Explain the etymology of the word

The etymology of a word refers to its origin and historical development: that is, its earliest known use, its transmission from one language to another, and its changes in form and meaning. Etymology is also the term for the branch of linguistics that studies word histories.

What’s the Difference Between a Definition and an Etymology?

A definition tells us what a word means and how it’s used in our own time. An etymology tells us where a word came from (often, but not always, from another language) and what it used to mean.

For example, according to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the definition of the word disaster is «an occurrence causing widespread destruction and distress; a catastrophe» or «a grave misfortune.» But the etymology of the word disaster takes us back to a time when people commonly blamed great misfortunes on the influence of the stars.

Disaster first appeared in English in the late 16th century, just in time for Shakespeare to use the word in the play King Lear. It arrived by way of the Old Italian word disastro, which meant «unfavorable to one’s stars.»

This older, astrological sense of disaster becomes easier to understand when we study its Latin root word, astrum, which also appears in our modern «star» word astronomy. With the negative Latin prefix dis- («apart») added to astrum («star»), the word (in Latin, Old Italian, and Middle French) conveyed the idea that a catastrophe could be traced to the «evil influence of a star or planet» (a definition that the dictionary tells us is now «obsolete»).

Is the Etymology of a Word Its True Definition?

Not at all, though people sometimes try to make this argument. The word etymology is derived from the Greek word etymon, which means «the true sense of a word.» But in fact the original meaning of a word is often different from its contemporary definition.

The meanings of many words have changed over time, and older senses of a word may grow uncommon or disappear entirely from everyday use. Disaster, for instance, no longer means the «evil influence of a star or planet,» just as consider no longer means «to observe the stars.»

Let’s look at another example. Our English word salary is defined by The American Heritage Dictionary as «fixed compensation for services, paid to a person on a regular basis.» Its etymology can be traced back 2,000 years to sal, the Latin word for salt. So what’s the connection between salt and salary?

The Roman historian Pliny the Elder tells us that «in Rome, a soldier was paid in salt,» which back then was widely used as a food preservative. Eventually, this salarium came to signify a stipend paid in any form, usually money. Even today the expression «worth your salt» indicates that you’re working hard and earning your salary. However, this doesn’t mean that salt is the true definition of salary.

Where Do Words Come From?

New words have entered (and continue to enter) the English language in many different ways. Here are some of the most common methods.

• Borrowing
  The majority of the words used in modern English have been borrowed from other languages. Although most of our vocabulary comes from Latin and Greek (often by way of other European languages), English has borrowed words from more than 300 different languages around the world. Here are just a few examples:
  futon (from the Japanese word for «bedclothes, bedding»)
• hamster (Middle High German hamastra)
• kangaroo (Aboriginal language of Guugu Yimidhirr, gangurru , referring to a species of kangaroo)
• kink (Dutch, «twist in a rope»)
• moccasin (Native American Indian, Virginia Algonquian, akin to Powhatan mäkäsn and Ojibwa makisin)
• molasses (Portuguese melaços, from Late Latin mellceum, from Latin mel, «honey»)
• muscle (Latin musculus, «mouse»)
• slogan (alteration of Scots slogorne, «battle cry»)
• smorgasbord (Swedish, literally «bread and butter table»)
• whiskey (Old Irish uisce, «water,» and bethad, «of life»)
• Clipping or Shortening
  Some new words are simply shortened forms of existing words, for instance indie from independent; exam from examination; flu from influenza, and fax from facsimile.
• Compounding
  A new word may also be created by combining two or more existing words: fire engine, for example, and babysitter.
• Blends
  A blend, also called a portmanteau word, is a word formed by merging the sounds and meanings of two or more other words. Examples include moped, from mo(tor) + ped(al), and brunch, from br(eakfast) + (l)unch.
• Conversion or Functional Shift
  New words are often formed by changing an existing word from one part of speech to another. For example, innovations in technology have encouraged the transformation of the nouns network, Google, and microwave into verbs.
• Transfer of Proper Nouns
  Sometimes the names of people, places, and things become generalized vocabulary words. For instance, the noun maverick was derived from the name of an American cattleman, Samuel Augustus Maverick. The saxophone was named after Sax, the surname of a 19th-century Belgian family that made musical instruments.
• Neologisms or Creative Coinages
  Now and then, new products or processes inspire the creation of entirely new words. Such neologisms are usually short lived, never even making it into a dictionary. Nevertheless, some have endured, for example quark (coined by novelist James Joyce), galumph (Lewis Carroll), aspirin (originally a trademark), grok (Robert A. Heinlein).
• Imitation of Sounds
  Words are also created by onomatopoeia, naming things by imitating the sounds that are associated with them: boo, bow-wow, tinkle, click.

Why Should We Care About Word Histories?

If a word’s etymology is not the same as its definition, why should we care at all about word histories? Well, for one thing, understanding how words have developed can teach us a great deal about our cultural history. In addition, studying the histories of familiar words can help us deduce the meanings of unfamiliar words, thereby enriching our vocabularies. Finally, word stories are often both entertaining and thought provoking. In short, as any youngster can tell you, words are fun.

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).

PART 4. ETYMOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF MODERN ENGLISH VOCABULARY

The modern English vocabulary falls into two main sets: native words and borrowings. Native words belong to the original English word-stock and are known from the earliest Old English manuscripts. It is customary to subdivide native words into those of the Indo-European stock and those of the common Germanic origin. The former have cognates in the vocabulary of all or most Indo-European languages, whereas the latter have cognates only in Germanic languages.

Borrowing words from other languages is characteristic of English throughout its history. More than two thirds of the English vocabulary are borrowings. Mostly they are words of Romanic origin (Latin, French, Italian, Spanish). English continues to take in foreign words, but now the quantity of borrowings is not so abundant as it was before. All the more so, English now has become a “giving” language, it has become Lingva franca of the twentieth century.

Borrowings

Language interrelation over time can result in an important source of new words – borrowing. Borrowing or a loan word is a word or phrase which has been borrowed by one language from another. Partially the words are borrowed because of the historical circumstances which stimulate the borrowing process. Each time two nations come into close contact, certain borrowings are a natural consequence. The nature of the contact may be different including wars, invasions or trade and international cultural and sports relations.

In its 15 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 and Old Norse (or Scandinavian). The great influx of borrowings from these sources can be accounted for by a number of historical causes. Thanks to the great impact 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 were on the resembling level of social and cultural development and who merged rather easily with the local population in the 9th, 10th and the first half of the 11th century. French (to be more exact its Norman dialect) was the language of the other 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 and school instruction 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 usually placed on the Middle English period. Borrowings of later periods became the object of investigation only in recent years. These investigations have shown that the flow of borrowings has been steady and uninterrupted. The greatest number has come from French. They refer to various fields of social-political, scientific and cultural life. A large portion of borrowings (41%) is scientific and technical terms.

The number and character of borrowed words dive the possibility to find out about the relations between the peoples, the level of their culture, etc. It is for this reason that borrowings have often been called the milestones of history. Thus if we go through the lists of borrowings in English and arrange them in groups depending on their meaning, we shall be able to obtain much valuable information with regard to England’s contacts with many nations. Some borrowings, however, cannot be explained by the direct impact of certain historical conditions, they do not come along with any new objects or ideas. Such were, for example, the words air, place, brave, gay borrowed from French.

The number and character of borrowings do not only depend on the historical conditions, on the nature and length of the contacts, but also on the degree of the genetic and structural proximity of languages concerned. The closer the languages, the deeper and more versatile is the influence. This largely accounts for the well-marked contrast between the French and the Scandinavian impact on the English language. Thus under the influence of the Scandinavian languages, which were closely connected with Old English, some classes of words were borrowed that could not have been adopted from non-related or distantly related languages (the pronouns they, their, them, for instance); a number of Scandinavian borrowings were felt as derived from native words (they were of the same root and the connection between them was easily seen), e. g. drop (AS.) – drip (Scand.), true (AS.)-tryst (Scand.); the Scandinavian impact even accelerated to a certain degree the development of the grammatical structure of English.

Borrowings come in the language in two ways: through oral speech (by immediate contact between the peoples) and through written speech (by indirect contact through books, etc.). Oral borrowing took place mainly in the early periods of history, whereas in recent times written borrowing gained importance. Words borrowed orally (e. g. L. inch, mill, street) are as a rule short and they undergo considerable changes in the act of adoption. Written borrowings (e. g. Fr. communiqué, belles-lettres, naïveté) preserve their spelling and some peculiarities of their sound-form, their assimilation is a long process.

Though borrowed words undergo changes in the adopting language they preserve some of their former peculiarities for a comparatively long period. This makes it possible to work out some criteria for defining whether the word belongs to the borrowed element.

Sometimes the pronunciation of the word (strange sounds, sound combinations, position of stress, etc.), its spelling and the correlation between sounds and letters are an indication of the foreign origin of the word. This is the case with waltz (G.), psychology (Gr.), soufflé (Fr.), etc. The initial position of the sounds [v], [dз], [з] or of the letters x, j, z is a sure sign that the word has been borrowed, e. g. volcano (It.), vase (Fr.), jungle (Hindi), gesture (L.), giant (OFr.), zeal (L.), zero (Fr.), zinc (G.), etc.

The morphological structure of the word and its grammatical forms may also bear witness to the word being adopted from another language. Thus the suffixes in the words neurosis (Gr.) and violoncello (It.) betray the foreign origin of the words. The same is true of the irregular plural forms papyra (from papyrus, Gr.), pastorali (from pastorale, It.), beaux (from beau, Fr.), bacteria, (from bacterium, L.) and the like.

But some early borrowings have become so thoroughly assimilated that they are unrecognisable without a historical analysis, e. g. chalk, mile (L.), ill, ugly (Scand.), enemy, car (Fr.), etc.

It is 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 fall 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, Ptolemy of Greek origin were simplified into [n], [s], [t]. The initial [ks] was changed into [z] (as in Gr. xylophone).

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.

Degree of assimilation is determined by the time of the borrowing. The general principle is: the older the borrowing, the more thoroughly it tends to follow normal English habits of accentuation, pronunciation, etc. It is but natural that the majority of early borrowings have acquired full English citizenship and that most English speaking people are surprised at first hearing, that such everyday words as window, chair, dish and so on have not always belonged to their language. Late borrowings often retain their foreign peculiarities.

Exercise 1. Explain the etymology of the words in bold type.

1. His anger poured over me like lava. 2. I finished my chops, leaned back in my chair, and lit a cigarette. 3. He took out a long cigar and placed it in his mouth. 4. The robot looked at him impassively out of its faceted eye. 5. On the tray there was a pot of coffee and two cups. 6. “Here’s Len Minogue, he’ll play a polka for us,” he roared, dragging a little man with an accordion, over to the piano. 7. She was dressed in a heavy silk kimono of authentic manufacture. 8. She went into the kitchen and filled a glass with equal portions of vodka and orange juice. 9. I’ve been taking karate lessons, and I gave him a sample. 10. A horde of mosquitoes gathered immediately in the lee of the car. 11. Then they dined at a tiny seafood restaurant. 12. Everyone had to get used to handling dog teams and building igloo shelters. 13. She had left the flat to buy some sandwiches at a delicatessen near Sloane Square. 14. Myra had potato chips and a dish of tiny pieces of herring and some tomatoes.

Classification of Borrowings

Borrowings can be classified in compliance to different criteria: a) according to the degree of assimilation, b) according to the language from which the word was borrowed. (In this classification only the main languages from which words were borrowed into English are described, such as Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, German and Russian.)

Classification of borrowings according the degree of assimilation. Most of the borrowed words adjust themselves to their new environment and get adapted to the norms of the recipient language. They undergo certain changes which gradually erase their proper features and finally they are assimilated.

The degree of assimilation of borrowings is determined by the following factors: a) from what group of languages the word was borrowed, if the word belongs to the same group of languages to which the borrowing language belongs it is assimilated easier, b) in what way the word is borrowed: orally or in the written form, words borrowed orally are assimilated quicker, c) how often the borrowing is used in the language, the greater the frequency of its usage, the quicker it is assimilated, d) how long the word lives in the language, the longer it lives, the more assimilated it is.

Borrowed words are adjusted in three main areas of the new language system: the phonetic, the grammatical and the semantic.

The nature of phonetic adaptation is best shown by comparing Norman French borrowings. The Norman borrowings have for a long time been fully adapted to the phonetic system of the English language. Such words as table, plate, courage bear no phonetic traces of their French origin. Some of the later borrowings sound surprisingly French: matinee, ballet, cafe. In these cases phonetic adaptation is not completed.

Grammatical adaptation is based on a complete change of the former paradigm of the borrowed word. Yet, this is also a lasting process. For instance, words phenomenon (pl. phenomena), criterion (pl. criteria) are not fully adopted. Other borrowings have two plural forms – the native and the foreign, e. g. vacuum (L.) – vacua, vacuums, virtuoso (It.) – virtuosi, virtuosos.

By semantic adaptation is meant adjustment to the system of meanings of the vocabulary. When a word is taken over into another language, its semantic structure as a rule undergoes great changes. Polysemantic words are usually adopted only in one or two of their meanings. Thus the word timbre that had a number of meanings in French was borrowed into English as a musical term only. The words cargo and cask, highly polysemantic in Spanish, were adopted only in one of their meanings – ‘the goods carried in a ship’, ‘a barrel for holding liquids’ respectively.

In the process of its historical development a borrowing sometimes got new meanings that were not to be found in its former semantic structure. For example, the verb move in Modern English has acquired the meanings of ‘propose’, ‘change one’s flat’, ‘mix with people’ and others that the French mouvoir does not possess. As a rule the development of new meanings takes place 50 – 100 years after the word is borrowed.

The semantic structure of borrowings changes in other ways as well. Some meanings become more general, others more specialised, etc. For example, the word umbrella, borrowed in the meaning of a ’sunshade’ or ‘parasol’ (from It. ombrella < ombra – ’shade^’) came to denote similar protection from the rain as well.

Borrowed words according to the degree of assimilation fall into three groups: а) completely assimilated, b) partially assimilated, c) unassimilated words or barbarisms.

Completely assimilated borrowings occur in all layers of older borrowings. They are also called denizens. They follow all morphological, phonetic and orthographic standards e. g. husband, table, street, take. Being very frequent and stylistically neutral, they may occur as dominant words in synonymic groups. They take an active part in word -formation.

The second group containing partially assimilated borrowings can fall into 4 groups. Such words are also called aliens.

1. Borrowings that are not assimilated semantically, because they denote objects and notions peculiar to the country from which they are borrowed: sherbet, toreador, sari, sombrero, taiga.

2. Borrowings that are not assimilated grammatically, for example nouns borrowed from Latin and Greek which keep their original plural forms crisis – crises, phenomenon – phenomena, genius – genii, bacillus – bacilli.

3. Borrowings that are not assimilated phonetically. For example, some of the French words borrowed after 1650 keep the accent on the final syllable. Some words comprise sounds or combinations of sounds that are not standard for the English language: boulevard, foyer, camouflage, bourgeois.

4. Borrowings that are not assimilated graphically. This group is quite numerous. Usually such words are from the French origin. In these words the final consonant is not pronounced and they keep a diacritic mark. Some of them have variant spelling: Cliché, naïve, chateau, troussaeu.

The third group is unassimilated borrowed words. They are also called barbarisms. They are words from other languages used by English people in conversation or in writing but not assimilated in any way, and for which there are corresponding English equivalents: e. g. coup d’etat, eureka, persona grata, etc. (see Table 7)/

Table 7 ˗- Сlassification of borrowings according to the degree of assimilation

Borrowings

partially assimilated

(aliens)

completely assimilated

(denizens)

e. g. husband, table

unassimilated (barbarisms)

e. g. coup d’etat, eureka

not assimilated grammatically

e. g. crisis – crises,

genius – genii

not assimilated semantically

e. g. sherbet, toreador

not assimilated graphically

e. g. cliché, naïve

not assimilated phonetically

e. g. boulevard, bourgeois

Classification of borrowings according to the language from which they were borrowed. Romanic borrowings. Among words of Romanic origin borrowed from Latin during the period when the British Isles were a part of the Roman Empire, are such words as: street, port, wall, etc. Many Latin and Greek words came into English during the Adoption of Christianity in the 6-th century. These borrowings are as a rule called classical borrowings. Here belong Latin words: alter, cross, dean, and Greek words: church, angel, devil, anthem. Latin and Greek borrowings appeared in English during the Middle English period due to the Great Revival of Learning. These are for the most part scientific words. These words were not used as often as the words of the Old English period, therefore some of them were partly assimilated grammatically, e. g. formula — formulae. Here also belong such words as: memorandum, minimum, maximum, veto, etc. Classical borrowings continue to come in Modern English as well. Mainly they are words formed by means of Latin and Greek morphemes. There are many of them in medicine (appendicitis, aspirin), in chemistry (acid, valency, alkali), in technique (engine, antenna, biplane, airdrome), in politics (socialism, militarism), names of sciences (zoology, physics). In philology most of terms are of Greek origin (homonym, archaism, lexicography).

French borrowings. The largest group of borrowings are French borrowings. Most of them appeared in English at the time of the Norman Conquest. French effected not only the vocabulary of English but also its spelling, because documents were written by French scribes as the local population was chiefly illiterate, and the ruling class was French. There are the following semantic groups of French borrowings: a) words relating to government: administer, empire, state, government; b) words relating to military affairs: army, war, banner, soldier, battle; c) words relating to jury: advocate, petition, inquest, sentence, barrister; d) words relating to fashion: luxury, coat, collar, lace, pleat, embroidery; e) words relating to jewelry: topaz, emerald, ruby, pearl; f) words relating to food and cooking: lunch, dinner, appetite, to roast, to stew. Words were borrowed from French into English after 1650, mostly through French literature, but they were not as numerous and many of them are not completely assimilated. There are the following semantic groups of these borrowings: a) words relating to literature and music: belle-lettres, conservatorie, brochure, nuance, piruette, vaudeville; b) words relating to military affairs: corps, echelon, fuselage, manouvre; c) words relating to buildings and furniture: entresol, chateau, bureau; d) words relating to food and cooking: ragout, cuisine.

Italian borrowings. The earliest Italian borrowing came into English in the 14-th century, it was the word bank /from the Italian banko — bench/. Italian money-lenders and money-changers sat in the streets on benches. When they suffered losses they turned over their benches, it was called banco rotta from which the English word bankrupt originated. In the 17-th century some geological terms were borrowed: volcano, granite, bronze, lava. At the same time some political terms were borrowed: manifesto, bulletin. But in the main Italian is famous by its impact in music: alto, baritone, basso, tenor, falsetto, solo, duet, trio, quartet, quintet, opera, operette, libretto. Among the 20-th century Italian borrowings we can mention: gazette, incognitto, autostrada, fiasco, diletante, graffitto, etc.

Spanish borrowings. Spanish borrowings came into English mostly through its American variant. There are the following semantic groups of them: a) trade terms: cargo, embargo; b) names of dances and musical instruments: tango, rumba, habanera, guitar; c) names of vegetables and fruit: tomato, potato, cocoa, banana, ananas, apricot, etc.

Germanic borrowings. English belongs to the Germanic group of languages and there are borrowings from Scandinavian, German and Holland languages. Scandinavian borrowings. By the end of the Old English period English underwent a strong impact of Scandinavian due to the Scandinavian conquest of the British Isles. Scandinavians and Englishmen had the similar way of life, their cultural level was the resembling, they had much in common in their literature therefore there were a lot of words in these languages which were almost identical, e. g. Esyster – sweoster – sister, fiscr – fisc – fish, felagi – felawe – fellow. However there were many words which were different, and some of them came in English, such nouns as: bull, cake, egg, kid, knife, skirt, window, etc., such adjectives as: flat, ill, happy, low, odd, ugly, wrong, etc., such verbs as: call, die, guess, get, give, scream and others. Even some pronouns and connective words were borrowed, such as: same, both, till, fro, though, and pronominal forms with “th”: they, them, their.

German borrowings. There are some 800 words borrowed from German into English. Some of them have classical roots, e. g. in some geological terms, such as: cobalt, bismuth, zink, quarts, gneiss, wolfram. There are also words denoting objects used in everyday life: iceberg, lobby, rucksack, Kindergarten, etc. In the period of the Second World War and after it such words were borrowed: Luftwaffe, SS-man, Bundeswehr, gestapo, gas chamber Berufsverbot, Volkswagen, etc.

Holland borrowings. Holland and England have constant interrelations for many centuries and more than 2000 Holland borrowings were borrowed into English. Most of them are nautical terms and were mostly borrowed in the 14-th century, such as: freight, skipper, pump, keel, dock, reef, deck, leak and many others.

Exercise 2. Classify the borrowings in bold type according to the degree of their assimilation. State from what languages they are borrowed.

1. The walls had been panelled (at cost price) by a good decorator and on them hung engravings of theatrical pictures by Zoffany and de Wilde. 2. That rate literary phenomenon, a Southern novel with no mildew on its magnolia leaves. Funny, happy, and written with unspectacular precision. 3. When Mike Noonan’s wife dies unexpectedly, the bestselling author suffers from writer’s block. Until he is drawn to his summer home, the beautiful lakeside retreat called Sara Laughs. 4. The pair are the epitome of chic, living a glamorous lifestyle and entertaining friends at their house. 5. Henry VIII’s invasion of France has gone badly wrong, and a massive French fleet is preparing to sail across the Channel. 6. In the hot and dusty main street the cars were parked nose to the kerb. 7. The breath of an inquisitive dog blew warm and nervous on her neck; she could feel her skin broiling a little in the heat and hear the small exhausted wa-waa of the expiring waves. 8. Stradlater was a goddamn genius next to Ackley. 9. When it finally gets too much, she can always simply die. 10. This innocent passion for the persons whose photographs appear in the illustrated papers made him seem incredibly naïve, and she looked at him with tender eyes. 11. She’s a dancer. А ballet and all. She used to practice about two hours every day, right in the middle of the hottest weather and all. 12. If she went into the café on her own, she had to give way to any white person who walked in and let them be served first. 13. I left a message on her answering machine. 14. He was a big, hulking Indian clad in approved white-man style, with an Eldorado king’s sombrero on his head. 15. She had bought “Le Temps” and “The Saturday Evening Post” for her mother, and as she drank her citronade she opened the latter at the memoirs of a Russian princess, finding the dim conventions of the nineties realer and nearer than the headlines of the French paper. 16. He still had at fifty-two a very good figure. 17. He kept saying they were too new and bourgeois. 18. It was dark as hell in the foyer, naturally, and naturally I couldn’t turn on any lights. 19. “Who are you?” “Battle police,” another officer said. 20. He woke when he heard me in the room and sat up. “Ciao!” –, he said. 21. I arranged with the concierge to make my coffee in the morning. 22. The modest, well-bred, etcetera, English gentleman. 23. “How many corridas you had this year?” Renata asked.

Exercise 3. Classify the borrowings in bold type according to the language from which they were borrowed.

1. Improved structural techniques and materials and the quest for greater speed made the biplane configuration obsolete for most purposes by the late 1930s. 2. The hotel was run by a trio of brothers. 3. In Classical music, the most important combination of four instruments in chamber music is the string quartet. 4. It faced into the prevailing wind and a land airdrome could be easily made. 5. They walked past stalls selling huge sprays of crimson, saffron and cobalt flowers. Cobalt is primarily used as the metal, in the preparation of magnetic, wear-resistant and high-strength alloys. 6. They must appeal; a petition too might be started in the last event. 7. Support the keel with timber blocking to take most of the weight of the hull. 8. Also, Dr Vize wants me in Angola as soon as I can get free of the inquest formalities. 9. It was early days but she would have been in the top echelon of players. 10. Her sister was at the window, hanging her head low, a poor figure. 11. Alice dropped her eyes at the odd question. 12. A crowd was waiting at the dock to greet them. 13. Bismuth – a heavy brittle diamagnetic trivalent metallic element. 14. Zink can refer to another name for the cornetto, a Renaissance wind instrument. 15. In fact, he sometimes lurks by one of his bronzes and plays devil’s advocate. 16. Entresol – a low story in a building between the ground floor and the floor above. 17. Chateau is a large French country house or castle, often giving its name to wine made in its neighbourhood. 18. The nose wheel is raised backward into front fuselage. 19. Ruling an empire wasn’t getting any easier; he rarely had a minute to himself anymore. 20. In her confused state of mind, she had convinced herself that he loved her. 21. This was also seen on blouses and box pleat skirts. 22. Albs were originally quite plain, but about the 10th century the custom arose of ornamenting the borders and the cuffs of the sleeves with strips of embroidery, and this became common in the 12th century. 23. The general tenor of her speech was so understandable. 24. Cocoa beans are growed for preparing of a drink. 25. Three sailors stood in the dock. 26. It proved the final blow for the Neptune; the ship slowly keeled over and sank. 27. Bananа is a long curved fruit with yellow skins. 28. If a man tries to imitate a woman’s voice he does it by speaking in a falsetto voice. 29. Bearing in mind that the company had sold a car with an air-cooled engine since 1948, this was a natural choice for the new four cylinder.

International Words

As the process of borrowing is mostly connected with the appearance of new notions which the loan words serve to express, it is natural that the borrowing is seldom limited to one language. Words of the same origin that occur in several languages as a sequence of simultaneous or successive borrowings from one ultimate source are called international words.

The etymological sources of this vocabulary reflect the history of world culture. Expanding global contacts cause the considerable growth of international vocabulary. All languages depend on their changes upon the cultural and social matrix in which they operate and various contacts between nations are part of this matrix reflected in vocabulary.

Such words usually convey concepts which are important in the field of communication (cf. Eng. Telephone, organization, inauguration, industry, Ukr. телефон, організація, інаугурація, індустрія). If it is a noun, it is certain to adopt, sooner or later, a new system of declension; if it is a verb, it will conjugate in accordance to the rules of the recipient language.

International words play an especially prominent part in various terminological systems including the vocabulary of science, industry and art. Many of them are of Latin and Greek origin. A large number of names of science are international, e. g. philosophy, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, linguistics, lexicology. There are also numerous terms of art in this group: music, theatre, drama, tragedy, comedy, artist, primadonna. The etymological sources of this vocabulary reflect the history of the world culture. Thus, for instance, the mankind’s cultural debt to Italy is reflected in the considerable number of Italian words related to architecture, painting and especially music that are borrowed into most European languages: allegro, andante, aria, arioso, barcarole, baritone (and others names of voices), concert, duet, opera (and others names of pieces of music), piano and many more.

It is quite natural that political terms often occur in the international group of borrowings: politics, policy, revolution, progress, democracy, communism, anti-militarism.

The English language also contributed a great number of international words to world languages. Among them the sport terms occupy a prominent position: football, volley-ball, baseball, hockey, cricket, rugby, tennis, golf, etc.

Fruits and foodstuff imported from exotic countries frequently transport their names too and, being at the same time imported to many countries, become international: coffee, cocoa, chocolate, coca-cola, banana, mango, avocado, grapefruit.

The rate of change in technology, political, social and artistic life has been greatly accelerated in the 20th century and so has the rate of growth of international wordstock. A few examples of comparatively new words due to the progress of science will suffice to illustrate the importance of international vocabulary: algorithm, antenna, antibiotic, automation, bionics, cybernetics, entropy, gene, genetic code, graph, microelectronics, microminiaturisation, quant, quasars, pulsars, ribosome, etc. All these show sufficient likeness in English, French, Russian and several other languages.

The international wordstock is also growing thanks to the influx of exotic borrowed words like anaconda, bungalow, kraal, orang-outang, sari, etc. These come from many different sources.

At least some of the Russian words borrowed into English and many other languages and thus international should also be mentioned: balalaika, bolshevik, cosmonaut, czar, intelligentsia, Kremlin, mammoth, sambo, soviet, sputnik, steppe, vodka.

Exercise 4. In the sentences given below identify international words and state to what sphere of human activity they belong.

1. But I still lacked the confidence to try to take charge when Vadim seemed particularly out of control. 2. ‘The injection should take effect soon, love,’ he called in. and the doctor said it would make you sleepy.’ 3. The Moroccan frontier is about three miles away and clearly we are here in case the hordes of fellagha sitting on the other side think the coming referendum heralds a return home to Algeria. 4. He is a sadist and delights in the discomfort of others. 5. He didn’t even know if he was going to college. 6. I hold out a ziplock bag containing banana muffins. Becki hesitates, then accept one. 7. The horse remained amazingly calm during what looked a painful procedure. 8. But just like on a battlefield, where the sergeant knew more than the grunt, and the lieutenant more than the sergeant, and so on, the trick of gathering intelligence was to capture higher ranking officers from the other side, debrief them, and then launch a counterstrike. 9. Five dozen fiascos of oxygen he’s had all together, yesterday and to-day, the soak! 10. He came into the barracks like a tornado. 11. It all helps patients to come to terms with what is happening and regain control of their lives. 12. The battle would have a profound effect on the rest of the war. 13. The decision to postpone the referendum on the euro will also mean that the Convention gets an absolutely clear run in the next year. 14. He is a sadist and delights in the discomfort of others. 15. College leavers to find out what they have gone on to do. 16. I hold out a ziplock bag containing banana muffins. 17. Candidates may be required to undergo an adaptation procedure. 18. But just like on a battlefield, where the sergeant knew more than the grunt, and the lieutenant more than the sergeant, and so on, the trick of gathering intelligence was to capture higher ranking officers from the other side, debrief them, and then launch a counterstrike. 19. Her husband, knowing she could not play, shut the piano to avoid a fiasco. 20. Britain is tornado hotspot Britain is five times more likely to be hit by a tornado than the United States, research reveals today. 21. We’ll adopt a policy of localism that lets local people choose what’s right for their neighborhood. 22. Industry sector experience provide commercially aware, client focused advice throughout the process. 23. In some units, the idea of creating soviets was discussed. 24. Elton John has remained a close mentor to Ryan during his move to solo artist. 25. Progress toward nuclear disarmament, which constitutes their primary disarmament objective. 26. Radio crackled into life once more, only for us to discover they had still not turned up at camp.

Pseudo-International Words

International words should not be confused with pseudo-international words (false cognates, “translator’s false friends”) which have the same origin different semantic structures.

Exercise 5. Translate the following sentences into Ukrainian paying attention to pseudo-international words.

1. “All right, from that perspective, I can buy it. We’ll call social services”, he said. 2. These then are the three men who will have principal control over us during the coming weeks. 3. “I think this could be my salvation from a lunatic asylum which is the alternative if I have to go on publishing wheelbarrow”. 4. We returned to Sully and the two prisoners were paraded in front of Captain Glasser in his office. 5. That left two pages on four-year-old Tika, who’d been shot on a dog bed, and one paragraph on five-month-old ViVi, who’d been suffocated in her crib. 6. Liz laughed, intrigued by the prospect. 7. Phil rattled off a geographic profile of the Harringtons’ known activities and organizations. 8. I wondered what we left behind – a watch or two, a few cents photograph or a magazine and some ammunition. 9. The only thing he didn’t like was the wine list. 10. Selfishness runs in the family, Liz thought drily.

Etymological Doublets

Sometimes a word is borrowed twice from the same language. Consequently, we get two different words with different spellings and meanings but historically they come back to one and the same word. Such words are called etymological doublets. In English they fall into some groups.

The words shirt and skirt are of the same root. Shirt is a native word, and skirt is a Scandinavian borrowing. Their phonemic shape differs and yet they are similar and this reflects their common origin. Their meanings are also different but easily associated. They both mean clothing items.

Etymological doublets may enter the vocabulary by different roots. Some of these pairs (like shirt and skirt, scabby and shabby) consist of a native word and a borrowed one. Others are represented by two borrowings from different languages which are historically derived from the same root: canal (Latin) – channel (French), captain (Latin) – chieftan (French).

Still others were borrowed from the same language twice at different time: travel (Norman. Fr.) – travail (Parisian Fr.), cavalry (Norman. Fr.) – chivalry (Parisian Fr.).

A doublet may also include a shortened word and the one from which it was derived: history – story, fanatic – fan, shadow – shade.

Etymological hybrids are words whose elements came from different languages, e. g. eatable (native root + Romanic suffix), distrust (native root + Romanic prefix), beautiful (Romanic root + native suffix), etc.

Etymological triplets are groups of three words of common origin: hospital (lat) – hostel (Norm. Fr.) – hotel (Par. Fr.), to capture (Lat.) – to catch (Norm. Fr.) – to chase (Par. Fr.).

Exercise 6. Compare the meaning of the following etymological doublets or triplets. State their origin.

major – mayor, captain – chieftan, shirt – skirt, shriek – screech, canal – channel, corpus – corpse – corps, dike – ditch, travel – travail, shrew – screw, cart – chart, shadow – shade, naked – nude, lapel – label, ward – guard, hale – hail, shabby – scabby, pauper – poor, vast – waste, wine – vine, zealous – jealously, basis – base, deacon – dean, papyrus – paper, chief – chef, hospital – hostel – hotel, saloon – salon, suit – suite, camp – campus, street – stratum, catch – chase, cavalry – chivalry, dragon – dragoon – drake, plan – plane – plain, gentle – genteel – gentile, stack – stake – steak.

Exercise 7. State the origin of the following etymological doublets, if any. Translate the sentences into Ukrainian.

1. After crossing a rather large prairie, we arrived at the skirts of a little wood that was enlivened by the songs and flight of a large number of birds. 2. He once found a little fox cub half drowned in its hole and he brought it home in the bosom of his shirt to keep it warm. 3. In the course of the day of the 29th of January, the island of Ceylon disappeared under the horizon, and the Nautilus, at a speed of twenty miles an hour, slid into the labyrinth of canals which separate the Maldives from the Laccadives. 4. The empire of Blefuscu is an island situated to the north-east of Lilliput, from which it is parted only by a channel of eight hundred yards wide. 5. “Well, my friend, this earth will one day be that cold corpse; it will become uninhabitable and uninhabited like the moon, which has long since lost all its vital heat.” 6. She smiles a weak, embarrassed smile, and the press corps chuckle encouragingly. 7. When he traveled about, darkness so brooded over him that the sight of him was a wrong done to other people because it was as if he poisoned the air about him with gloom. 8. What does the Bible tell us about this difference, and why the Negro race has been cursed to so much pain and travail? 9. “Hum!” thought I, “a whale with the strength of a cavalry regiment would be a pretty whale!” 10. There was a steel-barred gate at the far end of the tunnel. It always reminded me of pictures I’d seen of old castles; you know, in days of old when knights were bold and chivalry was in flower. 11. «Do you never catch cold?» inquired Mary, gazing at him wonderingly.12. I’ve chased about the moor in all weathers same as the rabbits do. 13. «Now,» I said, tilting my bowl to capture the last spoonful, «probably would have cooked him some soup». 14. This isn’t to let me off the hook, but it sometimes seems to me that history which has recently fallen over the horizon is harder to research than the Middle Ages or the time of the Crusades. 15. It made me feel like a character in an Edgar Allan Poe story every time I used it. 16. Yet, even lost as deeply in his own fantasy world as he was, he gave Percy a wide berth and a mistrustful glance. 17. «Open the window!» he added, laughing half with joyful excitement and half at his own fancy. 18. Some group – probably exiled Russian hard-line fanatics – began selling nuclear weapons to terrorist groups, including The Base. 19. I looked for a fan, but they were all gone. 20. That chance now fell into his lap, courtesy of Percy Wetmore. 21. «Thank you, sir,» bobbing a curtsy, «I want to do my duty, sir.» 22. Our shadows bobbed and flickered on the walls. 23. It occurred to me that it should have been the shade of tired old limes, because now this room was just another version of the Green Mile. 24. I described that extraordinary care always taken of their education in arts and arms, to qualify them for being counsellors both to the king and kingdom; to have a share in the legislature; to be members of the highest court of judicature, whence there can be no appeal; and to be champions always ready for the defence of their prince and country, by their valour, conduct, and fidelity. 25. He knew not what could be the use of those several clefts and divisions in my feet behind; that these were too soft to bear the hardness and sharpness of stones, without a covering made from the skin of some other brute; that my whole body wanted a fence against heat and cold, which I was forced to put on and off every day, with tediousness and trouble: and lastly, that he observed every animal in this country naturally to abhor the Yahoos, whom the weaker avoided, and the stronger drove from them. 26. Has dedicated a however the ultra I need a cruise the Panama canal. 27. Indeed will today’s teristrial TV channels transfer to mobile device? 28. Australian by birth, he has worked in adventure travel since 1967. 29. Those that have joined with their honor great travails, cares, or perils are less subject to envy. 30. They are well seasoned in trying to avert attention and skirt details.

Exercise 8. Comment on the etymological composition of the following hybrids.

1. Chance rewarded our search for eatable vegetables, and one of the most useful products of the tropical zones furnished us with precious food that we missed on board. 2. I think – I think he’s beautiful!» said Mary in a determined voice. 3. The mouse scampered up on his bald pate and sat there. I don’t know if he remembered that he also had reason to distrust, Percy, but it certainly looked as if he did. 4. I know countless ways how to be happy. 5. I promise to love you as long as life endures. 6. Merciful and merciless are affixal antonyms.

Translation-Loans

The term “loan word” is identical to borrowing. By translation loans we indicate borrowings which are not taken into the vocabulary of another language more or less in the same phonemic shape in which they have been functioning in their own language, but are influenced by the process of translation. Translation loans are word-for-word (or morpheme-for-morpheme) translations of some foreign words or expressions. In such cases the notion is borrowed from a foreign language but it is expressed by native lexical units. Some translation loans came in English from Latin already in the Old English period, e. g. Sunday (solis dies). There are translation loans from the languages of Indians, such as: pipe of peace, pale-faced, from German masterpiece, homesickness, superman. They are only compound words, because each stem can be translated separately: e. g. 5 year-plan (from Russian пятилетка), first dancer (from Italian prima-ballerina), collective farm (from Russian колхоз), wonder child (from German wunderkind), etc.

Exercise 9. Translate the following translation-loans into Ukrainian.

Fatherland, fellow-traveller, first dancer, lightning way, milky way, local colouring, the moment of truth, mother tongue, pen name, self-criticism, Sisyphean labour, a slip of the tongue, a slip of the pen, swan song, sword of Damocles, thing-in-itself, word combination, world-famous.

Exercise 10. Translate the following sentences, paying attention to translation-loans.

1. A kibbutz is a collective farm, although increasingly it includes other industries as well. 2. The Seventh Five-Year Plan (1985-90) was cleared by the cabinet only in 1989, rendering it ineffective. 3. It was the swan song of my pension and the developed nations. 4. Three years of hard grind, and now it’s the moment of truth for two of ballet’s young hopefuls. 5. Most of them have no fatherland of their own, or someone else’s. 6. But we ought to exercise enough self-criticism to ask ourselves whether it would not be better to pool competences in some cases. 7. We had a guesstimate of Pounds 20,000, which felt like the Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads. 8. While swimming and catching a tan, I met some fellow travelers from London. 9. A thing-in-itself is an object as it would appear to us if we did not have to approach it under the conditions of space and time.

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