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1. Lecture 15
Etymological survey of
the English word stock
Lecturer : Tukhtakhodjaeva Z.T.
Associate Professor

2. 1. Etymological overview of the English word-stock
2. The characteristics of the native (Anglo-Saxon)
vocabulary units and their derivational potential
3. Borrowings in English and their peculiarities
4. Assimilation of borrowings: phonetic, lexical and
grammatical adaptation
5.Influence of borrowings on the language
development
6. Development of English as a global language

3. The word ’Etymology’ is derived from the Greek
word ἐτυμολογία etymologia, from ἔτυμον, etymon – “true
sense", and the suffix -logia "the study of “, and means “ the
study of the true sense of the words”.
Its tasks include:
 To comprehend the historical nature of the English
vocabulary;
 To examine the origin and sources of the vocabulary units;
 To reveal the historical causes of their appearance and
development;
 To comprehend the role of native and borrowed elements in
the enlargement of the English vocabulary;
 To appreciate the role of English in the intercultural
communication.

4.  Etymologically the vocabulary of any language
consists of two groups of units – the native words and
the borrowed words (or loans).
 In its 15-century history recorded in written
manuscripts the English language came in contact with
mainly Latin, French and Old Norse (or Scandinavian).
 The etymological analysis showed that the borrowed
stock is larger than the native stock of words and
makes approximately 70% of the English vocabulary
 Source of borrowing is the language from which a
particular word was taken into English.
 Origin of the word is the language where the word was
actually born.

5.  A native word is a word which belongs to the
original English stock, as known from the Old
English period. The native words are further
subdivided into those of the Indo-European
stock and those of Common Germanic origin.
 Native words have been brought to the British Isles
in the 5th century by Germanic tribes - Angles,
Saxons and Jutes. They also include the words coined
later on the basis of the original words by means of
WF processes;
 The first written document in Old English was the law
code of King Æthelberht of Kent which dates from
shortly after 602.

6.  The words of Indo-European origin are mainly terms of kinship
(father, mother, son), terms from nature (sun, moon, water),
names of animals and birds (bull, cat, wolf), parts of the human
body (arm, eye, foot), frequent verbs (come, sit, stand), etc. ;
 A bigger part is formed by words of the Common Germanic
stock. These words have parallels in German, Norwegian,
Dutch, Icelandic: e.g.: summer, winter, rain, bridge, house,
shop, shoe, life, to bake, to buy, to learn, to see, and others;
 Native words make about 80 % of the 500 most frequent words
in English. They are characterised by a high lexical and
grammatical valency, high frequency and developed polysemy.
They are often monosyllabic, have great word-building power
and enter a number of set expressions.

7.  Man, woman, boy, brother, wife, son, etc.
 Sleep, read, die, dream, work, write, eat,
etc.
 Bird, hare, rabbit, horse, goose, hen, etc.
 Kind, keen, long, hard, heavy, hearty, etc.
 Indeed, instead, thus, between, so, as, etc.
 This, that, the, a, to, or, but, also, with, etc.
 What, why, who, which, where, how, etc.
 One, two, three, four, five, seven, eight, etc.
 Bread, soup, apple, broth, pie, milk, etc.

8.  Borrowing is the process of adopting words,
word-building affixes and phrases from other
languages, and the result of this process, the
vocabulary units themselves;
 Borrowings (loans) – can be:
 words (e.g. marriage, philosophy, start, cab);
 word-building affixes (e.g.-able, -ment, -ity );
 idioms (e.g. vis-à-vis (Fr), Pandora’s box (Gr),
appetite comes with the eating (Fr), let the cat
out of the bag (Ger), etc.;
 Borrowed words are usually modified in
phonemic shape, spelling, paradigm or
meaning according to the standards of English.

9.  cab - 1826, shortening of cabriolet (1763)
"light, horse-drawn carriage," fr. Fr. dim. of
cabrioler "leap, caper," from It. capriolare
"jump in the air," from L. capreolus "wild
goat."
 These carriages had springy suspensions;
 First used of locomotives 1859;
 Then of automobiles 1899;
 Cabby (or ‘cabbie) – “a driver” is from 1859,
now is a slangism (like “шеф” in Russian).

10.  slave - c.1300, from O.Fr. esclave, from M.L.
Sclavus "slave," originally "Slav," so called
because of the many Slavs sold into slavery by
conquering peoples.
 lyceum - c.1580, L. version of Gk. lykeion,
grove near Athens where Aristotle taught, from
neut. of Lykeios "wolf-slayer," an epithet of
Apollo, whose temple was nearby.
 batik - 1880, from Du., from Malay mbatik
"writing, drawing."

11. Greek:analysis, anatomy, angel, prophet;
Latin:butter, area, bonus, audio, city;
French:river,price,money,coin, double;
Arabic:alcohol, algebra, coffee, cotton;
Italian:banquet, bergamot, biscuit, candy;
Indian:guru, sari, avatar, pyjamas;
Am. Indian: canoe, moccasin, turkey, etc.
.

12.  Words of identical origin that occur in several languages as a
result of simultaneous or successive borrowings from one
ultimate source and having the same or similar meanings are
called “international words”.
 Such words usually convey notions which are significant in
the field of communication technologies, international affairs,
world trade, Internet, economy, arts and sciences, etc.
 Most of internationalisms are of Latin and Greek origin.
 Most sciences have international names; e.g. physics,
chemistry, biology, linguistics, lexicology, etc.
 However, we should be aware of the “false friends of translators”
(aртист - actor; artist-художник); (фамилия- surname; family –
семья);(новелла - short story; novel – роман), etc.

13.  Assimilation of borrowings is a partial or
complete adaptation to the phonetic(al),
grammatical, semantic, morphological and
graphical systems of the receiving language;
 The degree of assimilation depends on the
semantic importance, frequency and length of
use of borrowings;
 The process of assimilation of borrowings
includes changes in sound-form,
morphological structure, grammatical
characteristics, meaning and usage.

14. ASSIMILATION
Phonetic
Grammatical
Lexical

17.  Lexical assimilation includes changes in semantic structure
and the formation of derivatives: pain < Fr. peine > painful,
painless, painstaking, painkiller, etc.
 Polysemantic words are usually adopted only in one or two of
their meanings: Spanish cargo - only in the meaning ‘the
goods carried in a ship’, not debt or position;
 In some cases we can observe specialisation of meaning, as in
the word hangar, denoting a building in which aeroplanes are
kept (in French it meant simply ‘shed’, a roofed structure).
 A borrowing sometimes acquires new meanings that were not
to be found in its former semantic structure:
French ‘mouvoir’– ‘to move’ in English developed meanings
1) go, 2) propose, 3) change one’s flat, 4) mix with people,
5) have strong feelings, etc.

18. (1) The formation of verbal nouns from a French stem with the
Germanic ending {-ing}: preaching, serving;
(2) The formation of nouns by addition of Germanic suffixes:
{-ness}: faintness, secretiveness; (-ship}: relationship;
(3) The addition of the suffix {ly} (< OE -lich) to French
loanwords: {ly}: courtly, princely;
(4) The same applies to the affixes {-ful}: beautiful, powerful;
{less}: colourless, pitiless, noiseless;
(5) The formation of nouns by the addition of suffixes: {-
age}: shortage, leakage; {ment}: enlightenment, bewilderment;
(6) The formation of adjectives by the use of suffix
{able}: likeable, loveable, provable, drinkable, bearable, etc.

19.  1. Completely assimilated borrowed words: L. wall,
cheese, street, wine; Sc. husband, root, fellow; Fr.
courage, -age,-ance, -ess,-fy, Rus. Sputnik, etc.
 2. Partially assimilated borrowed words: sherbet,
sari, sombrero, admiral, piano, repetoire, candy;
 3. Unassimilated borrowed words or barbarisms:
Italian: Ciao ‘goodbye’, French: coup d’etat, affiche,
brioche, bouquet, L. phenomenon/a, Gr. formula/ae.
Note: Oral borrowings are assimilated more rapidly than
literary borrowings, which came through written speech.

20.  Translation-loans (or loan-translations) are words and expressions
formed after the patterns characteristic of the receiving language,
under the influence of the foreign words and expressions. E. g.
mother tongue < L. lingua materna; it goes without saying < Fr.
Cela va sans dire; wall newspaper < Rus. стенгазета.
 Semantic borrowing is the appearance of a new meaning due to
the influence of a related word in another language (pioneer-
member of the teenagers’ organization in USSR).
 Etymological doublets are words originating from the same
etymological source, but differing in phonemic shape and in
meaning (shade-shadow, cask-cask, etc.).
 Etymological hybrids are words created from both native and
borrowed elements, like ‘shortage’ – English adjective ‘short’
and French suffix ‘-age’ borrowed from words like courage.

21.  Microinstruction – from the Greek μικρός (mikros) meaning "small" and the
Latin instructio
 Microvitum – from the Greek μικρος (mikros) meaning "small" and the
pseudo-Latin vitum, from vita meaning "life"
 Minneapolis – from the Dakota minne "water" and the Greek πόλις (pólis)
"city"
 Monoculture – from the Greek μόνος (monos) meaning "one, single" and the
Latin cultura
 Monolingual – from the Greek μόνος (monos) meaning "only" and the
Latin lingua meaning "tongue"; the non-hybrid word is unilingual
 Multigraph – from the Latin multus "many" and the Greek γραφή (graphē);
the non-hybrid word would be polygraph, but that is generally used with a
different meaning
 Neuroscience – from the Greek νεῦρον (neuron), meaning "sinew", and the
Latin scientia, from sciens, meaning "having knowledge"
 Neurotransmitter – from the Greek νεῦρον (neuron), meaning "sinew", and
the Latin trans, meaning "across" and mittere meaning "to send"
21

22. Many PhUs enter into the international idiomatic
vocabulary. Examples:
 “Blue blood” – Fr. le sang bleu / Span. la sangre
azul / Chech. modrá krev / Pol. błękitna krew; /
Ukr. голуба кров; Gem blaues Blut; Russian
«голубая кровь» is a calque from English, which is
a calque from Spanish - la sangre azul. Originally
it was the name of the Castillia nobles who never
married dark-skinned;
 “To cast pearls before swine” (Bible) – Rus. метать
бисер перед свиньями/ Ger. Perlen von die Saue
werfen/ Sp. echar perlas delante de los puercos; It.
gettare le perle dinanzi a porci, etc.
 “Achilles heel” – Rus. Ахиллесова пята (a weak
point) fr. Greek mythology

23.  A dictionary giving the historical origins of the words
listed is called etymological dictionary;
 Often, large dictionaries, such as the Oxford English
Dictionary and Webster’s, will contain some
etymological information, without focusing on
etymology;
 Etymological dictionaries are the product of research
in Historical Lexicography.
 For a large number of words in any language, the
etymology will be uncertain, disputed, or simply
unknown.
 In such cases, depending on the space available, an
etymological dictionary will present various suggestions
and perhaps make a judgement on their likelihood, and
provide references to a full discussion in specialist
literature.

24.  ambassador - c.1385, from M.Fr.
ambassadeur, from O.Fr. embassator, from L.
ambactus "vassal," from Celt. amb(i)actos "a
messenger, servant," from PIE *ambhi-
"about" *ag- "drive, lead.«
 ambiguous - 1528, from L. ambiguus, adj.
derived from ambigere "to dispute about,"
also, "to wander," from ambi- "about" +
agere "drive, lead, act." Sir Thomas More
(1528) seems to have first used it in Eng.
Ambiguity (from L. ambiguitatem) first
recorded 1400.
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Etymology_Dictionary

26. THANK YOU!