Characteristic Features of the Native Vocabulary
1. The words are monosyllabic: sun, wood, break.
- They are polysemantic: hand – 1. Part of the human body. 2. Power, possession, by a responsibility.3. Influence. 4. Person from whom news comes. 5. Skill in using one’s hands. 6. Person who does what is indicated by the context, performer. 7. Workman. 8. Share in activity. 9. Pointer, indicator. 10. Position or direction. 11. Handwriting. 12. Signature. 13. Number of cards held by a player. 14. Unit of measurement. 15. Applause by clapping.
3. They are characterised by high frequency.
4. Native words are usually found in set-expressions.
5. Verbs with post-positions are usually native: to look for, to look after.
6. They are characterised by a wide range of lexical and grammatical valency.
7. If words begin with wh, wr, tw, dw, sw, sh. th; if at the end they have dge, tch,nd, ld; if the roots have ng, aw, ew, ee, oo they are native.
2. Causes and Ways of Borrowing into English
In its fifteen century long history recorded in written manuscripts the English language happened to come in long and close contact with several other languages, mainly Latin, French, Old Norse. The great influx of borrowings from these sources can be accounted for by a number of historical causes. Due to the great influence of the Roman civilisation Latin was for a long time used in England as the language of learning and religion. Old Norse was the language of the conquerors who brought with them a lot of new notions of a higher social system – developed feudalism – it was the language of upper classes, of official documents from the middle of the 11th century to the end of the 14th century.
In the study of the borrowed element in English the main emphasis is as a rule placed on the Middle English period. Borrowings of the later periods became the object of investigation only in recent years. These investigations show that the flow of borrowings has been steady and uninterrupted. The greatest number of them has come from French. A large portion of them (41) is scientific and technical terms.
The number and character of borrowings do not only depend on the historical conditions, on the nature and length of contacts but also on the degree of the genetic and structural proximity of the languages concerned. The closer the languages the deeper and more versatile is the influence. Thus under the influence of the Scandinavian languages, which were closely related to Old English, some classes of words were borrowed that could not have been adopted from non-related or distantly related languages.
Borrowings enter the language in two ways: through oral and written speech. Oral borrowing took place chiefly in the early periods of history, whereas in recent times written borrowing gained importance. Words borrowed orally are usually short and they undergo more changes in the act of adoption. Written borrowings preserve their spelling.
Borrowings can be borrowed through transcription (football, trailer, jeans), transliteration (cruise, motel, club). Besides there can be loan words (blue stocking, collective farm).
It is worth noting that a larger number of native words are mono-syllabic. Pure English words are the following:
1. a) Demonstrative adjectives, pronouns and numerals.
b) All auxiliary verbs.
c) Prepositions and conjunctions.
d) Nouns forming their plurals by change of their vowels, such as tooth, foot, goose, mouse etc.
e) Verbs forming their past tenses by change of their vowels, such as give, eat, run, take etc.
f) Adjectives forming their degrees of comparison irregularly, such as good-better-best, bad-worse-worst etc.
2. Grammatical inflexions as mentioned bellow:
a) Plural suffixes ending in ‘s’ and ‘es’.
b) Verbal inflexions of past and present tenses.
c) Suffixes denoting degree of comparison.
3. Many suffixes:
a) Suffixes of nouns
Child + hood= childhood
Captain + ship= captainship
Free + dom= freedom
Calm + ness= calmness
School + ing= schooling
b) Suffixes in adjectives
complete + ly= completely
beauty + ful= beautiful
quarrel + some= quarrelsome
c) suffixes of verbs, as ‘em’ or ‘en’.
4. Numerous prefixes, such as al, be, under, on and out.
So also the names of the elements and their changes, of the seasons, the heavenly bodies, the divisions of time, the features of natural scenery, the moods of bodily action, the most common animals, the words used in early childhood, ordinary terms of traffic, the simpler emotions of the mind, terms of peasantry, satire, contempt, indignation, invective and anger are for the most part unborrowed. Similarly, words relating to art, singing and dancing, familiar action, feeling and qualities remain intact in native.
Sometimes we find English words combined with foreign elements. Such words are termed as ‘hybridism’, are in many in number, such as ‘hindrance’ ‘bondage’, ‘goddess’, ‘shepherdess’, ‘songster’ etc. There are results of mutual adjustment in the spirit of give and take during ups and downs English had to experience in its long and eventful history.
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Primarily there were continental Latin borrowings, that the tribes of Jutes, Angles and Saxons acquired from the contacts with a higher civilization when they still lived on the continent (cup, cheese, butter, mill, line, ounce, pipe, pound, wine).
In the early period of Old English there were the other group of borrowings from Latin. Though the barbaric invaders – tribes of Angles, Saxons and Jutes – tried to annihilate (избавляться, истреблять, уничтожать) all the remnants of Roman culture, they borrowed into their language via Celtic about 450 Latin words that were already in wide use in England (port, street, mile, mountain, the element chester or caster, retained in many names of towns).
Insular borrowings from Celtic and Latin made up only about 3% of the vocabulary of Engelisck, or Old English.
So, the 7th century AD Old English consisted of words of common Indo-European and Germanic roots, as well as borrowings from Celtic, continental and early insular borrowings from Latin. All these words may be regarded as native in contrast to later borrowings that came into the language along with great changes in the life of England's people, and first of all, the conversion of Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. This caused the first really extensive wave of borrowings from Latin into English.
The conversion of the English to Christianity began in about the year 600 and was completed in the 7lh century. As a result Latin and Greek words appeared such as altar, bishop, creed, devil, school, church, priest, disciple, psalm, temple, nun, etc.). It is interesting to note that native, pagan, Anglo-Saxon words like God, godspell, hlaford, and synn showed a strong resistance to loan words, though they were not related to Christianity.
The Renaissance period (1500-1650) was marked by significant developments in science, art and culture, especially a revival of interest in ancient civilization. Many texts were translated into English from Latin, Greek, Italian and lots of words from these languages were introduced to English (allegro, anachronism, capacity, catastrophe, celebrate, chronology, confidence, contract, criterion, dogma, epic, expend, fertile, granite, laconic, museum, native, opera, piano, portico, soprano, sarcasm, and system).
Words coined from Greek or Latin roots — the longest and usually most difficult words in the English vocabulary where alongside with well familiar photograph, telephone there are many special terms like otorhinolaryngology or sphygmomanometer. The longest word registered in English texts so far is nocalcalinocetaceoaluminosocupreovitriolic.
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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, v., take, v., cast, v., die, v., law, п., husband, n. (< Sc. hus + bondi, i. e. "inhabitant of the house"), window n. (< Sc. vindauga, i. e. "the eye of the wind"), ill, adj., loose, adj., low, adj., weak, adj. Some of the words of this group are easily recognisable as Scandinavian borrowings by the initial sk- combination. E. g. sky, skill, skin, ski, skirt.
Certain English words changed their meanings under the influence of Scandinavian words of the same root. So, the O. E. bread which meant "piece" acquired its modern meaning by association with the Scandinavian brand. The О. Е. dream which meant "joy" assimilated the meaning of the Scandinavian draumr(cf. with the Germ. Traum "dream" and the R. дрёма).
Total number – appr. 900 words; about 700 belong to Stand. E.
Features:
/k/ and /g/ before e and i, e.g. give, kid, get, gift;
/sk/ in the initial position, e.g. sky, skill, score, skin, skirt;
nouns: anger, bag, band, bank, bull, calf, cake, dirt, egg, fellow, fog, knife, leg, loan, law, neck, root, ransack, sister, wing, window;
adjectives: awkward, flat, happy, ill, low, loose, odd, rotten, scant, sly, silver, tight, ugly, wrong;
verbs: cast, call, clip, die, gasp, get, give, guess, raise, seem, scare, scowl, seem, smile, take, thrive, want;
pronouns: they, their, them, themselves, though, both, same.
Legal terms (together with military terms reflecting the relations during the Danish raids and Danish rule represent the earliest loan-words):
husband – originally ‘a house holder’, one who owns a house;
fellow – originally ‘one who lays down a fee, as a partner or shareholder’;
law – originally ‘that which is laid down’;
Place-names:
-thorp ‘village’ as in Althorp;
-by ‘farm / town’ as in Derby, Rugby;
-toft ‘piece of land’ as in Sandtoft;
-ness ‘cape’ as in Inverness, Loch Ness;
Forming elements:
are (pr. tense pl. to be), -s (pr. tense, 3rd p. sg)
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The French language was brought to England by the Norman conquerors. The Normans remained masters of England for a sufficiently long time to leave a deep impress on the language. The Norman rulers and the immigrants, who invaded the South-Western towns after the Conquest, spoke a variety of French, known as “Anglo-Norman”. This variety died out about two hundred years later, having exerted a profound influence upon English. In the 13th and 14th c. English was exposed to a new wave of French influence; this time it came from Central, Parisian French, a variety of a more cultivated, literary kind.
The effect of these successive and overlapping waves was seen first and foremost in a large number of lexical borrowings in ME. At the initial stages of penetration French words were restricted to some varieties of English: the speech of the aristocracy at the king’s court; the speech of the middle class, who came into contact both with the rulers and with the ruled; the speech of educated people and the population of South-Eastern towns. Eventually French loan-words spread throughout the language space and became an integral of the English vocabulary. Early borrowings were mostly made in the course of oral communication; later borrowings were first used in literature — in translations of French books.
The total number of French borrowings by far exceeds the number of borrowings from any other foreign language (though sometimes it is difficult to say whether the loan came from French or Latin). The greater part of French loan-words in English date from ME.
During the initial hundred and fifty years of the Norman rule the infiltration of French words into the English language progressed slowly. Early ME texts contain very few French words: only twenty French words are found in ORMULUM (c. 1200, North-East Midland). More words are recorded in manuscripts coming from the southern regions: 150 words in Layamon’s BRUT and up to 500 words in ANCRENE RIWLE (South-West Midland). On the whole, prior to the 13th c. no more than one thousand words entered the English language, whereas by 1400 their number had risen to 10,000 (75% of them are still in common use). The majority of French loan-words adopted in ME were first recorded in the texts of the 14th c. Chaucer’s vocabulary, which amounts to 8,000 words, contains about 4,000 words of Romance origin, i.e. French and Latin borrowings.
Among the earliest borrowings are Early ME prisun (NE prison), Early ME castel (NE castle), Early ME werre (NE war), Late OE prýto, prūt (NE pride, proud).
The French borrowings of the ME period are usually described according to semantic spheres.
To this day nearly all the words relating to the government and administration of the country are French by origin: assembly, authority, chancellor, council, counsel, country, court, crown, exchequer, govern, government, nation, office, parliament, people, power, realm, sovereign and many others. Close to this group are words pertaining to the feudal system and words indicating titles and ranks of the nobility: baron, count, countess, duchess, duke, feudal, liege, manor, marquis, noble, peer, prince, viscount. It is notable that very few words of these semantic groups are native, e.g. lord, lady, king, queen, earl, knight. (OE cniht originally meant ‘boy’, ‘servant’, OE earl ‘man’, ‘warrior’.) These borrowings show that the Normans possessed a far more elaborate administrative system and a more complex scale of ranks.
The host of military terms adopted in ME is a natural consequence of the fact that military matters were managed by the Normans and that their organisation of the army and military service was new to the English. The examples are: aid, armour, arms, army, banner, battle (from O Fr and ME battaille), captain (from earlier cheftain), company, dart, defeat, dragoon, ensign, escape, force, lance, lieutenant, navy, regiment, sergeant, siege, soldier, troops, vessel, victory and many others. It is interesting that some of the loan-words from French were originally borrowed from Germanic languages at an earlier stage of history, e.g. ME werre (from O Fr werre, Mod Fr guerre) entered O Fr, or rather its parent-language, the spoken Latin of Gaul, at the time of the first Franconian kingdoms. (Other words with similar histories are: guard from O Fr guarde, cf. O Scand vördhr; garden from O Fr garden, jardin, cf. OHG garto).
A still greater number of words belong to the domain of law and jurisdiction, which were certainly under the control of the Normans. For several hundred years court procedure was conducted entirely in French, so that to this day native English words in this sphere are rare. Many of the words first adopted as juridical terms belong now to the common everyday vocabulary: acquit, accuse, attorney, case, cause, condemn, court, crime, damage, defendant, false, felony, guilt, heir, injury, interest, judge, jury, just, justice, marry, marriage, money, penalty, plaintiff, plead, poor, poverty, properly, prove, rent, robber, session, traitor.
A large number of French words pertain to the Church and religion, for in the 12th and 13th c. all the important posts in the Church were occupied by the Norman clergy: abbey, altar, archangel, Bible, baptism, cell, chapel, chaplain, charity, chaste, clergy, divine, grace, honour, glory, lesson, miracle, nativity, paradise, parish, passion, pray, preach, procession, religion, rule, sacrifice, saint, save, sermon, tempt, vice, virgin, virtue.
Besides these spheres which reflect the dominant position of the Normans in Britain as conquerors and rulers, there are many others which reveal the influence of the Norman way of life on the English.
From the loan-words referring to house, furniture and architecture we see that the Normans introduced many innovations, which became known to the English together with their French names: arch, castle, cellar, chimney, column, couch, curtain, cushion, lamp, mansion, palace, pillar, porch, table, wardrobe. Some words are connected with art: art, beauty, colour, design, figure, image, ornament, paint. Another group includes names of garments: apparel, boot, coat, collar, costume, dress, fur, garment, gown, jewel, robe.
Many French loan-words belong to the domain of entertainment, which is natural enough, for the Norman nobles amused themselves with various pastimes. The borrowed chase competed with its native synonym hunt, which has survived as well; other examples are: cards, dance, dice, leisure, partner, pleasure, sport, tournament, trump. Some of these words can be described as relating to knighthood, such as adventure (ME aventure), array, chivalry, contest, courteous, honour, romance.
We can also single out words relating to different aspects of the life of the upper classes and of the town life: forms of address — sir, madam, and also mister, mistress (as well as master and servant); names of some meals — dinner, supper — and dishes. It was first noticed by J. Wallis (1653) that the names of meals are often French, whereas the names of the animals from whose meat they are cooked are English. Cf. beef, veal, mutton, pork, bacon, brawn, venison (French loan-words) and native English ox, cow, calf, sheep, swine, bear, deer. The prevalence of French terms in cooking, as well as in clothes, can be accounted for by the fact that the French led the fashion in both these spheres, and that French professional cooks and tailors had settled in Britain. It is notable that town trades bore French names while simple country occupations retained their native names: cf. butcher, carpenter, draper, grocer, painter, tailor coming from French and the native miller, shepherd, shoemaker, smith.
Finally, many French loan-words cannot be referred to a definite semantic sphere and can only be listed as miscellaneous, e.g.: advice, air, allow, anxious, boil, carry, change, close, cover, cry, deceive, double, eager, enjoy, enter, envy, excuse, face, firm, flower, honest, hour, joy, large, letter, manner, move, necessary, nice, noise, obey, occupy, pale, pass, please, previous, push, river, remember, satisfy, search, scissors, single, sudden, sure, travel, treasure, very, use.
French influence led to different kinds of changes in the vocabulary. Firstly, there were many innovations, i.e. names of new objects and concepts, which enlarged the vocabulary by adding new items. Secondly, there were numerous replacements of native words by French equivalents, which resulted in a shift in the ratio of Germanic and Romance roots in the language, e.g. the loan-words very, river, peace, easy displaced the native OE swiþe, ēa, friþ, ēaþe. The adoption of a word synonymous with a native word did not necessarily lead to replacement. Most frequently the co-existence of a borrowed and native synonym ended in their differentiation, they were both retained as they differed in style, dialect, shades of meaning or combinability. This third kind of influence enriched the English vocabulary even more than the adoption of pure innovations. The influx of French words — as well as the later borrowing of Latin words — is one of the main historical reasons for the abundance of synonyms in Mod E. The difference between the native and borrowed words often lies in their stylistic connotations: French loan-words, particularly those which were adopted in Late ME (and later) preserve a more bookish, literary character; hence such pairs of words as French commence — native begin, conceal — hide, prevent —-hinder, search — look for, odour — smell, desire — wish.
The impact of French upon the English vocabulary was not limited to the borrowing of words or roots. The vocabulary was also enriched by the adoption of French affixes. Derivational affixes could not be borrowed as such; they entered the language in scores of loan-words, were unconsciously or consciously separated by the speakers and used in derivation. They could become productive in English only after the loan-words with those affixes were completely assimilated by the language; that is why the use of borrowed French affixes dates largely from the Early NE period.
Assimilation of French words by the speakers of English was a more difficult process than assimilation of Scandinavian words. The French language belonged to a different linguistic group and had very little in common with English.
Anglo-Norman words must have been very hard to pronounce as they contained many sounds which did not exist in English, such as nasalised vowels, the sound [y] and soft, palatalised consonants. Word accentuation in O Fr was foreign to English, a language of the Germanic group: in French the main stress fell on the ultimate or penultimate syllable of the word. Nevertheless, phonetic assimilation of borrowed words progressed quickly. The foreign features were lost and the words were adapted to the norms of English pronunciation. French sounds were replaced by resembling English sounds. Thus French [y] was reflected in English as [u] or [ju], e.g. O Fr juge, ME juge, NE judge, O Fr vertu, ME vertu, NE virtue. Palatalised [1'] and [n'] were shown as ordinary [1] and [n] or as sequences [il, in], cf. e.g. O Fr faillir, which contained [1'], and ME fallen, NE fail; O Fr compagnie — ME companye, NE company. The nasalised vowels lost their nasal character: e.g. O Fr chambre, ME chaumbre, NE chamber, O Fr changier, ME chaungen, changen [a:], NE change.
(Sometimes the difference between the French and the English word is accounted for not only by assimilation but also by the peculiarities of the Anglo-Norman variety of French: e.g. ME variants of changen contained the diphthong [au], chaungen (also straunge, comaunden) like the corresponding Anglo-Norman word; the difference in the consonants of Fr changer and NE change [∫] and [t∫] reflects the dialectal difference between Anglo-Norman and Parisian French).
The stress in French loan-words was shifted in conformity with the English rules of word accentuation, due to the rhythmic or recessive tendency. This was probably a slow process, since in Chaucer’s time (14th c.) we still find many words accented in the French way, like ME nature [na'tju:r∂], condicioun[¸k∂ndi'siu:n]. By the 17th c. they sounded ['nε:tf∂] and [k∂n'di∫n].
The degree of phonetic assimilation of foreign words is further attested by their participation in the sound changes of English. ME borrowings from French underwent the same Early NE phonetic changes as native words, and as words borrowed in the preceding periods, e.g. long accented vowels were subjected to the Great Vowel Shift, final unstressed vowels were reduced and dropped, e.g. ME robe ['ro:b∂]>NE robe; ME changen ['t∫a:nd3∂n]>NE change.
Grammatical assimilation of borrowed words evidently did not give much trouble to the speakers. They freely added English grammatical endings to the stems of the borrowed words and used them in all grammatical forms like native words: e.g. countable nouns took the universal ending -(e)s in the pl, all the verbs (except strive) became weak and took the suffix -d- to form the Past and Part. II.
A most important aspect of assimilation was the participation of borrowed words and their components in word formation. As early as ME some French roots came to be combined with English affixes and other roots, e.g. Late ME verrai-ly, un-fruit-ful, gentil-man, gentil-woman (NE very, unfruitful, gentleman, gentlewoman). These words are hybrids as their component parts come from different languages. French derivational affixes began to be used in word-building some time later.
Since the French loan-words of the ME period were completely assimilated, it is not easy to identify a French borrowing and to distinguish it from native words or borrowings from other languages. Some French loans have retained their bookish character, but this stylistic connotation is even more typical of later borrowings from classical languages (cf. e.g. sorrow, sorry — native, grief — Fr, affliction — L). Many French words are polysyllabic, but so are many native words and borrowings from other languages. More reliable criteria are French suffixes and prefixes frequently occurring in borrowed words: -ment, -ty, -ion, re-, de- and others; and yet, since they came to be employed as derivational means in English and yielded new specifically English words, they cannot serve as absolutely reliable marks of French words.
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The foreign influence on the English vocabulary in the age of the Renaissance and in the succeeding centuries was not restricted to Latin and Greek. The influx of Frenchwords continued and reached new peaks in the late 15th and in the late 17th c.
French borrowings of the later periods mainly pertain to diplomatic relations, social life, art and fashions. French remained the international language of diplomacy for several hundred years; Paris led the fashion in dress, food and in social life and to a certain extent in art and literature; finally, the political events in France in the 18th—19th c. were of world-wide significance. All these external conditions are reflected in French loans. Examples of diplomatic terms are attaché, communiqué, dossier; the words ball, beau, cortege, cafe, coquette, hotel, picnic, restaurant refer to social life; ballet, ensemble, essay, genre pertain to art; military terms are brigade, corps, manoeuvre, marine, police, reconnaissance; fashions in dress and food are illustrated by words likeblouse, chemise, corsage, cravat, champagne, menu, soup. Words of miscellaneous character are: comrade, detail, entrance, essay, machine, moustache, progress, ticket.
As seen from the lists, later French borrowings differ widely from the loan-words adopted in ME. Most of them have not been completely assimilated and have retained a foreign appearance to the present day — note their spellings, the sounds and the position of the stress. Words like genre and restaurant have nasalised vowels and a French spelling: police, fatigue, marine receive the stress on the last syllable and are pronounced with long [i:] indicated by the letter ilike French words; the digraph ch stands for [∫] in machine, in beau the letters eau have also retained the sound value of the French prototype [o:].
In addition to the three main sources — Greek, Latin and French, English speakers of the NE period borrowed freely from many other languages. It has been estimated that even in the 17th c. the English vocabulary contained words derived from no less than fifty foreign tongues. We shall mention only the most important ones.
The main contributors to the vocabulary were Italian, Dutch, Spanish, German, Portuguese and Russian. A number of words were adopted from languages of other countries and continents, which came into contact with English: Persian, Chinese, Hungarian, Turkish, Malayan, Polynesian, the native languages of India and America.
Next to French, Latin and Scandinavian, English owes the greatest number of foreign words to Italian, though many of them, like Latin loan-words, entered the English language through French. A few early borrowings pertain to commercial and military affairs while the vast majority of words are related to art, music and literature, which is a natural consequence of the fact that Italy was the birthplace of the Renaissance movement and of the revival of interest in art.
In the 14th c. English imported the Italian words ducato, million, florin (from the name of Florence, where the coin was minted), pistol, cartridge, alarm (probably borrowed from French but traced to Italian all’ arme ‘all to arms’). Italian words relating to art are well known to speakers of all European languages. Examples of musical terms adopted in English are: aria, bass, cello (genetically, a diminutive suffix in violoncello), concerto, duet, finale, piano, solo, sonata, soprano, tenor, violin.
The Italian loan-words balcony, cameo, corridor, cupola, design, fresco, gallery, granite, parapet, pedestal, studio reveal the priority of the Italians in certain spheres of culture. The loans replica, sonnet, stanza indicate new concepts in literature.
As seen from the examples, some loan-words retained their Italian appearance, others were Gallicised (i.e. assumed a French shape); probably they had entered the English language through French, e.g. artisan, campaign, intrigue. Many words in general use do not differ from English words either in sounds or spelling and cannot be distinguished from native words without a special study: barrack, cash, canteen, escort, gallop, laundry, manage, medal, pants, pilot;these borrowings were probably imported at an earlier date and have lost their foreign flavour.
Borrowings from Spanishcame as a result of contacts with Spain in the military, commercial and political fields, due to the rivalry of England and Spain in foreign trade and colonial expansion. This is apparent from the nature of Spanish borrowings in English made in the 16th and 17th c, e.g.: armada, barricade, cannibal, cargo, embargo, escapade. Many loan-words indicated new objects and concepts encountered in the colonies: banana, canoe, chocolate, cocoa, colibri, maize, mosquito, Negro, potato, ranch, tobacco, tomato.
Borrowings from Germanic languagesare of special interest as English is a Germanic language too. The influence of Scandinavian in Early ME has certainly remained unsurpassed and the unique conditions of close language contacts were never repeated. By the 15th— 16th c. the Germanic languages had driven far apart; their linguistic affinities were disguised by the changes of the intervening periods. Therefore loan-words from related Germanic tongues were no less foreign to English speakers than those from other linguistic groups. Yet their sound form was somewhat closer to English and their assimilation progressed rapidly. Dutch words and some of the German words do not differ in appearance from native English words.
Dutchmade abundant contribution to English, particularly in the 15th and 16th c, when commercial relations between England and the Netherlands were at their peak. Dutch artisans came to England to practise their trade, and sell their goods. They specialised in wool weaving and brewing, which is reflected in the Dutch loan-words: pack, scour, spool, stripe (terms of weaving); hops, tub, scum. Extensive borrowing is found in nautical terminology: bowline, buoy, cruise, deck, dock, freight, keel, skipper. The flourishing of art in the Netherlands accounts for some Dutch loan-words relating to art: easel, landscape, sketch.
Loan-words from Germanreflect the scientific and cultural achievements of Germany at different dates of the New period. Mineralogical terms are connected with the employment of German specialists in the English mining industry, e.g.: cobalt, nickel, zinc. The advance of philosophy in the 18th and 19th c. accounts for philosophical terms, e.g.: transcendental, dynamics (going back to classical roots). Some borrowings do not belong to a particular semantic sphere and can only be classified as miscellaneous: kindergarten, hall, stroll, plunder, poodle, waltz.
The most peculiar feature of German influence on the English vocabulary in the 18th and 19th c. is the creation of translation-loans on German models from native English components (sometimes also from foreign roots, borrowed and assimilated before). Whenever compound German nouns, in their alien sound form and morphological structure, were hard to reproduce, translation-loans came in handy in rendering their meaning and creating new terms: English swan-song is a literal translation of German Schwanenlied; home-sickness comes from Heimweh, standpoint from Standpunkt; environment was the rendering of Umge-bung (proposed by Th. Carlyle), superman was naturalised by B. Shaw as a translation of Nietzsche's Übermensch; world outlook and class struggle correspond to Weltanschauung and Klassenkampf; masterpiece consists of two Romance elements reproducing German Meisterstűck.
(Recent German borrowings in English, connected with World War II and other political events, are: blitz, bunker, fǘhrer, Gestapo, nazi.)
The earliest Russian loan-words entered the English language as far back as the 16th c, when the English trade company (the Moskovy Company) established the first trade relations with Russia. English borrowings adopted from the 16th till the 19th c. indicate articles of trade and specific features of life in Russia, observed by the English: astrakhan, beluga, boyar, copeck, intelligentsia, muzhik, rouble, samovar, troika, tsar, verst, vodka.
The loan-words adopted after 1917 reflect the new social relations and political institutions in the USSR: bolshevik, Komsomol, Soviet. Some of the new words are translation-loans: collective farm, Five-Year-Plan, wall newspaper. In the recent decades many technical terms came from Russian, indicating the achievements in different branches of science: sputnik, cosmonaut (in preference of the American astronaut), synchrophasotron.
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It is now essential to analyse the changes that borrowings have undergone in the English language and how they have adapted themselves to its peculiarities.
All the changes that borrowed elements undergo may be divided into two large groups.
On the one hand there are changes specific of borrowed words only. These changes aim at adapting words of foreign origin to the norms of the borrowing language, e.g. the consonant combinations [pn], [ps], [pt] in the words pneumatics, psychology, Ptolemyof Greek origin were simplified into [n], [s], [t], since the consonant combinations [ps], [pt], [pn], very frequent at the end of English words (as in sleeps, stopped, etc.), were never used in the initial position. For the same reason the initial [ks] was changed into [z] (as in Gr. xylophone).
The suffixes-ar, -or, -atorin early Latin borrowings were replaced by the highly productive Old English suffix -ere,as in L. Caesar>OE. Casere, L. sutor>OE. sūtere.
By analogy with the great majority of nouns that form their plural in -s, borrowings, even very recent ones, have assumed this inflection instead of their original plural endings. The forms Soviets, bolsheviks, kolkhozes, sputniks illustrate the process.
On the other hand we observe changes that are characteristic of both borrowed and native words. These changes are due to the development of the word according to the laws of the given language. When the highly inflected Old English system of declension changed into the simpler system of Middle English, early borrowings conformed with the general rule. Under the influence of the so-called inflexional levelling borrowings like lазu, (MnE. law), fēōlaza (MnE. fellow), stræt (MnE. street), disc (MnE. dish) that had a number of grammatical forms in Old English acquired only three forms in Middle English: common case and possessive case singular and plural (fellow, fellowes, fellowes).
It is very important to discriminate between the two processes — the adaptation of borrowed material to the norms of the language and the development of these words according to the laws of the language.
This differentiation is not always easily discernible. In most cases we must resort to historical analysis before we can draw any definite conclusions. There is nothing in the form of the words procession and,progressionto show that the former was already used in England in the 11th century, the latter not till the 15th century. The history of these words reveals that the word processionhas undergone a number of changes alongside with other English words (change in declension, accentuation, structure, sounds), whereas the word progressionunderwent some changes by analogy with the word processionand other similar words already at the time of its appearance in the language.