The role of borrowings in the development of the English vocabulary

1. THE ROLE OF
BORROWINGS
IN THE
DEVELOPMENT
OF THE ENGLISH
VOCABULARY

3. INTRODUCTION

4. The Guardian, A language family tree - in pictures by Minna Sundberg
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5. The Guardian, A language family tree - in pictures by Minna Sundberg
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6. The Guardian, A language family tree - in pictures by Minna Sundberg
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7. The Guardian, A language family tree - in pictures by Minna Sundberg
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8. Historical linguistics
(diachronic linguistics)
➢ is the scientific study
of language change over
time.
(Bynon, 1977)
8

9. Etymology
➢ is the study of
the history of words: when
they entered a language,
from what source, and how
their form and meaning have
changed over time.
(The New Oxford Dictionary of English, 1998)
9

10. Loanword
(borrowed word, borrowing)
➢ is a word adopted from a
foreign language with little
or no modification.
(OED Online. Oxford University Press,
December 2018. Web.)
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11. 1.
HISTORY OF
BORROWING
WORDS

13. 13
OldEnglish(450-1066)
MiddleEnglish(1066-1500)
EarlyModernEnglish(1500-1700)
LateModernEnglish(1700tothepresent)
Beowulf, c. 900 the Ormulum, c. 1100 Chaucer, c. 1400 Shakespeare, c. 1600 Virginia Woolf, c. 1900
Davis, N. (2018). Resistance to changes in grammar is futile, say researchers. [online]

14. Latin
30%
French (including
Anglo-French)
30%
Germanic Languages
(Old/Middle English, Old
Norse, Dutch)
27%
Greek
6%
No etymology given
4%
Derived from Proper
Names
3%
Finkenstaedt, Thomas; Dieter Wolff (1973). Ordered profusion; studies in dictionaries and the English lexicon. C. Winter.

15. 2.
LATIN
BORROWINGS

16. EARLY LATIN LOANS: HOW THEY ENTERED
mainly though the speaking language:
➢ exchange with the descendants of the original Romans who remained in
the country after the departure of the Roman legions in about 440 AD.
➢ contact and trade with the Romans on the continent;
mainly though the written language:
➢ with the Christianization of England which began from the south at the
end of the 6th century.
16
Hickey, R. (2018). The vocabulary of English: history. [online]

17. EARLY LATIN LOANS: EXAMPLES
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Semantic field Latin OldEng ModEng German
Agriculture planta plante plant Pflanze
minthē minte mint Minze
Trade vinum win wine Wein
caseus cese cheese Käse
pondo pund pound Pfund
uncia inc inch Unze
Church angelus angel angel Engel
diabolos deovol devil Teufel
Hickey, R. (2018). The vocabulary of English: history. [online]

18. MIDDLE LATIN LOANS: HOW THEY ENTERED
➢ The Norman Conquest of 1066 gave England a two-tiered society
with an aristocracy which spoke Anglo-Norman French and a
lower class which spoke English;
➢ Continued use of Latin by the Church and centres of learning
brought a steady, though dramatically reduced, influx of new
Latin lexical borrowings;
➢ Entering of the Latin loans is strongly connected with the use of
the French language (as French is a Latin-derived language).
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Abu, Leila Rita (2012). Latin influence on English language.

19. MIDDLE LATIN LOANS: EXAMPLES
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Semantic field Example
Religion requiem, lector
Scholastic activities library, index
Science dissolve, equal, essence, medicine
Administration & law client, arbitrator, conviction,
memorandum
Abu, Leila Rita (2012). Latin influence on English language.

20. LATE LATIN LOANS: HOW THEY ENTERED & EXAMPLES
➢ the development of technical vocabulary and the desire to enrich English
to make it an equal of the classical languages such as Latin and Greek
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father fatherly paternal -
man manly virile masculine
woman womanly female feminine
water watery aquatic -
horse horsy equestrian -
war - martial -
Hickey, R. (2018). The vocabulary of English: history. [online]

21. LATIN LOANS: CONSEQUENCES
➢ In addition to the large number of historical borrowings and coinages, today latinate words
continue to be coined in english particularly in technical contexts;
➢ Numerous doublets – two or more cognate terms from both a Germanic and Latinate source
(or Latinate sources);
➢ Numerous cases of etymologically unrelated terms for closely related concepts, notably
Germanic nouns with a Latin adjective, such as bird/avian or hand/manual;
➢ Complicated etymologies due to indirect borrowings (via Romance) or multiple borrowings;
➢ Usage controversies over the perceived complexity of Latinate terms (register-wise).
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22. 3.
FRENCH
BORROWINGS

23. HOW THEY ENTERED
➢ The Norman Conquest of 1066 > Anglo-Norman French;
➢ Both through the speaking and written language;
➢ The vast majority of the borrowed words belong to the spheres of court,
administration, law, the army, the Church, art, literature, medicine and the
sciences;
➢ The names of the domestic animals (which were tended by the Englishmen of the
lower classes) remained native, while the corresponding dishes (which were
eaten by the Norman lords) are often French.
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24. WORDS OF DIFFERENT REGISTER
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OldEng AngNorm
doom judgement
hearty cordial
house mansion

25. ANIMAL-DISH
25
ANIMAL DISH
ox beef
calf veal
pig pork
sheep mutton
hen poultry

26. MAJOR CHANGES OF FRENCH LOANWORDS
1. Semantic changes
2. Grammar changes
3. Stress changes

27. CONSEQUENCES
➢ While it is true that some of the common French borrowings have become part of the basic
stock of English vocabulary a large quantity of words has remained on a stylistically higher
level alongside the lower English terms.
➢ In grammar there are cases where not the infinitive is the model for the loan into English but
the plural present form of the verb (somewhat unexpectedly).
➢ The borrowed forms from French changed their stress from a final stress to the more
common initial stress typical of all Germanic words in English.
➢ The areas of the English lexicon in which the influence of French was to be felt reflect the
spheres of life in which the French predominated in the early Middle English period.

28. 4.
SCANDINAVIAN
BORROWINGS

29. HOW THEY ENTERED
➢ the contact between Old Norse and Old English
during colonization of eastern and
northern England between the mid 9th to the 11th
centuries
➢ mainly though the speaking language
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30. EXAMPLES
30
Semantic field ModEng ON + Meaning
Names Of Days Thursday Þorsdagr (Thor’s day)
War & Violence berserk Berserkr
lit. “bear-shirt.”
A Viking warrior who entered battle wearing
nothing for armor but an animal skin.
Society & Culture husband Húsbóndi
hús (house) + bóndi (occupier and tiller of soil)
Animals reindeer hreindyri
Landscape dirt drit (excrement)

31. CHANGES DURING ASSIMILATION & EXAMPLES
➢ Germanic /sk/ became / ʃ / (sh) in all positions. This change occurred later in Scandinavia,
and therefore words like shall, shoulder and shirt are native English words whereas skin, sky
and skirt are Scandinavian words.
➢ In early Old English the Germanic /g/ before front vowels became /j/, and /k/ became / ʃ /. In
Old Norse /g/ and /k/ remained. Thus, child, choose and yield are all native words, while
give, gift, kid and kindle are Scandinavian.
➢ Date of first appearance. For instance, the Old English word for ‘take’ was niman, but in late
Old English tacan is found. The Old Norse word was taka, which shows that it must have
been borrowed from the Scandinavians. In the same way, the word for ‘law’ was originally
lagu, which comes from Old Norse.
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Friðriksdóttir, Sandra Dögg. Old Norse Influence in Modern English: The Effect of the Viking Invasion. Diss.

32. CONSEQUENCES
➢ New gramatical items such as pronouns (they, their, them) and the plural of to be
(are)
➢ New quotidian vocabulary
￫ Nouns: bank, birth, booth, egg, husband, law, leg, root, score, sister, skin,
trust, wing and window
￫ Adjectives: awkward, flat, happy, ill, loose, low, odd, sly, ugly, weak, and
wrong
￫ Verbs: to cast, clip, crawl, cut, die, drown, gasp, give, lift, nag, scare, sprint,
take, and want

33. 5.
BORROWINGS
FROM OTHER
LANGUAGES

34. Borrowings from the Spanish Language
➢ Mainly entered through colonization, immigration and international communication
➢ Focus on Spanish words of Indigenous American Indian origin
English Word Its origins Its meaning
tobacco (Nahuatl influenced) tabaco, "snuff"
tomato from Nahuatl xitomatl “tomato”
avocado from Nahuatl ahuacatl “avocado” (Sometimes the
Nahuatl word was used with
the meaning "testicle“)
chocolate from Nahuatl xocolatl "hot water"

35. Borrowings from the Chinese Language
➢ Mainly entered through: missionaries, immigrants, colonizators, international communication
English
word
Origin of Word Chinese
Word
Phonetic
transliteration
Description
Ketchup Hokkien (Amoy) 茄汁 ke2 jap1 In the 17th century, the Chinese mixed a concoction of pickled fish and
spices and called it kôe-chiap or kê-chiap (鮭汁) meaning
the brine of pickled fish (鮭, salmon; 汁, juice) or shellfish. By the early
18th century, the sauce had made it to the Malay states where it was later
discovered by English explorers. That word then gradually evolved into
the English word "ketchup", and was taken to the American colonies by
English settlers.
Tea Hokkien 茶 tê Most European languages called te/tea where tea came from Amoy port.
Many others call it cha the Mandarin pronunciation where tea came via the
Silk Road.
Typhoon Cantonese or
Mandarin
颱風 toi4 fung1
(Cantonese)
lit. The wind that comes from Taiwan.

36. 3.
ROLE OF
BORROWINGS

37. ➢ the phonetic structure of English words and the sound
system;
➢ the word-structure and the system of word building;
➢ the semantic structure of English words;
➢ the lexical territorial divergence.

38. 4.
CONCLUSION

39. CONCLUSION
➢ People of different cultures have always interacted with each
other, and there has always been an exchange of lexica due to
this interaction.
➢ Loanwords enrich a language, since the vocabulary gets larger
and each word therefore acquires a more specific and subtle
meaning, and this should be kept in mind before one simply
criticizes and dismisses borrowings.

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THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!
Any questions?

41. BIBLIOGRAPHY

42. LITERATURE
➢ Young, H. (2018). A language family tree - in pictures. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/education/gallery/2015/jan/23/a-
language-family-tree-in-pictures [Accessed 2018].
➢ Bynon, Theodora (1977). Historical Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
➢ The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) - p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed
throughout time“
➢ OED Online. Oxford University Press, December 2018. Web.
➢ Davis, N. (2018). Resistance to changes in grammar is futile, say researchers. [online] the Guardian. Available at:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/nov/01/resistance-to-changes-in-grammar-is-futile-say-researchers [Accessed 2018].
➢ Finkenstaedt, Thomas; Dieter Wolff (1973). Ordered profusion; studies in dictionaries and the English lexicon. C. Winter.
➢ Hickey, R. (2018). The vocabulary of English: history. [online] Uni-due.de. Available at: https://www.uni-
due.de/ELE/English_Vocabulary_and_Meaning_(history).pdf [Accessed 2018].
➢ Abu, Leila Rita (2012). Latin influence on English language. Nyelvtudomány, (8-9). pp. 5-18.
➢ Friðriksdóttir, Sandra Dögg. Old Norse Influence in Modern English: The Effect of the Viking Invasion. Diss.
➢ Mallory, J. P. (1992). In Search of the Indo-Europeans/Language, Archaeology and Myth. Praehistorische Zeitschrift, 67(1), 132-137.
➢ Fadic, N. C. (2002). El préstamo léxico y su adaptación: un problema lingüístico y cultural. Onomázein: Revista de lingüística, filología y traducción de la
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, (7), 469-496.
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