Such relations are studied by means of It is true that English vocabulary contains an immense number of words of foreign origin. Explanations for this should be searched for in the history of the language which is closely connected with the history of the nation speaking the language. The 1st century В. С. 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. Trade is carried on, and the Germanic people gain knowledge of new and useful things. The first among them are new things to eat. 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 and, as there are no words for these foodstuffs in their tribal languages, they are to use the Latin words to name them.
What is significant is that that all these Latin words were destined to become the earliest group of borrowings in the future English language which was built on the basis of the Germanic tribal languages. The 5th century A. D. Several of the Germanic tribes migrated to the British Isles. There they were confronted by the Celts, the original inhabitants of the Isles. Through their numerous contacts with the defeated Celts, the conquerors got to know and assimilated a number of Celtic words Mod. E. bald, down, glen, druid, bard, cradle. Especially numerous among the Celtic borrowings were place names, names of rivers, bills, etc. Some Latin words entered the Anglo-Saxon languages through Celtic, among them such widely-used words as street and wall. The 7th century A. D. This century was significant for the christianisation of England. Latin was the official language of the Christian church, and the spread of Christianity was accompanied by a new period of Latin borrowings. England underwent several Scandinavian invasions which left their trace on English vocabulary. Here are examples of early Scandinavian borrowings: call, v., take, v., cast, v., die, v., law, n., husband, n., window n., ill, adj., loose, adj., low, adj., weak, adj. The words of this group are easily recognisable by the initial sk- combination. e. g. sky, skill, skin, ski, skirt. 1066.
The Battle of Hastings, the English were defeated by the Normans, the epoch of the Norman Conquest. England became a bi-lingual country, and the impact on the English vocabulary is immense. Examples:
1 Administrative words: state, government, parliament, council, power;
2 Legal terms: court, judge, justice, crime, prison;
3 Military terms: army, war, soldier, officer, battle, enemy;
4 Educational terms: pupil, lesson, library, science, pen, pencil.
Numerous terms of everyday life were also borrowed: e. g. table, plate, saucer, dinner, supper, river, autumn, uncle, etc.
The Renaissance Period was marked by significant developments in science, art and culture. There occurred a considerable number of Latin and Greek borrowings. The Renaissance borrowings were mostly abstract words e. g. major, minor, filial, moderate, intelligent, permanent, to elect, to create. There were scientific and artistic terms datum, status, phenomenon, philosophy, method, music. The same is true of Greek Renaissance borrowings e. g. atom, cycle, ethics, aesthete. The Renaissance was a period of extensive cultural contacts between the major European states.
Parisian borrowings. Examples: regime, routine, police, machine, ballet, matinee, scene, technique, bourgeois, etc. Italian also contributed a considerable number of words to English, e. g. piano, violin, opera, alarm, colonel.
Native words comprise the ancient Anglo-Saxon core and coined lated words on the basis by means of various processes operative in English. Native words comprise only 30% of the total number of words in the English vocabulary but the native words form the bulk of the most frequent words actually used in speech and writing. 80% of 500 most frequent words are native. Besides the native words have a wider range of lexical and grammatical valency, they are highly polysemantic and productive in forming word-clusters and set-expressions.
By the Indo-European element are meant words of roots common to all or most languages of the Indo-European group.
English words of this group denote elementary concepts without which no human communication would be possible:
1 Family relations: father, mother, brother, son, daughter;
2 Parts of the human body: foot, nose, lip, heart;
3 Animals: cow, swine, goose;
4 Plants: tree, birch, corn;
5 Time of day: day, night;
6 Heavenly bodies: sun, moon, star;
7 Adjectives: red, new, glad, sad;
8 The numerals from one to a hundred;
9 Pronouns — personal except they which is a Scandinavian borrowing; demonstrative;
10 Numerous verbs: be, stand, sit, eat, know.
The Germanic element represents words of roots common to all or most Germanic languages. Some of the main groups of Germanic words are the same as in the Indo-European element:
1 Parts of the human body: head, hand, arm, finger, bone; 2 Animals: bear, fox, calf; 3 Plants: oak, fir, gra4 Natural phenomena: rain, frost; 5 Seasons of the year: winter, spring, summer; 6 Landscape features: sea, land; 7 Human dwellings and furniture: house, room; 8 Sea-going vessels: boat, ship; 9 Adjectives: green, blue, grey, white, small; 10 Verbs: see, hear, speak, tell, say, answer, make, give, drink.
