No other existing language is perhaps as
‘mysterious’ as English in terms of
borrowings. A person who does not know English
but knows French, Italian, Latin or
Spanish is certain to recognize a great number
of familiar-looking and sounding words
when looking through an English book or
listening to an English-speaking man.
In the first century B.C. most of the territory
now as Europe was
occupied by the Roman Empire. Among the
inhabitants of the continent were Germanic
tribes, called ‘barbarians’ by Romans.
Theirs was really a rather primitive
stage of development, compared with the high
civilization of Rome. They were
primitive cattle-breeders and knew nothing
about land cultivation. Their language
contains only Indo-European and Germanic
elements.
After a number of wars between the Germanic and the Romans, these two
opposing peoples came into peaceful contact.
Trade is carried on, and the Germanic
people gain knowledge of new things. They learn
how to make butter and cheese and,
as there are no words for these products in
their tribal languages, they are to use the
Latin words to name them. They also borrow the
names of some fruits and vegetables
such as cherry, and
pepper. The word plant is also a Latin borrowing of this period.
The fifth century A.D. Several of the Germanic
tribes migrated across the sea to the British
Isles. There they were confronted by the Celts,
the original inhabitants of the Isles. The
Celts desperately defended their land against
the invaders, but they were no match for
the military-minded Teutons and gradually
yielded most of their territory. Through their
numerous contacts with the defeated Celts, the
Germanic tribes assimilated a number of
Celtic words, such as bald, down, bard, cradle. Especially, numerous among the Celtic
borrowings were place names, names of rivers
and hills.
The Germanic tribes occupied the land, but the
names of many parts and features
of their territory remained Celtic. For
instance, the names of the rivers Avon, Exe, Usk
and Ux originate from Celtic words meaning ‘river’ and
‘water’.
Some Latin words entered the Anglo-Saxon
Languages through Celtic, among them such
widely-used words as street (Lat. Strata
via) and wall (Lat. Vallum).
The seventh century A.D. This century was
significant for the Christianisation of
England. Latin was the official language of the
Christian Church, and consequently, the
spread of Christianity was accompanied by a new
period of Latin borrowings. These
new Latin borrowings were very different in
meaning from the earlier ones. They
mostly indicated persons, objects and ideas
associated with church and religious rituals.
For example, priest (Lat. presbyter), bishop (Lat. episcopes), monk (Lat. monachus),
nun (Lat. nonna), candle (Lat. candela). Also, there were educational
terms. No wonder
that these were Latin borrowings, too., for the
first schools in England were church
schools , and the first teachers priests and
monks. The words school, scholar and
magister are but few of them.
From the end of the 8th c. to the middle of the
11th c. England underwent
several Scandinavian invasions which inevitably
left their trace on English vocabulary.
Here are some examples of early Scandinavian
borrowings: call, take, loose, low,
and weak. Some of the
words of this group are easily
recognizable as Scandinavian borrowings by the
initial Sk-combination. E.g. Sky, skill,
ski, skirt,ill,husband,law,weak, and more.
1066. With the famous Battle of Hastings, when
the English were defeated by
the Normans, we come to the eventful epoch of
the Norman Conquest.
England became a bilingual country, and the
impact of the French language on
the English vocabulary is huge. French words
penetrated every aspect of social life.
Everyday life was also affected by the powerful
influence of French words.
Numerous terms of everyday life were also
borrowed from French in this period: e.g.
table, plate, saucer, diner, supper,
river, autumn, uncle, swine etc.
The Renaissance Period. In England, They were mostly
abstract words, such as major, minor, filial,
moderate, intelligent, permanent, to
elect, to create. There were
numerous scientific and
artistic terms like datum, status, phenomenon,
philosophy, method, music,
of which the
words philosophy, phenomenon, method, music were borrowed into English from Latin
and had earlier come into Latin from Greek.
The Renaissance was a period of extensive cultural
contacts between the major
European states. The
most significant ones were French
borrowings. This time they came from the
Parisian dialect of French and are known as
Parisian borrowings. Examples; regime, routine, police, ballet,
bourgeois, etc.. However, they are different from Norman
French borrowings in that the
former have for a long time been fully adapted
to the phonetic system of the English
language; the words, as table, plate, courage, chivalry, bear no phonetic traces of their
French origin. The latter still sound
surprisingly French.
Italian also contributed a considerable number
of words to English, e.g. piano,
violin, . The Italian words like macaroni, ravioli, spaghetti, pizza, and the mafia have also acquired a citizenship in the English
language. Words
from (Arabic, Persian) are also of
great importance in the vocabulary of the
English Language. Some Arabic words have been
assimilated to such an extent that it is hard
to see in them a foreign element. The words
like assassin, average, arsenal, camel, crimson,
cotton, coffee, chemistry, decipher,
checkmate, sofa, zenith sound more English than Arabic. Moreover, some
words of
Arabic origin form synonymic groups. For
example, zero – nil –
naught. However,
some words can be deceiving like ‘false
friends’. The words with initial al remind us of
the words’ Arabic origin, for example; alcohol, alcove, algebra, algorithm,
albatross,
alkali,pijama and many others.
Today, the percentage of
borrowings in English is up to 70 %,and 30 % of the words are native
.