Etymology of word linguistics

Asked by: Ms. Marcella Leffler PhD

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The word «linguistics» is derived from the Latin word for tongue. Linguistics is the scientific study of human language.

What is linguistics etymology?

Etymology is the branch of linguistic science that treats the history of words and their components, with the aim of determining their origin and their derivation. … Distinguished from native words, imported words are classified by their origin and background as well as their form.

What is etymological name?

Etymology is the study of the origins of words. The etymology of a word is its linguistic history. For example, the word etymology comes to us from the Ancient Greek language. … The etymology of names is the study of the origin and literal meaning of names.

What is etymological name of political science?

Etymology. The English politics has its roots in the name of Aristotle’s classic work, Politiká, which introduced the Greek term politiká (Πολιτικά, ‘affairs of the cities’).

What is the etymological meaning of Greek?

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Библиографическое описание:

Жумакулова, Ш. К. The etymology concept in linguistics / Ш. К. Жумакулова. — Текст : непосредственный // Молодой ученый. — 2020. — № 51 (341). — С. 56-57. — URL: https://moluch.ru/archive/341/76828/ (дата обращения: 14.04.2023).



This article discusses the etymology of linguistics. Along with the department of etymology, special attention is paid to the concept of etymology, the history of the origin of words, their original meaning and significance.

Keywords:



etymology, etymon, etymological analysis, diachronic, synchronous.

In linguistics etymology is the study of the origin of a word and is based on the laws of historical changes in word structure and its meanings, sound changes, and morphological changes in words.

Etymology is one of the oldest branches of linguistics and deals with the history of the origin of words, as well as the meanings of words learned from artificial, compound and foreign languages. Etymology takes into account both aspects of a word, its form and meaning. Etymology is the study of the origin of words. The word is a combination of the Greek etymology, etymon — «truth» and logos — «word». [3]

According to encyclopedic dictionaries, etymology originated in ancient Greece in Plato’s Cratilus, where the term «etymology» was coined in connection with the Stoics. [2]

According to Karpenko, V. A. Zvegintsev defined the history of the science of etymology, returning to Plato’s Cratilus, arguing that the «natural» or conditional nature of words and the dispute over their observance were primarily true, i.e. the point of view that reflects the essence of what they mean, the Stoics put forward a new task before the ancient linguistics — the discovery of the true essence or nature of words. Thus, etymology implied that a new linguistic discipline, or the science of the true meaning of a word, was encouraged for its birth. [4]

Etymology is a very ancient branch of linguistics, and BC philosophers and philologists also studied the early history of the origin of words. The term «etymology» is probably associated with the names of the ancient Roman scholars Chrysippus and Varron. The true and original meanings and forms of words are determined by comparing them with words in other languages ​​and dialects that have the same root as the history of the language. [1] It explores the previous meanings and forms of words.

According to I. A. Buduen de Courtenay, etymology is defined as a science that deals with historical relations in terms of the structure of words and their essential parts. The scholar argues that the application of the concept of chronological sequence to individual parts of the grammar of any language should take into account the history of the language when comparing the state of a single material in different periods.

O. N. Trubachev explains that the etymology of almost every word is related to comparative grammar, and that this relationship is almost always complex and multifaceted, as etymology is a set of actions based on a set of data derived from comparative grammar. The etymology is provided by comparative grammar, and it can still add clarity and add much. Each etymology works with comparative phonetics, morphology, and word formation facts.

A. S. Karimov calls etymology the «biography» of words, the study of the history of their origin. [5] The true and original meanings and forms of words are determined by comparing them with words in other languages ​​and dialects that have the same root. In this case, the previous meanings and forms of words are studied in depth.

The term «etymology» is used in linguistics in two senses: lexicology, the study of the history of the origin of words in a particular language, and the first meaning and form of the word.

It is easy to identify the origin of new words, but it is much harder to know when an old word appeared and from which language or dialect it was derived. In determining the origin of a word, the word is compared with the sound structure and meaning of words in related languages.

The subject of etymology as a branch of linguistics is the study of the sources and processes of formation of the vocabulary of a language, including the earliest stages of its existence. [2] Over time, the words of a language change according to certain historical patterns, which obscures the original form of the word. The etymologist must create this form, relying on the materials of the relevant languages, and explain how the word came to be in the modern form.

Historical changes in words often distort the original form and meaning of the word, and the character of the word undermines the underlying motivation, that is, it determines the difficulty of reconstructing the relationship between the original form and the meaning of the word.

The purpose of the etymological analysis of a word is to determine when, in what language, on the basis of which word formation model, on the basis of which linguistic material, in what form and in what sense the word appeared, as well as on its initial form and meaning determines what historical changes have defined the present form and meaning. Reconstruction of the original form and meaning of the word is actually the subject of etymological analysis.

Etymological analysis allows the speaker to restore the meaning of a word that was previously unknown to him, reveals its origin, allows to restore the origin of words in a foreign language. History from any moment of life helps maintain the account. The history of language as a scientific history is the study of the history of social thought without a general basis for the history of discipline, material and spiritual culture, and, above all, the imagination.

Linguist V. I. Abaev described the main functions of scientific etymological analysis as follows:

− to compare the basic, non-derivative words of a given language with the words of these opposite languages and to study the history of the form and meaning of the word according to the main language;

− to designate for Latin words within a given language and their components (roots, stems, affixes) in the language parts;

− to determine the source of borrowing for borrowed words.

The etymology of linguistics is very complex and requires a lot of time and patience. Historically, we have to admit that there is a connection between words and things from a diachronic point of view. But their history is so deep that the ability to identify all of them is practically impossible. The main reason for this conclusion is that just as everything in the world is changing and evolving, as well as words. With this in mind, it is concluded that there is no connection between words and things, given the current state of language development, that is, from a synchronic point of view.

As can be seen from the above, etymology is closely related to areas of linguistics such as lexicology. But for an etymologist to be successful, he must have in-depth knowledge in almost all areas of linguistics. He must compare the data of different languages, both modern and ancient, with his own methods in comparative historical linguistics.

References:

1. Abduazizov A. A. Tilshunoslik nazariyasiga kirish. — Sharq, Toshkent — 2010. — 81p.
2. Варбот Ж. Ж. Этимология. Большая российская энциклопедия. Том 35. Москва, 2017. — 489–490с.
3. Irisqulov M. T. Tilshunoslikka kirish. Yangi asr avlodi., 2009. — 96–101p.
4. Карпенко У. А. Трансляция смысла и трансформация значений первокорня: монография. — Киев: Освита Украины, 2013. — 496 с.
5. Karimov S. A. Tilshunoslik nazariyasi. Samarqand — 2012. — 21p.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

«Etymologies» redirects here. For the work by Isidore of Seville, see Etymologiae.

Etymology ( ET-im-OL-ə-jee^[1]) is the study of the origin and evolution of a word’s semantic meaning across time, including its constituent morphemes and phonemes.^[2][3] It is a subfield of historical linguistics, and draws upon comparative semantics, morphology, semiotics, and phonetics.

For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts, and texts about the language, to gather knowledge about how words were used during earlier periods, how they developed in meaning and form, or when and how they entered the language. Etymologists also apply the methods of comparative linguistics to reconstruct information about forms that are too old for any direct information to be available. By analyzing related languages with a technique known as the comparative method, linguists can make inferences about their shared parent language and its vocabulary. In this way, word roots in many European languages, for example, can be traced all the way back to the origin of the Indo-European language family.

Even though etymological research originated from the philological tradition, much current etymological research is done on language families where little or no early documentation is available, such as Uralic and Austronesian.

Etymology[edit]

The word etymology derives from the Greek word ἐτυμολογία (etumología), itself from ἔτυμον (étumon), meaning «true sense or sense of a truth», and the suffix -logia, denoting «the study of».^[4][5]

The term etymon refers to a word or morpheme (e.g., stem^[6] or root^[7]) from which a later word or morpheme derives. For example, the Latin word candidus, which means «white», is the etymon of English candid. Relationships are often less transparent, however. English place names such as Winchester, Gloucester, Tadcaster share in different modern forms a suffixed etymon that was once meaningful, Latin castrum ‘fort’.

Methods[edit]

Etymologists apply a number of methods to study the origins of words, some of which are:

• Philological research. Changes in the form and meaning of the word can be traced with the aid of older texts, if such are available.
• Making use of dialectological data. The form or meaning of the word might show variations between dialects, which may yield clues about its earlier history.
• The comparative method. By a systematic comparison of related languages, etymologists may often be able to detect which words derive from their common ancestor language and which were instead later borrowed from another language.
• The study of semantic change. Etymologists must often make hypotheses about changes in the meaning of particular words. Such hypotheses are tested against the general knowledge of semantic shifts. For example, the assumption of a particular change of meaning may be substantiated by showing that the same type of change has occurred in other languages as well.

Types of word origins[edit]

Etymological theory recognizes that words originate through a limited number of basic mechanisms, the most important of which are language change, borrowing (i.e., the adoption of «loanwords» from other languages); word formation such as derivation and compounding; and onomatopoeia and sound symbolism (i.e., the creation of imitative words such as «click» or «grunt»).

While the origin of newly emerged words is often more or less transparent, it tends to become obscured through time due to sound change or semantic change. Due to sound change, it is not readily obvious that the English word set is related to the word sit (the former is originally a causative formation of the latter). It is even less obvious that bless is related to blood (the former was originally a derivative with the meaning «to mark with blood»).

Semantic change may also occur. For example, the English word bead originally meant «prayer». It acquired its modern meaning through the practice of counting the recitation of prayers by using beads.

History[edit]

The search for meaningful origins for familiar or strange words is far older than the modern understanding of linguistic evolution and the relationships of languages, which began no earlier than the 18th century. From Antiquity through the 17th century, from Pāṇini to Pindar to Sir Thomas Browne, etymology had been a form of witty wordplay, in which the supposed origins of words were creatively imagined to satisfy contemporary requirements; for example, the Greek poet Pindar (born in approximately 522 BCE) employed inventive etymologies to flatter his patrons. Plutarch employed etymologies insecurely based on fancied resemblances in sounds. Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae was an encyclopedic tracing of «first things» that remained uncritically in use in Europe until the sixteenth century. Etymologicum genuinum is a grammatical encyclopedia edited at Constantinople in the ninth century, one of several similar Byzantine works. The thirteenth-century Legenda Aurea, as written by Jacobus de Varagine, begins each vita of a saint with a fanciful excursus in the form of an etymology.^[8]

Ancient Sanskrit[edit]

The Sanskrit linguists and grammarians of ancient India were the first to make a comprehensive analysis of linguistics and etymology. The study of Sanskrit etymology has provided Western scholars with the basis of historical linguistics and modern etymology. Four of the most famous Sanskrit linguists are:

• Yaska (c. 6th–5th centuries BCE)
• Pāṇini (c. 520–460 BCE)
• Kātyāyana (6th-4th centuries BCE)
• Patañjali (2nd century BCE)

These linguists were not the earliest Sanskrit grammarians, however. They followed a line of ancient grammarians of Sanskrit who lived several centuries earlier like Sakatayana of whom very little is known. The earliest of attested etymologies can be found in Vedic literature in the philosophical explanations of the Brahmanas, Aranyakas, and Upanishads.

The analyses of Sanskrit grammar done by the previously mentioned linguists involved extensive studies on the etymology (called Nirukta or Vyutpatti in Sanskrit) of Sanskrit words, because the ancient Indians considered sound and speech itself to be sacred and, for them, the words of the sacred Vedas contained deep encoding of the mysteries of the soul and God.

Ancient Greco-Roman[edit]

One of the earliest philosophical texts of the Classical Greek period to address etymology was the Socratic dialogue Cratylus (c. 360 BCE) by Plato. During much of the dialogue, Socrates makes guesses as to the origins of many words, including the names of the gods. In his Odes Pindar spins complimentary etymologies to flatter his patrons. Plutarch (Life of Numa Pompilius) spins an etymology for pontifex, while explicitly dismissing the obvious, and actual «bridge-builder»:

The priests, called Pontifices…. have the name of Pontifices from potens, powerful because they attend the service of the gods, who have power and command overall. Others make the word refer to exceptions of impossible cases; the priests were to perform all the duties possible; if anything lays beyond their power, the exception was not to be cavilled. The most common opinion is the most absurd, which derives this word from pons, and assigns the priests the title of bridge-makers. The sacrifices performed on the bridge were amongst the most sacred and ancient, and the keeping and repairing of the bridge attached, like any other public sacred office, to the priesthood.

Medieval[edit]

Isidore of Seville compiled a volume of etymologies to illuminate the triumph of religion. Each saint’s legend in Jacobus de Varagine’s Legenda Aurea begins with an etymological discourse on the saint’s name:

Lucy is said of light, and light is beauty in beholding, after that S. Ambrose saith: The nature of light is such, she is gracious in beholding, she spreadeth over all without lying down, she passeth in going right without crooking by right long line; and it is without dilation of tarrying, and therefore it is showed the blessed Lucy hath beauty of virginity without any corruption; essence of charity without disordinate love; rightful going and devotion to God, without squaring out of the way; right long line by continual work without negligence of slothful tarrying. In Lucy is said, the way of light.^[9]

Modern era[edit]

Etymology in the modern sense emerged in the late 18th-century European academia, within the context of the wider «Age of Enlightenment,» although preceded by 17th century pioneers such as Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn, Gerardus Vossius, Stephen Skinner, Elisha Coles, and William Wotton. The first known systematic attempt to prove the relationship between two languages on the basis of similarity of grammar and lexicon was made in 1770 by the Hungarian, János Sajnovics, when he attempted to demonstrate the relationship between Sami and Hungarian (work that was later extended to the whole Finno-Ugric language family in 1799 by his fellow countryman, Samuel Gyarmathi).^[10]

The origin of modern historical linguistics is often traced to Sir William Jones, a Welsh philologist living in India, who in 1782 observed the genetic relationship between Sanskrit, Greek and Latin. Jones published his The Sanscrit Language in 1786, laying the foundation for the field of Indo-European linguistics.^[11]

The study of etymology in Germanic philology was introduced by Rasmus Christian Rask in the early 19th century and elevated to a high standard with the German Dictionary of the Brothers Grimm. The successes of the comparative approach culminated in the Neogrammarian school of the late 19th century. Still in the 19th century, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche used etymological strategies (principally and most famously in On the Genealogy of Morals, but also elsewhere) to argue that moral values have definite historical (specifically, cultural) origins where modulations in meaning regarding certain concepts (such as «good» and «evil») show how these ideas had changed over time—according to which value-system appropriated them. This strategy gained popularity in the 20th century, and philosophers, such as Jacques Derrida, have used etymologies to indicate former meanings of words to de-center the «violent hierarchies» of Western philosophy.

Notable etymologists[edit]

• Ernest Klein (1899-1983), Hungarian-born Romanian-Canadian linguist, etymologist
• Marko Snoj (born 1959), Indo-Europeanist, Slavist, Albanologist, lexicographer, and etymologist
• Anatoly Liberman (born 1937), linguist, medievalist, etymologist, poet, translator of poetry and literary critic
• Michael Quinion (born c. 1943)

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

• Alfred Bammesberger. English Etymology. Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1984.
• Philip Durkin. «Etymology», in Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd edn. Ed. Keith Brown. Vol. 4. Oxford: Elsevier, 2006, pp. 260–7.
• Philip Durkin. The Oxford Guide to Etymology. Oxford/NY: Oxford University Press, 2009.
• William B. Lockwood. An Informal Introduction to English Etymology. Montreux, London: Minerva Press, 1995.
• Yakov Malkiel. Etymology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
• Alan S. C. Ross. Etymology, with a special reference to English. Fair Lawn, N.J.: Essential Books; London: Deutsch, 1958.
• Michael Samuels. Linguistic Evolution: With Special Reference to English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.
• Bo Svensén. «Etymology», chap. 19 of A Handbook of Lexicography: The Theory and Practice of Dictionary-Making. Cambridge/NY: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
• Walther von Wartburg. Problems and Methods in Linguistics, rev. edn. with the collaboration of Stephen Ullmann. Trans. Joyce M. H. Reid. Oxford: Blackwell, 1969.

External links[edit]

• Media related to Etymology at Wikimedia Commons
• Etymology at Curlie.
• List of etymologies of words in 90+ languages.
• Online Etymology Dictionary.

1. The etymological composition of ME.

2. The native and borrowed elements of the EV.

3. Classification of borrowings according to the language.

4. Etymological doublets.

5. International words.

Etymology
(from Greek etymon
«truth»
+ logos
«learning»)
is a branch
of linguistics that studies the origin and history of words tracing
them to
their earliest determinable source.

The following list provides a sample set of words that have been
incorporated into English:

French:
cuisine,
army, elite, saute, cul-de-sac, raffle.

Latin:
cup,
fork, pound, vice versa.

Greek:
polysemy,
synonymy, chemistry, physics, phenomenon.

Native
American languages: caucus,
pecan, raccoon, pow-wow.

Spanish:
junta,
siesta, cigar.

German:
rucksack,
hamburger, frankfurter, seminar.

Scandinavian
languages: law,
saga, ski, them, they, their.

Italian: piano, soprano, confetti, spaghetti, vendetta.

South
Asian languages: bungalow,
jungle, sandal, thug.

Yiddish:
goy,
knish, schmuck.

Dutch:
cruise,
curl, dock, leak, pump, scum, yacht.

Chinese:
mandarin,
tea, serge.

Japanese:
bonsai,
hara-kiri, kimono, tycoon, karate, judo.

English is
generally regarded as the richest of the world’s languages. It owes
its exceptionally
large vocabulary to its ability to borrow and absorb words from
outside. Atomic,
cybernetics, jeans, khaki, sputnik, perestroika are
just
a few of the many words that have come into use during XX century.
They
have been taken from Italian, Hindi, Greek and Russian.

«The
English
language», observed Ralph Waldo Emerson, «is the sea which
receives
tributaries from every region under heaven.» (в
презентацию)

The English
vocabulary has been enriched throughout its history by
borrowings from foreign languages. A
borrowing
(a
loan word) is a word
taken over from another language and modified in phonemic shape,
spelling, paradigm or meaning according to the standards of the
English language.

The process
of borrowing words from other languages has been going on for more
than 1,000 years. The fact that up
to 80 per cent of the English vocabulary consists of borrowed words
is due to the specific conditions of the English language
development.

When the Normans crossed over from France to
conquer England in 1066, most of the English people spoke Old
English, or Anglo-Saxon — a language of about 30,000 words. The
Normans spoke a language that was a mixture of Latin and French. It
took about three centuries for the languages to blend into one that
is the ancestor of the English spoken today. The
Normans bestowed on English words such us duchess,
city, mansion, and
palace. The
Anglo-Saxon gave English ring
and town.

Latin and Greek have been a
fruitful source of vocabulary since the 16^th
century. The Latin word mini,
its converse maxi
and the Greek word micro
have become popular adjectives to
describe everything from bikes to fashion. Perhaps the most important
influence in terms of vocabulary comes from what are called Latinate
words,
that is, words that are originally Latin. Latinate words are common
in English: distinct,
describe, transport, evidence, animal, create, act, generation,
recollection, confluence, etc.

There are practically no limits to the kinds of
words that are borrowed. Words are employed as symbols for every part
of culture. When cultural elements are borrowed from one culture by
another, the words for such cultural features often accompany the
feature. Also, when a cultural feature of one society is like that of
another, the word of a foreign language may be used to designate this
feature in the borrowing society. In
English, a material culture word rouge
was
borrowed from French, a social culture word republic
from
Latin, and a religious culture word baptize
from
Greek.

Such words become completely absorbed into the
system, so that they are not recognized by speakers of the language
as foreign. Few people realize that garage
is borrowed from French, that thug
comes from Hindustani, and that tomato
is of Aztec origin.

However, some words and phrases have retained
their original
spelling, pronunciation and foreign identity, for example:
rendezvous,
coup, gourmet, detente (French);
status quo,
ego, curriculum vitae, bona fide (Latin);
patio,
macho (Spanish);
kindergarten,
blitz (German);
kowtow, tea
Chinese,);
incognito,
bravo (Italian).

We may distinguish different types of borrowing
from one foreign language by another:

(1) when the two languages
represent different social,
economic, and political units and

(2)
when the two languages are
spoken by those within the same social, economic, and political unit.
the
borrowing of linguistic forms by one language or dialect from another
when both occupy a single geographical or cultural community.

The
first of these types has been usually called «cultural
borrowing»
while the second type has been termed «intimate
borrowing«.

Another
principal type is between dialects of the same language. This is
called «dialect
borrowing»
(в
презентацию).

Sometimes the
idea of a word rather than the word is borrowed. When
we talk about life
science instead
of
biology, it
is a type of borrowing the
meaning of the Greek derivative, but not the actual morpheme. This
type of borrowing is rather extensive, particularly in scientific
vocabulary
and trade languages as, for example, in Pidgin English in the South
Pacific.

A
number of words in English have originated from the names of people:
boycott,
braille, hooligan, mentor, saxophone, watt. Quite
a few names
of types of clothing originate from the people who invented them:
bowler,
cardigan, Wellingtons, mackintosh. A
number of names of different
kinds of cloth originate from place names: angora,
denim, satin, tweed,
suede. A
number of other words in English come from place names:
bedlam,
spartan, gypsy.

There are
many words that have changed their meaning in English, e.g.
mind
originally
meant «memory», and this meaning survives in the
phrases «to keep in mind», «time out of mind»,
etc. The word brown
preserves
its old meaning of «gloomy» in the phrase «in a brown
study».
There are instances when a word acquires a meaning opposite to
its original one, e.g. nice
meant
«silly» some hundreds of years ago.

Thus, there
are two main problems connected with the vocabulary of a language:
(1) the
origin of
the words, (2) their
development
in the language.

The
etymological structure of the English vocabulary consists of the
native element (Indo-European and Germanic) and the borrowed
elements.

By
the
Native
Element we
understand words that are not borrowed from
other languages. A
native word is a word that belongs to the Old English word-stock. The
Native Element constitutes
only up to 20-25% of the English vocabulary.

Old English,
or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English
language. It was spoken from about a.d.
600
until about a.d.
1100,
and most of its words had been part of a still earlier form of the
language.
Many
of the common words of modern English, like home,
stone,
and
meat
are
native,
or Old English, words. Most of the irregular verbs
in English derive from Old English (speak,
swim, drive, ride, sing), as
do most of the English shorter numerals (two,
three, six, ten) and
most of
the pronouns (I,
you, we, who).

Many Old
English words can be traced back to Indo-European, a prehistoric
language that was the common ancestor of many languages.
Others came into Old English as it was becoming a separate language.

(a)
Indo-European
Element:
since English belongs to the Germanic branch
of the Indo-European group of languages, the oldest words in English
are of Indo-European origin. They form part of the basic word stock
of all Indo-European languages. There are several semantic groups:

• words
  expressing family relations: brother,
  daughter, father, mother,
  son;

• names
  of parts of the human body: foot,
  eye, ear, nose, tongue;

• names
  of trees, birds, animals: tree,
  birch, cow, wolf, cat;

• names
  expressing basic actions: to
  come, to know, to sit, to work;

• words
  expressing qualities: red,
  quick, right, glad, sad;

• numerals:
  one,
  two, three, ten, hundred, etc.

There are many more words of
Indo-European origin in the basic stock of the English
vocabulary.

(b) Common
Germanic
words are not to be found in other Indo-European languages but the
Germanic. They constitute a very large layer
of the vocabulary:

• nouns:
  hand,
  life, sea, ship, meal, winter, ground, coal, goat;

• adjectives:
  heavy,
  deep, free, broad, sharp, grey;

• verbs:
  to
  buy, to drink, to find, to forget, to go, to have, to live, to make;

• pronouns: all,
  each, he, self, such;

• adverbs:
  again,
  forward, near; ‘

• prepositions:
  after,
  at, by, over, under, from, for.

The rest of the English vocabulary are borrowed
words, or loan
words.

Some scientists point out three periods of Latin borrowings in old
English:

1. Latin-Continental borrowings,

2. Latin-Celtic borrowings,

3. Latin borrowings connected with the Adoption of Christianity.

To the first period belong
military terms (wall,
street, etc.),
trade terms (pound,
inch), names
of containers (cup,
dish), names
of food (butter,
cheese), words
connected with building (chalk,
pitch), etc.
These were
concrete words that were adopted in purely oral manner, and they were
fully assimilated in the language. Roman influence was felt in the
names
of towns, e.g. Manchester,
Lancaster, etc.
from the Latin word caster
— лагерь.

Such
words as
port, fountain and
mountain
were
borrowed from Latin through
Celtic.

With
the Adoption of Christianity mostly religious or clerical terms were
borrowed: dean,
cross, alter, abbot (Latin); church, devil, priest, anthem,
school, martyr (Greek).

Latin and Greek borrowings of
the Middle English period are connected
with the Great Revival of Learning and are mostly scientific words:
formula,
inertia, maximum, memorandum, veto, superior, etc.
They
were
not fully assimilated, they retained their grammar forms.

Many words from Greek, the other major source of
English words, came
into English by way of French and Latin. Others were borrowed in
the sixteenth century when interest in classic culture was at its
height. Directly
or indirectly, Greek contributed athlete,
acrobat, elastic, magic, rhythm,
and many
others.

There are some classical
borrowings in Modern English as well: anaemia,
aspirin, iodin, atom, calorie, acid, valency, etc.
There are words formed
with the help of Latin and Greek morphemes (roots or affixes): tele,
auto, etc.

Latin and Greek words are
used to denote names of sciences, political and philosophic trends;
these borrowings usually have academic or literary associations (per
capita, dogma, drama, theory, and
pseudonym).

Many other
Latin words came into English through French.
French
is the
language that had most influence on the vocabulary of English; it
also influenced its spelling.

After the Norman invasion in 1066, English was
neglected by the Latin-writing and French-speaking authorities.
Northern French became the official language in England. And for the
next three hundred years, French was the language of the ruling
classes in England. During this period, thousands of new words came
into English, many of them relating to upper class pursuits: baron,
attorney, luxury.

There are several semantic groups of French borrowings:

• government terms: to
  govern, to administer, assembly, record, parliament;

• words connected with
  feudalism: peasant,
  servant, control, money, rent, subsidy;

• military terms: assault,
  battle, soldier, army, siege, defence, lieutenant;

• words
  connected with jury: bill,
  defendant, plaintiff, judge, fine;

• words connected with art,
  amusement, fashion, food: dance,
  pleasure,
  lace, pleat, supper, appetite, beauty, figure, etc.

During the seventeenth
century there was a change in the character of the borrowed words.
From French, English has taken lots of words to do with cooking, the
arts, and a more sophisticated lifestyle in general (chic,
prestige, leisure,
repertoire, resume, cartoon, critique, cuisine, chauffeur,
questionnaire,
coup, elite, avant-garde, bidet, detente, entourage).

In addition to independent words, English borrowed
from Greek, Latin, and French a number of word parts for use as
affixes and roots, for example prefixes like поп-,
de-, anti— that
may appear in hundreds of different words.

English has continued to borrow words from French
right down to the present, with the result that over
a third of modern English vocabulary derives from French.

Scandinavian Borrowings
are connected with the Scandinavian
Conquest of the British Isles, which took place at the end of the 8^th
century. Scandinavians belonged to
the same group of peoples as Englishmen and the two languages were
similar.

The impact of Old Norwegian on the English
language is hard to evaluate.
Nine hundred words — for example, take,
leg, hit, skin, same —
are of Scandinavian origin. There
are probably hundreds more we cannot account for definitely, and in
the old territory of the Danelaw in
Northern England words like beck
(stream)
and garth
(yard)
survive in regional use. Words
beginning with sk
like sky
are Norse (the Danes — also called
Norsemen — conquered northern France, and finally England).

In many cases Scandinavian borrowings stood
alongside their English
equivalents. The Scandinavian skirt
originally
meant the same as the English shirt.
The Norse deyja
(to die) joined its Anglo-Saxon
synonym,
the English steorfa
(which
ends up as starve).
Other
synonyms include:
wish
and
want,
craft and
skill,
rear and
raise.

However,
many words were borrowed into English, e.g. cake,
egg, kid,
window, ill, happy, ugly, to call, to give, to get, etc.
Pronouns and pronominal forms were also borrowed from Scandinavian:
same,
both, though,
they, them, their.

In the modern period, English has borrowed from every important
language in the world

Over 120 languages are on
record as sources of the English vocabulary. From Japanese
come
karate,
judo, hara-kiri, kimono,
and tycoon; from
Arabic,
algebra,
algorithm, fakir, giraffe, sultan,
harem, mattress; from
Turkish,
yogurt,
kiosk, tulip; from
Farsi,
caravan,
shawl, bazaar, sherbet; from
Eskimo,
kayak,
igloo, anorak; from
Yiddish,
goy,
knish, latke, schmuck; from
Hindi,
thug,
punch, shampoo;
from
Amerindian
languages,
toboggan,
wigwam, Chicago, Missouri,
opossum. From
Italian
come words
connected with music and
the plastic arts, such as
piano, alto, incognito, bravo, ballerina, as
well as
motto,
casino, mafia, artichoke, etc.
German
expressions
in English have been coined either by tourists bringing back words
for new things they saw or by philosophers or historians describing
German concepts or experiences (kindergarten,
blitz, hamburger, pretzel, delicatessen, poodle, waltz, seminar). The
borrowings from other languages usually relate to things, which
English speakers experienced
for the first time abroad (Portuguese:
marmalade,
cobra; Spanish:
junta,
siesta, patio, mosquito, comrade, tornado, banana, guitar, marijuana,
vigilante; Dutch:
dock,
leak, pump, yacht, easel, cruise,
cole slaw, smuggle, gin, cookie, boom; Finnish:
sauna;
Russian:
bistro,
szar, balalaika, tundra, robot).

Although borrowing has been a very rich source of new words in
English, it is noteworthy that loan words are least common among the
most frequently used vocabulary items.

Most of the
borrowed words at once undergo the process of assimilation.
Assimilation of borrowed words is their adaptation to the system
of the receiving language in pronunciation, in grammar and in
spelling.
There are completely assimilated borrowings that correspond to
all the standards of the language (travel,
sport, street), partially
assimilated
words (taiga,
phenomena, police) and
unassimilated words (coup d’état,
tête-à-tête, ennui, éclat).

Borrowed words can be classified according to
the aspect which is borrowed. We can subdivide all borrowings into
the following groups:

• phonetic
  borrowings (table,
  chair, people);

• translation
  loans (Gospel,
  pipe of peace, masterpiece);

• semantic
  borrowings (pioneer);

• morphemic
  borrowings (beautiful,
  uncomfortable).

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