Old English Vocabulary. Etymological composition
The full extent of the Old English vocabulary is not known to present- day scholars. There is no doubt that there existed more words in it. Surely some Old English words were lost altogether with the texts that perished; some might not have been used in written texts as they belonged to some spheres of human life which were not of great interest (some colloquial words, for instance).Modern estimates of the total vocabulary (recorded and preserved in written documents) range from 30 000 words (some even say 100 000 - Smirnitsky, Pei). It is mainly homogeneous. Loan words are fairly insignificant, and are grouped around some specific spheres of life.
Native words, in their turn can be subdivided into: Common Indo- European words, which were inherited from the common Indo-European language. They belong to the oldest layer and denote the names of natural phenomena, plants and animals, agricultural terms, names of parts of the human body, terms of kinship; verbs belonging to this layer denote the basic activities of Old English man, adjectives indicate the basic qualities; personal and demonstrative pronouns and most numerals are of this origin too.
These have already been mentioned in this book to illustrate the shift of sounds according to Grimm's law - feeder (father), modor (mother), brodor (brother), sweostor (sister); etan (to eat), sittan (to sit), slepan (to sleep), beran (to bear), cnawaii (to know), witan (to know); ceald (cold), cwaie (woman), dor (door), stan (stone), w&ter (water), fot (foot), heorte (heart). Some contained more stable sounds and in common Germanic were closer to their Indo-European counterparts. They changed only in the course of the Old English assimilative changes: sunu (son), sunne (sun), earm (arm; сотр. Ukr. рамена), neowe (new), jeonj (young), meolc (milk), mus (mouse), nosu (nose), ryje (rye; сотр. Rus. рожь), sndw (snow).
These words belong to the sphere of everyday life, and denote vital objects, qualities, and actions. Other words of common Indo-European origin are d£l (part), daej (day), eaje (Got. augo - Lat. oculus), fisc (fish), foda (food; Lat. panis - bread), ford (ford; Greek poros - a ferry), freond (friend; сотр. Ukr. приятель1 fyr (fire; Greek pyr; in Ukr. піротехнікаft jooc (yoke), jumci (man, human, Lat. homo), heorte (heart), hocyht Ікоготь) (hook), meolc (milk), medu (mead), пата (name), swehur (father-in-law), swin (swine, pig), дот (thorn; Ukr. терен, beatan (beat), brecan (fragment), fasstan (fast), fleotan (float), heelan (to heal), Ucjan (lie), sittan (sit), standan (stand), weorcan (work), witan (know), Lilian (willyjeor ( far; Lat. porro, Greek peri, perimeter), ful (full), heard (hard), manij (many), mere (sea), топа (moon), beard (beard), lippa (lip; Lat. labium, Rus. улыбка), treow (tree).
The majority of pronouns and numerals also spring mainly from the same source: twa (two), droo (three), eahta (eight), tien (ten); ic (І), дй (thou), me (me), daet (that), hwa (who; Lat. cjuis), hwset (what; Lat. quod).
Common Germanic words are the words than can be found in all Germanic languages, old and new, eastern, western and northern. Here belong such words as: eorde (earth - Goth, air da, OHG erda, OSax ertha, Olcel jord, Mn Germ. Erde)',jrene (green - OHG gruoni, OSax groni, OFr grene, OScand groene, Mn Germ grtin);heall (hall - OHG, OSax halla, Olcel holl, Mn Germ. Halle);hors (horse - OHG hros, OSax hros, OFr hars, hros, OScand hros, MnGerm Ross);hand (hand - Goth handus, OHG hant, OSax hand, OFr hand, hond, Mn Germ Hand);hlapan (leap - Goth hlaupan, OHG hloufan, OSax hlopan, OScand hlaupa, OFr hlapa, Mn Germ laufen);land (land - Goth, land, OHG lant, OSax, OFr, OScand land; Mn Germ Land); lang (long - Goth laggs, OHG lang, OSax, OFr lang, OScand langr, Mn Germ lang); sand (sand - OHG sant, OSax, OFr sand, Olcel sandr Mn Germ Sand); smsel (small - Goth smals,OHG smal, OFr sine I, OScand smalr, Mn Germ schmal - narrow); wicu (week - Goth wiko, OHG wehha, wohha, Olcel vika, OSax wica, OFr wike, Mn Germ Voche. Some linguists tend to treat common West-Germanic words separately, but mainly they are not so numerous. For instance, sprecan (to speak) is found also in OHG and Dutch (sprechen); wermod (wormwood) - OHG werimuota (wermouth).
Finally, hypothetically there are specifically Old English words, that is the words not found in any of the known old texts. These are to be taken for granted - no one knows what other texts might have been lost and the words might have existed in some other language. But we can still say that bridd (bird), wojian (to woo, to court), dwef(woof), terorian (to tire, to be tired) so far are treated as specifically English. Still, it is to be marked that some words still bear this British colouring: lilaford and hlasfdije (the owner of bread and that one who was making the dough, kneading it). Lord, Lady may be used in other meanings in other variants of the language, and have different metaphorically extended meanings: warlords, first lady) but everyone feels that it belongs to English culture. The parts of these compounds are not specifically English, but such combinations of morphemes are.
Lexical borrowings in Old English Loan-words, or borrowings were not so frequent in Old English. They are: Celtic (taken from the substratum languages) and Latin. Celtic element is not very significant, and is mainly reduced to the following: dun (down), dun (dun), binn (bin). These may occur as separate words, but a great many are found only as elements of place-names (amhuin - river: Avon, Evan, uisge (water) in names beginning with Exe-, Usk-, Esk-, (later - whiskey); dun, dum (hill): Dumbarton, Dundee, Dunstable, Dunfermline, Dunleary; inbher (mountain) - Inverness, Inverurfe; coil (forest) Killbrook, Killiemore etc. Some common names of people are of Celtic origin, too - Arthur (noble), Donald (proud chief), Kennedy (ugly head). Besides, one can find some words that were taken from Celtic languages by other Germanic languages, not necessarily on the Isles - wealas (alien) OHG wal(a)ha, Icel valir, eisarn - isarn, isem - iron.
Latin words in Old English are usually classified into two layers. Some were taken into Germanic languages in pre-British period, during contacts of the Germanic tribes through wars and trade; these words are found in many Germanic languages (we take Present-day German for comparison), and are so assimilated now that only a specialist can trace their origin. They are: castel ( castle - Lat. castellum) cealc (chalk - Lat.calcium) ciese (cheese - Lat. caseus, Mn Germ Kase), clres (cherry - Lat. cerasus, Mn Germ Kirsche), copor (copper, Lat. cuprum, Mn Germ Kupfer), cycene (Lat. coquina, Mn Germ Kuchen), cytel (kettle - Lat. catillus, Mn Germ Kessel), disc (dish Lat. discus, Mn Germ
mile (mile - Lat. milla passum, Mn Germ Meile).
myln ( mill - Lat. molinum, Mn Germ Muhle),
pipor (pepper - Lat. piper Mn Germ Pfeffer),
pund (pound- Lat;. pondo, Mn Germ Pfund),
street (street, road Lat. via strata, Mn Germ Strasse),
torr (tower, Lat. Turns, Mn Germ Turm),
weall (Lat. vallum, Germ Wall),
win ( wine - Lat. vinum Mn Germ Wein),
ynce (ounce Lat. uncia, Mn Germ Unze).
Traditionally, to this first layer we refer the place names containing Latin stems cester - Lat. castra (camp) - Chester, Manchester, Winchester, Worcester, Leicester, Lancaster; coin - Lat.colonia (from colere to cultivate, inhabit) - Lincoln, Colchester:; port - Lat. port (gate) - Portsmouth, Bridgeport, Devonport. There are lots of hybrid formations which are now familiar place-names in Britain:
(with the elements vie - village, strat - road, Llan - church)
Man-chester Win-chester Lan-caster Glou-cester
Ports-mouth Wool-wich Green-wich Strat-ford
York-shire Corn-wall Devon-shire Canter-bury
The second layer of the Latin borrowings is connected with the introduction of Christianity, and denotes religious notions plus some notions connected with the cultural and social phenomena which appeared in society after this event. A significant portion of religious terms are not specifically Latin, for they were borrowed into it from Greek, so we may find similar words in other languages.
Other words now existing in English but borrowed in old times are: abbod (abbot), abbudissa (abbess), aslmesse (alms), alter, altar (altar) antecrlste (Antichrist), candel (candle), enjel (angel), craeda (creed), ymn (hymn), martyr (martyr), papa (pope), massse (mess), mynster (monastery), preost (priest), ps(e)alm, sealm (psalm), saltere (psalter),serin (shrine); seal (school), majister (teacher), dihtan (to compose), meter (meter), epistol, pistol (epistle, letter).
Some borrowed stems came easily into the word-building system of the language, forming the following hybrids in Old English - preost-hdd (priesthood), biscop-hdd (bishophood), ensten-dan (Christendom), biscop- rice (bishopric), martyr-had (martyrhood) etc. There are also compounds, one part of which is Latin and the other English cirice-jeard (churchyard), mynster-ham (monastery as home), mynsterhata (destroyer of monasteries), mynsterman (a monk).
However, the English language still had a strong immunity to foreign influence; some religious terms are of native origin, though their original meaning was different, jod (god) in pagan polytheistic religion was one of several deities, esp. a male deity, presiding over some portion of worldly affairs, halja (saint) is related to whole. Weofod (altar) was also native. There were translation loans for the others: hoahfaeder (patriarch, high father), jodspel (gospel, good stoiy), drones (trinity), fulwian (to baptize); fulluht- fseder (godfather), asfassteness (religion; Lat. religare - to fasten).
It was already mentioned that translation-loans are also found in the names of days of the week, and also some other terms (Mman - dasj, Tiwes-d&3, Wo dues - daej, du(n)res - daej, Frije - daej - Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday), joldsmid <— aurifex tunjolcraeft <r- astronomos; dae Iminend f- participium; from dael (part) + nimdn (take) - participle); nemnijendlJc <r- nominativus (nominative) from nemnian to give a name; wrenjellc accusativus (accusative) from wrenj wrong, guilty etc.
Nowadays all the grammatical terms in English are replaced by words of Latin origin, but in Aelfric's Grammar an attempt was made to find an , English way of rendering the new notions (compare it with similar terms in Ukrainian sub (під) Ц ject (метати) = підмет, pre (при) + dicere (судити, говорити) = присудок; Instrumentalis - орудний; Rus. Accusativus винительный).