The borrowings in English language

The borrowing process as the reflection of cultural contacts. The impact of historical events on the development of English vocabulary. Potential of the borrowings in English language. Classification of borrowings according to the degree of assimilation.

Рубрика Иностранные языки и языкознание
Вид курсовая работа
Язык английский
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Contents

Introduction

I. The borrowing process as the reflection of cultural contacts

1.1 The impact of historical events on the development of English vocabulary

1.2 The reason for appearance of borrowed words in English vocabulary

1.3 Potential of the borrowings in English language

1.4 Classification of borrowings according to their borrowed aspect

1.5 Classification of borrowings according to the degree of assimilation

1.6 Loan words

1.7 The role of borrowings in the development of the English vocabulary

1.8 The contribution of the particular linguistic culture to forming the English vocabulary

1.9 Borrowings into English from other language (Scandinavian, French, Arabic, Russian)

1.10 Forms of influencing one language on another

II The usage of borrowings practice

2.1 The card-index of Greek borrowings

2.2 The card-index of Latin borrowings

2.3 The card-index of French borrowings

Conclusion

Bibliography

Appendix

Introduction

Actuality it of the problem. The given theme of the diploma paper is of current importance, because it deals with the following interesting notions: why there is a language, why people speak in different languages, though the speaker can meet various words from any language in his speech. These words are called borrowings, and the present work will observe how they came into our language. When speakers of different languages interact closely, it is typical for their languages to influence each other. Languages normally develop by gradually accumulating internal differences until one parent language splits into daughter languages. This is analogous to a sexual reproduction in biology. Change due to language contact, in this analogy, is skin to the recombination that happens when separate organisms exchange genetic material.” We don't just borrow on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary” [1;28].

Borrowing words from other languages is characteristic of English throughout its history and more than two thirds of the English vocabulary are borrowings. Mostly they are words of Romanic origin (Latin, French, Italian and Spanish). Borrowed words are different from native ones by their phonetic structure, by their morphological structure and also 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, The adoption of Christianity, Scandinavian and Norman conquests of the British Isles, the development of British colonialism and trade and cultural relations served to increase immensely the English vocabulary. The majority of these borrowings is fully assimilated in English in their pronunciation, grammar and spelling and can be hardly distinguished from native words.

English continues to take in foreign words, but now the quantity of borrowings is not as abundant as it had been before. All the more so, English now has become a “giving” language; it has become Lingva Franca of the twentieth 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

(In this classification only the main languages from which words were borrowed into English are described, such as Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, German and Russian). It starts with the basic fact about what happens when words, articularly nouns, are borrowed into other languages. When you borrow someone's things, you sometimes get a little extra bits of their life included, things you didn't mean to borrow but they just came alone, included with the things you did borrow. Their beach blanket has some sand from their last trip to the beach; the book someone lent you has a note about remembering to pick up their dry-cleaning; the mobile phone on loan from your brother has his broker's number programmed into the speed dial list, that sort of thing.

Similar things happen when languages borrow words from other languages. They pick up little bits of the other language that they didn't bargain for. The life of a language is its grammar, the system of behavior and decorum that enables its words to conspire and collaborate to form sentences that say something. Little bits of grammar can come along with borrowed words. I don't know why linguists call it `borrowing' by the way, because the difference between English borrowing a word from French and you borrowing a lawnmower back. Languages never give back the words they borrow, they keep them forever or until they become obsolete. The borrowed words sort of sink into the vocabulary until everyone has forgotten that they ever sounded foreign. They get fully absorbed into our language and become native. But just a few bring with them some grammatical baggage from their language of origin and they don't assimilate quite so well. The clearest example of forming plurals [2,17-20]

English has borrowed nouns from many language and mostly the new arrivals, like most immigrants, who adopt local ways immediately. In a generation you can hardly tell they came from overseas. Orange came from Arabic `naranj' via Old French `orange'; kiosk came from Turkish; moccasin came from Algonquian and so on. But all of those words form plurals just like any English word; they follow a fixed regular system of condition or plurals.

Whenever two idiolects come into contact, one or both of them may be modified. In a face-to-face communication, either speaker may imitate some feature of the other's speech; when the contact is indirect, as in reading, the influence can of course pass only in one direction. The feature which is imitated is called the model; the idiolect (or language) in which the model occurs, or the speaker of teat idiolect is called the donor; the idiolect which acquires something new in the process is the borrowing idiolect. The process itself is called `borrowing', but this term requires some cautions. Thus, that which is `borrowed' does not have to be paid back; the donor makes no sacrifice and does not have to be asked for permission. Indeed, nothing changes hands: the donor goes on speaking as before, and only borrower's speech is altered.

From this definition, we see that the conditions for borrowing are present constantly, as a natural accompaniment of every use of language except genuine soliloquy.

In the contact of idiolects A and B, the changes that borrowing will actually occur depend on several factors, one of which is the degree of similarity of A and B. If the two idiolects are very similar, borrowings is unlikely, since neither of speakers is apt to be so divergent that the speakers cannot understand each other, borrowings is equally unlikely. Between the two extremes we find the situations in which borrowing is more probably. In practice, these situations can be classed roughly into two types. In one type, the two idiolects share a common core but rather some degree of bilingualism or semi- bilingualism; in this case we speak o language borrowing.

The native words are further subdivided by diachronic linguistics into those of the Indo-European stock and those of Common Germanic origin. The words having cognates in the vocabularies of different Indo-European languages form the oldest layer. It has been noticed that they readily fall into definite semantic groups. Among them we find terms of kinship: Father, mother, son, daughter, brother, words naming the most important objects and phenomena of nature: sun, moon, star, wind, water, wood, hill, stone, stone, tree; names of animals and birds: bull, cat, crow, goose, wolf; parts of the human body: arm, ear, eye, foot, heart, etc. Soe of the most frequent verbs are also of Indo-European common stock: bear, come, sit, stand and others. The adjectives of this group denote concrete physical properties: hard, quick, slow, red and white. Most numerals also belong here.

The result of the contact of two languages can be the reacement of one by the other. This is the most common when one language has a higher social position. This sometimes leads to language endangerment or extinction.

However, when language shift occurs, the language that is replaced (known as the substratum) can leave a profound impression on the replacing language (known as the super stratum), when people retain features of the substratum as they learn the new language and pass these features on to their children, leading to the development of a new variety. For example, the Latin that came replace local languages in the present-day France during Roman times was influenced by Gaulish and Germanic. The distinct pronunciation of the dialect of English spoken in Ireland comes partially from the influence of the substratum of Irish. Outside the Indo- European phylum, Coptic, the last stage of ancient Egyptian, is a substratum of Egyptian Arabic [3,122-124]. The lack of specialists of American English gave me an idea to study the peculiarities of the given problem.

The aim of the research is to study the reason of increasing numbers of borrowings in English language

Tasks:

-Investigation of the impact of historical events on the development of English vocabulary

-The reason of appearance of borrowed words in English vocabulary

-Classification of borrowings according

-Role of borrowings in the development of English vocabulary

-Borrowings from different languages

-The results of impact of one language on another

The object of the diploma is the process of teaching at school.

The subject of the diploma is borrowing process as reflection of the cultural contacts.

Hypothesis of the work is that knowledge of borrowings from different languages will help the speaker to distinguish native words from borrowings, it will be effective and useful in the language study and it is very necessary for linguists.

Methodology and methodic. Methodological foundation of the work is theoretical basis of improvement of the study process, according to the modern teachers of English, with one principle-availability.

In the given work the following methods of the research were used:

-Investigation and analysis of methodological literature

-Purposeful observation of the reasons appearing borrowings in the English

-Making a card-indexes of borrowings in English

-Experimental usage of borrowings during the process of English teaching

Sources of research: in fact this survey is mainly based on the valuable works of foreign linguists as well. For writing this worka lot of articles, information from internet sites, and facts from the history of English language, additional papers and journals were used. To list of authors we can refer I.V.Arnold, I. Ginzburg, Longman, Webster.

Scientific novelty of the research is:

-the impact of historical events on the development of English vocabulary is studied

-studied role of borrowings in the development of English vocabulary

-the card-index of languages is defined

Theoretical meaning of the work is the research of classification of borrowings according to the borrowed aspect, to the degree of assimilation; borrowings from Scandinavian, French, Arabic, Russian language are studied.

Practical meaning of the work is elaboration of the card-indexes for languages. For the presentation of a thesis we have:

-Borrowing process as the reflection of cultural contacts

-The reason of appearance of borrowed words in English vocabulary

-The role of borrowings in the development of English vocabulary

Approbation of the research work:

The basic statements of the research work were approbated in the course of pedagogical school practice (15.01.2010-26.02.2010), state pedagogical school practice (15.09.2010-30.10.2010)at school at school №140

The structure: The diploma consist of introduction, two chapters: theoretical and practical one, conclusion, bibliography and appendix, which were used for writing the work. In the introduction there is a general characteristic of the work, which shows the actually of the work, setting the aim, tasks, written the methods of research. In the first chapter, there are theoretical bases of the question about the impact of the historical events on the development of the English vocabulary, reason of appearance of borrowed words in English vocabulary; classification of borrowings according to the degree of assimilation, contribution of the particular linguistic culture to the forming of English vocabulary and borrowings from the different languages.

The second chapter has card-indexes for the English borrowings from Greek, Latin and French languages.

In the conclusion, the main conclusion of the research is written, it summarizing the results of the studied theme, and gives ideas of how to use the studied material in the teaching and learning process.

I. The borrowing process as the reflection of cultural contacts

1.1 The impact of historical events on the development of English vocabulary

Language contact occurs when speakers of distinct speech varieties interact. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. Contrary to popular opinion, multilingualism has been common throughout much of human history. Even in hunter-gatherer times, to judge by recent parallels, multilingualism was not uncommon, as bands would need to communicative with neighboring peoples, who often spoke different languages. And in-present day areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa, where there is much variation in language over even short distances, it is usual for anyone who dealings outside his own town or village to know two or more languages were spoken in a small territory. Thus, language contact is a very common phenomenon in human history, and the world's present vast linguistic diversity has developed in the presence of this constant contact.

When speakers of different languages interact closely, it is typical for their languages to influence each other. Languages normally develop by gradually accumulating internal differences until one parent languages splits into daughter languages. This is analogous to asexual reproduction in biology. Change due to language contact, in this analogy, is skin to the recombination that happens when separate organisms exchange genetic material.

As a matter of fact, they are- if we regard them in the light of present-day English. If, however, their origins are looked into, the picture may seem somewhat bewildering. A person who does not know English but knows French (Italian, Latin, Spanish) is a certain to recognize a great number of familiar-looking words when skipping through an English book.

It is true that English vocabulary, which is one of the most extensive amongst the world's languages, contains an immense number of words of foreign origin. Explanations for this should be sought in the history of the language which is closely connected with the history of the nation speaking language. In order to have a better to understanding of the problem, it will be necessary to go through a brief survey of historical facts, relating to different epochs [4,142-146]

The first century B.C most of the territory now, known to us as Europe is occupied by the Roman Empire. Among the inhabitants of the continent are Germanic tribes, ”barbarians” a s the arrogant romance call them. Theirs is really a rather primitive stage of development, especially if compared with the high civilization and refinement of Rome. By etymology of words is understood their origin. Breeders, European and Germanic elements. The latter fact is some importance for the purposes of the survey.

Now, comes an event which brings an important change. After a number of wars between the Germanic tribes and Romans these two opposing peoples come into peaceful contact. Trade is carried on, and the Germanic people gain knowledge of new and useful things. The first among them are new things to eat. It has been mentioned that Germanic cattle-breeding was on a primitive scale. Its only products known to the Germanic tribes were meat and milk. It is from the Romans that they learn how to make butter and cheese, as there are naturally no words for these foodstuffs in their tribal languages, they are to use the Latin words to name them(Lat.butyrum, caseus). It is also to the Romans that the Germanic tribes owe the knowledge of some new fruits and vegetables enter the in vocabularies reflecting this new knowledge: cherry(Lat.cerasum), pear(Lat.pirum), plum(Lat.ptunus), pea(Lat.pisum), beet(Lat.beta), pepper(Lat.piper). It is interesting to note that the word plant is a also a Latin borrowing of this period (Lat.planta). Her some more examples of Latin borrowings of this period: cup(Lat.cuppa), kitchen(Lat.coquina), mil(Lat.molina),port( Lat.portus), wine (Lat.vinum). The fact that all these borrowings occurred is in itself significant. It was certainly important that the Germanic tribal languages gained a considerable number of new words and were thus enriched.

By the borrowing or loan-word we mean a word which came into the vocabulary of one language from another and was assimilated by the new language. Even more significant was that all these Latin words were destined to become the earliest group of borrowings in the future English language which was-much later-built on the basis of Germanic tribal languages. This brings us to another epoch, much closer to the English language as we know it, both in geographical and chronological terms. The fifth century A.D. several Germanic tribes (the most numerous amongst them being the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes) migrated across the sea now known as the English Channel to the British Isles. There they were confronted by the Celts, the original inhabitants of the Isles. The Celts desperately defended their lands against the invaders, but they were no match for the military-minded Tautens and gradually yielded most of their territory. They retreated to the North and South-West(modern Scotland, Wales and Cornwall). Through their numerous contacts with the defeated Celts, the conquerors got to know and assimilated a number of Celtic words(modern English bald, down, glen, druid, cradle). Especially numerous among the Celtic borrowings were place naes, names of rivers, bills, etc. TheGermanic tribes occupied the land, but the names of many parts and features of their territory remained Celtic.For instance, the names of rivers Avon, Exe, Esk, Usk and Ux originated from Celtic words meaning “river” and “water”.

Ironically, even the name of the English capital originates from Celtic llyn+dun in which llyn is another Celtic word for `river' and dun stands for `a fortified hill', the meaning of the whole being `fortress on the hill over the river'.

Some Latin words entered the Anglo-Saxon languages through Celtic, among them such widely-used words as street (Latin strata via) and wall (Lat.vallum)

The seventh century A.D. this century was significant for the Christianization of England. Latin was the official language of the Christian church and consecuently the spread of Christianity was accompanied by a new period of Latin borrowings. These no longer came from spoken Latin as they did eight centuries earlier, but from church Latin. Also these new Latin borrowings were very different in the meaning from the earlier ones. They mostly indicated persons, objects and ideas associated with church religious rituals. For example priest (Lat. Presbyter), bishop (Lat. Episcopus), monk (Lat.Monachus), nun (Lat. Nonna), candle (Lat. Candela). Additionally, in a class of their own were educational terms. It was quite natural that these were also Latin borrowing, for the first schools, and the first teacher's priests and monks. So the very word school is a Latin borrowing (Lat. Schola, of Greek origin) and so are such words as scholar (Lat.scholar) and magister (Lat. Magister)

From the end of 8th c. to the middle of the 11th c. England underwent several Scandinavian invasions which inevitability left their trace on English vocabulary. Here are some examples of early Scandinavian borrowings: call, v., take, v., cast, v., die, v., law, n., husband, n.(Sc. Hus+bondi, i.e. “inhabitant of the house”), window, n. (Sc. Vindauga, i.e. ”the eye of the wind”), ill, adj., low, adj., weak, adj. Some of the words of this group are easily recognizable as Scandinavian borrowings by the initial sk-combination. For example sky, skill, skin, ski, skirt [5, 325-329]

Certain English words changed their meanings under the influence of Scandinavian words of same root. So, the O.E. bread which meant “piece” acquired its modern meaning by association with the Scandinavian brand.

The O.E. dream which meant “joy' assimilated the meaning of the Scandinavian draumr (with the Germ. Traum “dream” and the R.дрёма). With the famous Battle of Hastings, when the English were defeated by the Normans under William the conqueror, we come to the eventful epoch of the Norman Conquest. The epoch can be called eventful not only in national, social, political human terms but also in linguistic terms. England became a bi- lingual country, and the impact on the English vocabulary made over this two-hundred-years period is immense: French words from the Norman dialect penetrated every aspect of social life. Here is a very brief list of examples of Norman French borrowings.

-Administrative words: state, government, parliament, council, power.

-Legal terms: court, judge, justice, crime, prison.

-Military terms: army, war, soldier, officer, battle, enemy.

-Educational terms: pupil, lesson, library, science, pen, pencil.

Everyday life was not unaffected by the powerful influence of French words. Numerous terms of everyday life were also borrowed from French in this period: for example table, plate, saucer, dinner, supper, river, autumn, uncle, etc.

The Renaissance Period in England, as in European countries, this period was marked by significant developments in science, art and culture and also by revival of interest in the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome and their languages. Hence, there occurred a considerable number of Latin and Greek borrowings. In contrast to the earliest Latin borrowings (1st c. B.C.), the Renaissance ones were rarely concrete names. They were mostly abstract words (for example major, minor, filial, moderate, intelligent, permanent, to elect, to create). There were naturally numerous scientific and artistic terms (datum, status, phenomenon, philosophy, method, music). The same is true of Greek Renaissance borrowings (for example atom, cycle, ethics and esthete).

The Renaissance was a period of extensive cultural contacts between the major European states. Therefore, it was only natural that new words also entered the English vocabulary from other European languages. The most significant once more were French borrowings. This time they came from the Parisian dialect of French and are known as Parisian borrowings. Examples: regime, routine, police, machine, ballet, matinee, scene, technique, bourgeois etc. One should note that these words of French origin sound and “look” very different from their Norman predecessors. Italian also contributed a considerable number of words to English, e.g. piano, violin, opera, alarm, colonel.

There are certain structural features which enable us to identify some words as borrowings and even to determine the source language. We have already established that the initial sk-usually indicates Scandinavian origin. You can also recognize words of Latin and French origin by certain suffixes, prefixes or endings.

The two tables below will help you in this. The historical survey above is far from complete. Its am is just to give a very general idea of ways it acquired its vast modern resources [6, 22-24]. Phenomenon, philosophy, method, music, etc. were borrowed into English from Latin and had earlier come into Latin from Greek (see Apendix1)

The etymological structure of English Vocabulary

The native element

The borrowed element

Indo-European element

Celtic(5th-6th c.A.D.)

Germanic element

II. Latin 1st group: 1st c. B.C.

2nd group: 7th c. A.D.

3rd group: the Renaissance period

English proper element (no earlier than 5th c. A.D.)

III. Scandinavian (8th- 11th c. A.D.)

IV.French 1.Norman borrowings: 11th-13th c. A.D.

2. Parisian borrowings (Renaissance)

V.Greek (Renaissance and later)VI. Italian (Renaissance and later) VII.Spanish (renaissance and later) VIII.German IX. Indian X. Russian and some other groups

The table requires some explanation. Firstly, it should be pointed out that not only does the second column contain more groups, butit also implies a greater quantity of words. Modern scholars estimate the percentage of borrowed words in the English vocabulary at 65-70 per cent which is an exceptionally high figure. By the native element to prevail. This anomaly is explained by the country's eventful history and by its many international contacts. On a straight vocabulary count, considering the high percentage of borrowed words, one would have to classify English as a language of international origin or, at least, a romance one 9as French and Latin words obviously prevail). But here another factor comes into play, the relative frequency of occurrence of words, and it is under this heading that the native Anglo-Saxon heritage comes into its own. The native element in English comprises a large number of high-frequency words like the articles, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, auxiliaries and also words denoting everyday objects and ideas (for example house, child, water, go, come, eat, good, bad, etc.)

Furthermore, the grammatical structure is essentially Germanic having remained unaffected by foreign influence. It is probably of some interest to mention that at various times purists have tried to purge the English language of foreign words, replacing them with Anglo-Saxon ones. One slogan created by these linguistic nationalists was: “Avoid Latin derivatives; use brief, terse Anglo-Saxon monosyllables”. The irony is that the only Anglo-Saxon word in the entire slogan is “Anglo-Saxon”

Now let us to the first column of the table representing the native element, the original stock of the English vocabulary. The column consists of three groups, only the third being dated: the words of this group appeared in the English vocabulary in the 5th c. or later, that is, after the Germanic tribes migrated to the British Isles. As to the Indo-European and Germanic groups, they are so old that the tribal languages of the Angles, the Saxons, The Jutes, by the time of their migration, contained only words of Indo-European and Germanic roots plus a certain number of the earliest Latin borrowings [7,262-270]

By the relations: father, mother, brother, son, daughter.

Parts of human body: foot (R.пядь), nose, lip, heart.

Animals: cow, swine, goose.

Plants: tree, birch(R.береза), corn (R.зерно)

Time of day: day, night.

Heavenly bodies: sun, moon, star

Numerous adjectives: red (Ukr.рудий, R.рыжий), new, glad (R.гладкий), sad(cf.R.сыт).

The numerals from one to a hundred.

Pronouns-personal (except they which is a Scandinavian borrowing); demonstrative.

Numerous verbs: be(R.быть), stand (R.стоять), sit (R.сидеть), eat (R.есть) and know (R.знать).

The Germanic element represents words of roots common to all or most Germanic languages. Some of the main groups of Germanic words are same as in the Indo-European element.

Parts of the human body: head, hand, arm, finger, bone.

Animals: bear, fox, calf.

Plants: oak, fir, grass.

Natural phenomena: rain, frost.

Seasons of the year: winter, spring, summer.

Landscape features: sea, land.

Human dwellings and furniture: House, room, bench.

Sea-going vessels: boat, ship.

Adjectives: green, blue, white, small, thick, high, old,good.

Verbs: see, hear, speak, tell, say, answer, make, give, drink.

It has been mentioned that the English proper element is, in certain respects, opposed to the first two groups. Not only can it be approximately dated, but these words have another distinctive feature: they are specifically English having no cognates in other languages whereas for Indo-European and Germanic words such cognates can always be found, as for instance, for the following words of the Indo-European group.

Star: (Germ. Stern), (Lat. Stella), (Gr.Aster).

Sad: (Germ, Satt), (Lat. Satis), (R.сыт)

Stand: (Germ.stehen), (Lat. Stare),(R.стоять)

Here are some examples of English proper words. These words stand quit alone in the vocabulary system of Indo-European languages: bird, boy, girl, lord, lady, woman, daisy, always.

Of course, one might remark that Russian vocabulary also has the words лорд, леди, бой.

-Autumn is a French borrowing.

-Cognates- words of the same etymological root, of common origin of “native servant”).

The explanation is simple:these words have been borrowed by Russian from English and therefore are not cognates of their English counterparts[8,154-166].

It should be taken into consideration that the English proper element also contains all the later formations, that is words which were made after the 5th c. according to English word-building patterns both from native and borrowed root and the native suffix belongs to the English proper element. It is natural, that the quantity of such words is immense.

The Norman French in 1066 differed more strikingly linguistically as well as culturally from thr Anglo-Saxons than did the Danish conquerors of a few centuries earlier. Unlike the situation with the Norse invasions, the Normans looked upon the conquered Anglo-Saxons as social inferiors. French became the language of the upper class; Anglo-Saxon of the lower class.

As a result, after the Norman invasion, many Anglo Saxon words narrowed in meaning to describe only the crude, dirtier aspects of life. Concepts associated with culture, fine living and abstract learning tended to be described by new Norman words. Thus, many new doublets appeared in English that were stylistically marked: cow/beef, calf/veal, swine/pork, sheep/mutton, deer/venison, sweat/perspire. Compare Anglo-Saxon work, hard, to Norman French leisure and profit. (In contrast, Norse/Anglo-Saxon doublets like raise/rear, etc., were stylistically neutral, since both peoples held an equal social position)[9,156-159]/

Consequently, the Norman invasion initiated a vast borrowing of Latin-based words into English. Entire vocabularies were borrowed from Norman French:

governmental: count, heraldry, fine, noble, parliament.

Military: battle, ally, alliance, ensign, admiral, navy, aid, gallant, march, enemy, escape, peace, war (cf. guerilla).

Judicial system: judge, jury, plaintiff, justice, court, suit, defendant, crime, felony, murder, petty/petit, attorney, marriage (Anglo-Saxon wedding), heir.

Ecclesiastical: clergy, altar, miracle, preach, pray, sermon, virgin, saint, friar/frere.

Cuisine: sauce, boil, filet, soup, pastry, fry, roast, toast.

New personal names: John, Mary (Biblical Hebrew and Greek names) and Norman French (Richard, Charles).

As Anglo-Saxon and Norman French gradually merged throughout the later middle Ages and the Normans and Anglo-Saxons became one society, the speakers of English tried to effect some linguistic reconciliation between the older Anglo-Saxon words and the Norman French words. Many modern phrases English phrases and sayings still include a word from Norman French alongside a synonymous Anglo-Saxon: law and order, lord and master, love and cherish, ways and means. These doublet phrases capture this attempt to please everybody who might need to be pleased.

The Norman French influence was so extensive that even the grammar of English was affected. The changes were mainly confined to the borrowing of derivational affixes. All native prefixes dropped out or became unproductive during this time; the few that survive today are non-productive: be- in besmirch, or for-in forgive, forstall; they were replaced by Latin: ex-, pre, pro, dis, re, anti, inter. Many Norman French suffixes were borrowed: -or vs. -er; -tion, -ment, -ee, -able as a suffix. The period of Middle English cme to a close by about 1450, by the time the two languages of Norman and Anglo-Saxon had merged into a single linguistic form.

Actually, what happened was that the more numerous Anglo-Saxon speakers triumphed over the Norman French, who came to adopt English in place of French. But the English of 1500 contained a tremendous number of Norman French words.

The Norman French influx of words into English was on an unprecedented scale. No other European language has a vocabulary date back to the time of Old English [10; 565-579]. A Brown University team ran 1 million words from modern different words and over half were borrowed from Norman French. Listed in order of frequency, however, every one of the 100 most commonly used words was Anglo-Saxon. Thus, the core of English vocabulary remained Germanic. The major change in English during the later period of Modern English, however, has been the continued expansion of the vocabulary from every convenient available source. Some language communities show an aversion to borrowing words; Icelandic and Hebrew, for example, prefer inventing their own new words (poato- Hebrew tappuah; computer- tolle).

English has never had such an aversion, although some purists have tried to replace borrowed English words with words made from native roots: yeasay instead of affirmation; witcraft instead of logic (these were actually proposed in 1573). Usually, however, the purists among English speakers have lost out to the borrowers.

On the other hand, when scholarly types tried to borrow Latin and terms not out of necessity for describing new things and concepts but out of intellectual arrogance and pomp, they were not always successful [11.268-267]

The influence of new lands and new peoples in the colonial era has brought to English many new words. Enthusiastic pursuit of the sciences has also ledto a great increase in vocabulary; often the new scientific words are coined on the basis of Latin and Greek in much the same way as occurred at the beginning of the scientific age.

The tendency of English to borrow words has never abated since the earkiest times. Let's review the main sources of borrowing.

North European aboriginal terms into Common Germanic (before 2000BC)

Latin terms from the Romans into west Germanic (100BC-400AD)

Christianized Latin terms into Anglo Saxon (after 587AD)

Old Norse into Anglo Saxon (700-900AD)

Norman French into Old English (1066-1300 AD)

Ancient Latin and Greek into Modern English (1500-through the present)

Borrowings of words from other English languages and dialects have produced a rich collection of synonyms in Modern English [12, 265-268]. The resulting lexical doublets themselves tell a lot about the history of the language:

Forgive/pardon

Latin borrowing from the Christianization vs. Norman French borrowing

Shirt/skirt

Native Anglo-Saxon word vs. Old Norse borrowing

Cow/beef

Native Anglo Saxon vs. Norman French borrowing

Dish/disk

Older Latin borrowing vs. later Latin borrowing

Chief/chef

Older Norman French borrowing vs. recent borrowing from French

As a result of historical events stretching back 1200 years, the vocabulary of English is enormously large, rich and varied. The original Germanic language of Anglo Saxon settlers has been subjected to three main waves of influence, Scandinavian and French as a result of invasion, and Latin as a result of intellectual developments during the Renaissance. There have also been other influences from around the world, not least from other varieties of English, such as American and Australian, during the modern period.

1.2 The reason of appearance of borrowed words in English vocabulary

Whenever two idiolects come into contact, one or both may be modified. In face-to-face communication, either speaker may imitate some feature of other's speech; when the contact is indirect, as in reading, the influence can of course pass only in one direction. The feature which is imitated is called the model; the idiolect (or language) in which the model occurs, or the speaker of eat idiolect is called the donor; the idiolect which acquires something new in the process is the borrowing idiolect. The process itself is called `borrowing', but this requires some cautions.

Does not have to be paid back; the donor makes no sacrifice and does not have to be asked for permission. Indeed, nothing changes hands: the donor goes on speaking as before, and only borrower's speech is altered [13, 805-813].

From this definition, we see that the conditions for borrowing are present constantly, as a natural accompaniment of every use of language except genuine soliloquy. In the contact of idiolects A and B, the changes that borrowing will actually occur depend on several factors, one of which is the unlikely, since neither speakers is apt so divergent that the speakers cannot understand each other, borrowings is equally unlikely. Between the two extremes we fined the situations in which borrowing is more probably. In practice, these situations can be classed roughly into two types. In one type, the two idiolects share a common core; under these conditions we speak of dialect borrowings. In the other, there is no common core but rather some degree of bilingualism or semi-bilingualism; in this case we speak of language borrowing. The mere contact of idiolects A and B does not guarantee that one will borrow from the other. For borrowing to occur, say from B to A, two conditions must be met:

The speaker of A must understand, or think he understands, the particular utterance in idiolect B which contains the model.

The speaker of A must have some motive, overt or convert, for the borrowings.

The first condition need notdetail us long. Our reference must be toapparent rather then genuine understanding, because in many known instances there is really some measure of misunderstanding.

The second is more difficult. We cannot profit from idle speculation about the psychology of borrowers, but must confine ourselves to such overt evidence as at hand. This may lead much surer of those which we do discern. These are two in numbers: prestige and need-filling.

The prestige motive people emulate those whom they admire, in speech-pattern as well as in other respects. Upper-and middle -class Englishmen, in the days after the Norman Conquest, learned French and used French expressions in their English because French was the language of the new rulers of the country.

Sometimes the motive is somewhat different: the imitator does not necessarily admire those whom he imitates, but wishes to be identified with them and thus be treated as they are. The results are not distinguishable, and we can leave to psychologists the sorting out of the fine shades of differences.

The prestige motive is constantly operative in dialect borrowings; it becomes important in language borrowing only under special conditions. When spekes of two different languages live intermingled in a single region, usually one of the languages is that spoken by that in power: this is the upper or dominant languages, and the other is the lower. Such a state of affairs has most really by peaceful migration. The prestige factor leads to extensive borrowings from the dominant language into the lower. Borrowings in the other direction are much more limited and largely ascribable to the other principle motive.

The Need-filling Motive the most obvious other motive for borrowing is to fill a gap in the borrowing idiolect. New dialects, new objects and practices, bring new words into a language. Tea, coffee, tobacco, sugar, cocoa, tomato have spread all over the world in recent times, along with the objects to which the words refer. Typhoons and monsoons have not spread, but direct or indirect experience with them has.

Immigrates to the United States in the last seventy-five years have drawn heavily on English for new words, partly on the prestige basis and partly for need-filling purpose: the two motives must often be mingled, and we cannot always say which was more important in a given instance [14, 384-388]. In exchange, however, American English has acquired only a spare scattering of need filling loans from the various languages of the immigrants: delicatessen, hamburger, from immigrant German; chili con carne, tortilla from Mexican Spanish; spaghetti from Italian to stick to the sphere of humble foodstuffs.

If a local dialect gains ascendancy for political and economic reasons, then one expects extensive borrowings from that dialects have to be explained and usually, if the records are not too scanty, explanation on the need-filling basis is possible.

1.3 Potential of the borrowings in English language

The vocabulary of politics continues to grow. The following words were added to it in the 18th century: minister, ambassador (in literature first used in 1709), ministry, Premier, Prime Minister, party (with the word used in its present meaning). Administration, budget, estimates also appear at this time. At the end of 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century some of the vocabulary of the French Revolution entered the English language, for example, aristocrat, democrat and the old word despot acquired its present meaning; despotism was enlarged from `the rule of a despot' to mean any arbitrary rule of unlimited power.

Among other words should be mentioned royalism, revolutionary, revolutionize, conscription. Section, in its geographical use, and the 19th century word sectional, are derived from the division of France into ekectoral sections under the Directorate.

Further we should mention the following words: bureaucracy, centralize, centralization, counter-revolution, decade ( a period of ten days substituted for the week in the French Republican calendar of 1793. In English the word means `a period of ten years'), demagogic demoralize, diplomatic, fraternization, fussilade, guillotine (Guillotine, the name of a physician at whose suggestion the instrument was employed in 1789. In English it is also the name of various cutting machines, e.g. a machine for cutting the edges of books, paper, etc., a machine for cutting sheet metal, an instrument to cutting the tonsils (surgical) :indifferentism, interpellation, monarchism, nationalize, nationalization, propaganda, propagandism, propagandist, reaction repulsion exerted by a body in oppositionto the pressure of another body.

We must also mention the 18th contribution to the vocabulary of literature. Literature itself only acquired the sense of literary production in this century, or old words that acquired their present meanings 1700 and 1800, maybe mentioned copyright, editor, novelist, magazine, publisher, the verb to review and, last but not least, the press. With the Romantic Movement at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries, and the increased interest in the past, many old and half-forgotten words were revived; e.g. bard (1450), chivalry, chivalrous, minstrel (1297), etc. The 19th century has provided the English language with a multitude of different terms, among which scientific and technical terms are especially numerous. In many cases these terms are of international currency, e.g.telephone, telegraph, television, radio, etc[15,158-164].

The most striking thing about our present-day civilization is probably the part which science has played in it. We have only to think of the progress which has been made in medicine and the sciences auxiliary to it, such as bacteriology, biochemistry and the like, to realize the difference that marks off our own day from that of only a few generations ago in everything that has. We have learned the names of new drugs like aspirin, iodine, insulin, morphine, strychnine. All these words have come into use during the nineteenth, and in some cases, the twentieth century. In almost every other field of science the same story could be told.

The 20th century permits us to see the process of vocabulary growth going on uder our eyes, sometimes it would seem, at an accelerated rate. At the turn of the century we get the word questionnaire and in 1904 the first hint of television. In 1906 the British launched a particular battleship named the Dreadnought, and the word `dreadnought' passed into popular use for any warship of the thermos-bottle (in English thermos-flask). This is the period when many of the terms of aviation that have since become so familiar first came in- aircraft, airman, aeroplane (in American airplane),autogiro, biplane, dirigible, hydroplane, monoplane. About 1910 we began talking about the futurist and postimpressionist in art. At this time (after the world war) profiteer and in America prohibition arose with specialized meanings. Only yesterday witnessed the birth (in America) of air-conditioned, brain truet and technology, and tomorrow will witness others as the exigencies of the hour call them into being.

1.4Classification of borrowings according to the borrowed aspect

There are the following groups: phonetic borrowings, translation loans, semantic borrowings, morphemic borrowings. Phonetic borrowings are most characteristic in all languages; they are called loan words proper. Words are borrowed with their spelling, pronunciation and meaning. Then they undergo assimilation, each sound of the borrowing language. In some cases the spellingis changed. The structure of the word can also be changed. The position of the stress is very often influenced by the phonetic system of the borrowing language. The paradigm of the word, and sometimes the meaning of the borrowed word are also changed. Such words as: labor, travel, table, chair, people are phonetic borrowings from French; apparatchic, nomenclature, sputnik are borrowings from Russian; bank, soprano, duet are phonetic borrowings from Italian etc. [16, 114-117]

Translation loans are word-for-word (or morpheme-for-morpheme) translations of some foreign word expressions. In such cases the notion is borrowed from a foreign language but it is expressed by native lexical units, `to takethe bull by the horns'(Latin), `living space'(German) etc. Some translation loans appeared in English from Latin already in the Old English period, for example Sunday (solis dies)

There are translation loans from the language of Indians, such as :'pipe of peace', `pale-faced' from German `masterpiece', `homesickness','superman'.

Semantic borrowings are such units when a new meaning of the unit existing in the language is borrowed. It can happen when we havetwo relative languages which have common words with different meanings, for example there are semantic borrowings between Scandinavian and English, such as the meaning `to live' for the word `to dwell' which in Old English had the meaning `to wander'. Or else the meaning `''' for the word' gift' which in Old English had the meaning `'

Semantic borrowing can appear when an English word borrowed into some other language, developed there a new meaning and this meaning was borrowed back into English, for example `brigade' was borrowed into Russian and formed the meaning `a working collective', `'. This meaning was borrowed back into English as a Russian borrowing. The same is true of the English word `pioneer'.

Morphemic borrowings are borrowings of affixes which occur in the language when many words with identical affixes are borrowed from one language into another, so that the morphemic structure of borrowed words becomes familiar to the people speaking the borrowing language, for example we can find a lot of Romanic affixes in English word-building system, that is why there are a lot words- hybrids in English where different morphemes have different origin, for example `goddes', `beautiful' etc.

1.5Classification of borrowings according to the degree of assimilation

The degree of assimilation of borrowings depends on the following factors: a) from what group of languages to which the borrowing language belongs it is assimilated easier, b) in what way the word is borrowed: orally or in the written form, words borrowed orally assimilated quicker;, c) how often the borrowing is used in the language, the greater the frequency of its usage, the quicker it is assimilated, d) how long the word lives in the language, the longer it lives, more than assimilated it- is.

Accordingly borrowings are subdivided into: completely assimilated, partly assimilated and non-assimilated (barbarisms) [17, 368-372]

Completely assimilated borrowings are not as foreign words in language , the French word `sport' and the native word 'start'. Completely assimilated verbs belong to regular verbs, for example correct-corrected. Completely assimilated nouns form their plural by means of s-inflection, for example gate-gates. In completely assimilated French words the stress has been shifted from the last syllable to the last but one. Semantic assimilation of borrowed words depends on the words existing in the borrowing language, if it is polysemantic, for example the Russian borrowing `sputnik' is used in English only in one of its meaning.

Partly assimilated borrowings are subdivided into the following groups:

Borrowings non-assimilated semantically, because they denote objects and notions peculiar to the country from the language of which they were borrowed, for example sari, sombrero, taiga, kvass etc.

Borrowings non-assimilated grammatically, for example nouns borrowed from Latin and Greek retain their plural forms (bacillus-bacilli, phenomenon-phenomena, datum-data, genius-genii etc.

Borrowings non-assimilated phonetically. Here belong words with the initial sounds /v/ and /z/, for example voice, zero. In native words these voiced consonants are used only in the intervocalic position as allophones of sounds /f/ and /s/ (loss-lose, life-live). Some Scandinavian borrowings have consonants and combinations of consonants which were not palatalized for example /sk/ in the words: sky, skate, ski etc(in native word we have the palatalized sounds denoted by the digraph `sh', for example shirt); sounds /k/ and /g/ before front vowels are not palatalized for example girl, get, give, kid, kill, kettle. In native words we have palatalization, for example German, child. Some French borrowings retain special combinations of sounds, for example /a:3? In the words: camouflage, bourgeois, some of them retain the combination of sounds /wa:/ in the words: memoir, boulevard.


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