such that the Celtic language could not have anyserious impact on Old English. Only a handful of Celtic words were

borrowed at the time, and just a few have survived into modern.

Town names, river names, some geographical terms in southern andeastern England.

,Gaelic in the 17th century: brogue, galore, shamrock, tory; and lateron: banshee, blarney, colleen.


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, , ,

slogan, whisky. All in all, there are appr. two dozen

loanwords of Celtic ori in in En lish

today.


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When speakers imitate a word from a foreign language, and adapt it in

sound or grammar to their native language, the process is called borrowing,and the word thus borrowed is called loanwordor a borrowing.

Terms inappropriate, because receiving languages never return the.

Unlike other languages, English seems to have welcomed borrowingsthroughout its history. It is estimated that over 120 languages from allover the world have been sources of present-day English vocabulary.

The history of a loanword may be quite complex, e.g. chess was borrowedinto English from Middle French in the 14th century. The French wordcame from Arabic, which had earlier borrowed it from Persian shah king:so direct or immediate source is French but its ultimate source is Persian(as far back as we can trace it).


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These borrowin s are:

Clothing (belt), buildings and settlements (wall, ceaster

city,street); tary an ega nst tut ons, commerce an re g on:

mass, monk, minster(monastery);

Other: ancor butter chalk cheese dish mile e er ound

sack... Some early borrowings were acquired from British

. . , , , , , .

Approx. 500 Latin words borrowed in the entire OE

period.


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In ME, borrowin from Latin continues, some via French, some

directly.

In this period mostly: professional or technical terms; terms fromreligion, law and literature.

E.g. Client, conviction, library, scribe, simile, dissolve, equal, medicine.

Simultaneous borrowing from Latin and French led to a highlydistinctive feature of modern English vocabulary: set of three items

(triplets), all expressing the same notion, but differing in style ormeaning:

E.g. kingly, royal, regal; rise, mount, ascend; ask, question, interrogate; fast,rm, secure; o y, sacre , consecra e .

1 is colloquial, 2 is more literary, 3 is more learned.


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English period, both from Latin and fromGreek via Latin.

Man borrowin s in EModE: abdomen

area, editor, graduate, imitate, medium,, , ...


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Vikin raids from AD 787 and next 200 ears.

In Danelaw, Danish settlers used their own placenames: e.g. Endinginby, scand. word for farm, town: (Derby), -thorpe, village(Althorpe), -thwaite, clearing (Braithwaite), -toft, homestead

asto t .

Also, great Scandinavian influence in personal names.

Other words from Scandinavian:get, give from Scandinavian forms,pronouns they, them, their; the replacement of sidon by are; thespread of the third person singulars ending in the present tensein other verbs.

ome o e commones wor s n mo ern ng s came n o elanguage at this time.

Many words with initial sk are of Scandinavian origin: scorch, score,, , , , , . . .

Borrowing continued in Modern English period: muggy, rug, scud, ski,geyser,rune, saga, ombudsman.


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As a classical lan ua e, Greek rovided En lish with a considerable

number of technical terms in all branches of human knowledge.

Some Greek words were borrowed via Latin, and French, somewere derived from Greek and Latin elements, while others wereta en irect y rom ree .

Via Latin: allegory, anaesthesia, chaos, dilemma, enthusiasm, history,metaphor, paradox...

Via French: centre, character, democracy, harmony, machine...

Directly: acronym, autocracy, telegram...


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Borrowin from French has occurred ever since the

Middle Ages.

After the Norman Conquest it increased noticeably. By,had come into English.

Mostly from fields such as: law, administration, medicine,

arts, as ion, every ay i e. Government, administration, attorney, chancellor,court,

crime... Abbot cler reach... Prince duke viscount baron...Army, captain, corporal, lieutenant, sergeant, soldier...


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borrowed from Norman French, others from

Central French. Nearly a half of French borrowings was adopted

in this period.

any o e orrow ngs up ca e wor s aalready existed, so OE words disappeared, e.g.leod- eo le wliti -beauti ul stow- lace. Hundredsof OE words disappeared in this way, but in

some cases both words survive: e.g. Doom-u gmen , ear y-cor a , ouse-mans on.


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,

same scale.

There are cases like:gentle, genteel, jaunty Fr. Gentil;chief, chef.

The pronunciation of ch tells us that chamber, champion,, , ,

chiffon from ModE period.

French borrowin s since the 17th centur are lesscompletely adapted than older loans: e.g. amateur,boulevard, ensemble, liaison, massage


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,

amber, camphor, cipher, cotton, orange, syrup, zenith.

The Arabic definite article alis retained in one form or another in:a c emy, a co o , a ge ra, a gorit m, a a i, a manac, azimut , e ixir,

hazard.

Borrowin from Arabic has continued u to modern times

sometimes via Italian or French, including the following terms:assassin, calibre, carat, garble, giraffe, hashish, lemon, magazine, sherbet.

er em c anguages: e rew: u z, amen, a e u a , ra ,

sabbath

Persian: caravan, bazaar, shah, shawlvia Latin or French: azure,musk, paradise, scarlet, tiger.


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,

few words from Sanskrit (avatar, karma, mahatma, yoga),

some from Tamil curr , a number from Hindi/Urdu(bangle, dungaree, jungle, pajamas, shampoo).

From Native American languages have come: moccassin,

toboggan, tomahawk, skunk.


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En lish still borrows from other lan ua es of the world.

But: 1. the frequency of borrowing is considerably

reduced; 2. English starts to borrow from less and less.

French is still the largest supplier of words to English,probably because of the geographical proximity.

Spanish in American English.

where do english words come from 2

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