Main groups of loan words.
Borrowings from other languages have always been one of the important means of the enlargment (расширение) of English.
The main groups of loan words:
1) Latin
2) Scandinavian
3) French
Some other languages supplied words in English (such as Celtic, Greek, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, etc.).
1) Latin borrowings in English are numerous. Latin loans may be divided into 3 groups:
1. Ancient Latin borrowings (44 BC – 450 AD) are mostly everyday-words. They are completely assimilated and belong to the basic word-stock.
Example: butter, cheese, wine, cherry, plum, pear, pepper, kitchen.
2. the 6th-7th centuries – Christianization.
Example: alter, engine, bishop, shrine, monk, pope, priest.
3. the Renaissance (the 14th – 16th centuries). It was the period of the revival of classical art and learning (mostly learned words (ученые слова)).
Example: senior, junior, to educate, basis, area, idea
Greek loans: philosophy, school.
2). Scandinavian borrowings. The number of this loans is limited, around 650 words. They arrived at 8th-11th centuries.
Scandinavian loans denote common objects and properties (средства) and belong to the basic English word-stock.
Scandinavian borrowings are completely assimilated in English and are not felt as loan words.
Example: law, husband, fellow, win, root, anger, to die, to hit, to take, to call, low, ugly, ill, happy.
3). French loan words are especially numerous in English ( William the Conquer, Norman Invasion, 1066)
French borrowings can be divided into 2 groups of loans:
1. Old (Norman) borrowings
2. New (Parisian) borrowings
1. Norman borrowings are well established in the English language and are connected with war, court and law.
Example: soldier, army, court, crown, country, war, peace, justice, office, government, state, parliament (beginning 1066).
Since then the advance of French words into English was non-stop.
2. In the 17th century there was a change in character of French borrowings, they came from Parisian dialect and they preserved typical French form.
Example: campaign, champaign machine, garage, prestige, unique.
Other languages.
1). Celtic borrowings are important for English. Celtic loans are oldest words in English (Welsh, Scottish, Irish).
Total number of Celtic loans only 105 words.
Example: bannock, bud (butter), bog, lach(lake), bugged, clan, tunnel, cradle.
The Celtic element is mostly find in place names in Britian.
- Aber- Aberdine
- Dun- Dundee
- Avon- Stradford-on-Avon
2). Greek borrowings – ebtered in English via from Latin and French.
Example: abbot, bishop, cheer, chronicle, police.
Many words entered during the period of Renaissance: pastry, drama, tragedy, theatre, scene, episode, rhythm, ode.
From modern languages.
1)Italian loans are mostly musical terms and names of food: allegro, aria, finale, piano, opera, solo, sonata, tempo, violin, macaroni, spaghetti, pizza, influenza, umbrella.
2) Spanish loans in English are mostly modern (19th centuries). Many Spanish words entered English from America: cocoa, chili, chocolate, tomato, potato, canoe, hurricane, cigar.
3) Russian loans can roughly subdivided into 2 groups:
1. entered English before 1917: samovar, izba, copech, roubl, tsar.
2. entered English after 1917: soviet, Bolshevik, comsomol, sputnik (1950)
In the 1990s supplies 3 more words: glasnost, perestroika, Gorby.
Translation loans(калькирование)
Translation loans are words and expressions formed from the material already existing in English but according to the pattern taken from another languages by way of literal or morpheme or word-for-word translation. World outlook – Weltanschung, Class straggle – Klassenkampf, Wall newspaper – Стенгазета
Semantic loans (заимствование значений) is the expansion (расширение) of the Semantic structure of the word under the influence of the correlative foreign word.
Example: pioneer (borrowed into Russian – member of a pioneer organization); resident – person who resides in a certain place
