The word government was borrowed from

Loanwords are words adopted by the speakers of one language from
a different language (the source language). A
loanword can also be called a borrowing.
The abstract noun borrowing refers to the process of speakers
adopting words
from a source language into their native language. «Loan» and
«borrowing» are of course metaphors, because there is no literal
lending process. There is no transfer from
one language to another, and no «returning» words to
the source language. The words simply come to be used by a speech
community that speaks a different language from the one these words
originated in.

Borrowing is a consequence of cultural contact between two language
communities. Borrowing of words can go in both directions between the
two languages in contact, but often there is an asymmetry, such that more words
go from one side to the other. In this case the source language
community has some advantage of power, prestige and/or wealth that
makes the objects and ideas it brings desirable and useful to the borrowing
language community. For example, the Germanic tribes in the first few
centuries A.D. adopted numerous loanwords from Latin as they
adopted new products via trade with the Romans. Few Germanic words, on
the other hand, passed into Latin.

The actual process of borrowing is complex and involves many usage
events (i.e. instances of use of the new word). Generally, some
speakers of the borrowing language know the source language too, or at
least enough of it to utilize the relevant word. They (often
consciously) adopt the new word when
speaking the borrowing language, because it most exactly fits the idea
they are trying to express. If they are bilingual in the source
language, which is often the case, they might pronounce the words the
same or similar to the way they are pronounced in the source language.
For example, English speakers adopted the word garage from
French, at first with a pronunciation nearer to the French
pronunciation than is now usually found. Presumably the very first
speakers who used the word in English knew at least some French and
heard the word used by French speakers, in a French-speaking context.

Those who first use the new word might use it at first only with
speakers of the source language who know the word, but at some point
they come to use the word with those to whom the word was not
previously known.
To these speakers the word may sound ‘foreign’. At this stage, when
most speakers do not know the word and if they hear it think it is
from another language, the word
can be called a foreign word. There are many foreign words
and phrases used in English such as bon vivant (French),
mutatis mutandis (Latin), and Fahrvergnuegen (German).

However, in time more speakers can become familiar with a new foreign
word or expression.
The community of users of this word can
grow to the point where even people who know little or nothing of the
source language understand, and even use, the novel word
themselves. The new word becomes
conventionalized: part of the conventional ways of speaking in
the borrowing language. At this point we call it a borrowing or loanword.

(It should be noted that not all foreign words do become loanwords; if they fall out of use
before they become widespread, they do not reach the loanword stage.)

Conventionalization is a gradual process in which a word progressively
permeates a larger and larger speech community, becoming part of ever
more people’s linguistic repetoire.
As part of its becoming more familiar to more people,
a newly borrowed word gradually adopts sound and other characteristics
of the borrowing language as speakers who do not know the source
language accommodate it to their own linguistic systems. In time,
people in the borrowing community do not perceive the word as a loanword at all. Generally, the longer a borrowed word
has been in the language, and the more frequently it is used, the more
it resembles the native words of the language.

English has gone through many periods in which large numbers of words
from a particular language were borrowed. These periods coincide with
times of major cultural contact between English speakers and those
speaking other languages. The waves of borrowing during periods
of especially strong cultural contacts are not sharply delimited, and
can overlap. For example, the Norse influence on English began already
in the 8th century A.D. and continued strongly well after the Norman
Conquest brought a large influx of Norman French to the language.

It is part of the cultural history of English speakers that they have
always adopted loanwords from the languages of whatever cultures they have
come in contact with. There have been few periods when borrowing
became unfashionable, and there has never been a national academy in
Britain, the U.S., or other English-speaking countries to
attempt to restrict new loanwords, as there has been in many continental
European countries.

The following list is a small sampling of the loanwords that came into
English in different periods and from different languages.

Latin
The forms given in this section are the Old English ones. The original Latin source word is given in parentheses where significantly different. Some Latin words were themselves originally borrowed from Greek. It can be deduced that these borrowings date from the time before the Angles and Saxons left the continent for England, because of very similar forms found in the other old Germanic languages (Old High German, Old Saxon, etc.). The source words are generally attested in Latin texts, in the large body of Latin writings that were preserved through the ages.

ancor	‘anchor’
butere	‘butter’ (L < Gr. butyros)
cealc	‘chalk’
ceas	‘cheese’ (caseum)
cetel	‘kettle’
cycene	‘kitchen’
cirice	‘church’ (ecclesia < Gr. ecclesia)
disc	‘dish’ (discus)
mil	‘mile’ (milia [passuum] ‘a thousand paces’)
piper	‘pepper’
pund	‘pound’ (pondo ‘a weight’)
sacc	‘sack’ (saccus)
sicol	‘sickle’
straet	‘street’ ([via] strata ‘straight way’ or stone-paved road)
weall	‘wall’ (vallum)
win	‘wine’ (vinum < Gr. oinos)

Latin

apostol	‘apostle’ (apostolus < Gr. apostolos)
casere	‘caesar, emperor’
ceaster	‘city’ (castra ‘camp’)
cest	‘chest’ (cista ‘box’)
circul	‘circle’
cometa	‘comet’ (cometa < Greek)
maegester	‘master’ (magister)
martir	‘martyr’
paper	‘paper’ (papyrus, from Gr.)
tigle	’tile’ (tegula)

Celtic

brocc	‘badger’
cumb	‘combe, valley’

(few ordinary words, but thousands of place and river names: London, Carlisle,
Devon, Dover, Cornwall, Thames, Avon…)

Scandinavian
Most of these first appeared in the written language in Middle English; but many were no doubt borrowed earlier, during the period of the Danelaw (9th-10th centuries).

• anger, blight, by-law, cake, call, clumsy, doze, egg, fellow, gear, get, give, hale, hit, husband, kick, kill, kilt, kindle, law, low, lump, rag, raise, root, scathe, scorch, score, scowl, scrape, scrub, seat, skill, skin, skirt, sky, sly, take, they, them, their, thrall, thrust, ugly, want, window, wing
• Place name suffixes: -by, -thorpe, -gate

French

• Law and government—attorney, bailiff, chancellor, chattel, country, court, crime, defendent, evidence, government, jail, judge, jury, larceny, noble, parliament, plaintiff, plea, prison, revenue, state, tax, verdict
• Church—abbot, chaplain, chapter, clergy, friar, prayer, preach, priest, religion, sacrament, saint, sermon
• Nobility—baron, baroness; count, countess; duke, duchess; marquis, marquess; prince, princess; viscount, viscountess; noble, royal (contrast native words: king, queen, earl, lord, lady, knight, kingly, queenly)
• Military—army, artillery, battle, captain, company, corporal, defense,enemy,marine, navy, sergeant, soldier, volunteer
• Cooking—beef, boil, broil, butcher, dine, fry, mutton, pork, poultry, roast, salmon, stew, veal
• Culture and luxury goods—art, bracelet, claret, clarinet, dance, diamond, fashion, fur, jewel, oboe, painting, pendant, satin, ruby, sculpture
• Other—adventure, change, charge, chart, courage, devout, dignity, enamor, feign, fruit, letter, literature, magic, male, female, mirror, pilgrimage, proud, question, regard, special

Also Middle English French loans: a huge number of words in age, -ance/-ence, -ant/-ent, -ity, -ment, -tion, con-, de-, and pre- .

Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether a given word came from French or whether it was taken straight from Latin. Words for which this difficulty occurs are those in which there were no special sound and/or spelling changes of the sort that distinguished French from Latin

The effects of the renaissance begin to be seriously felt in England. We see the beginnings of a huge influx of Latin and Greek words, many of them learned words imported by scholars well versed in those languages. But many are borrowings from other languages, as words from European high culture begin to make their presence felt and the first words come in from the earliest period of colonial expansion.

Latin

• agile, abdomen, anatomy, area, capsule, compensate, dexterity, discus, disc/disk, excavate, expensive, fictitious, gradual, habitual, insane, janitor, meditate, notorious, orbit, peninsula, physician, superintendent, ultimate, vindicate

Greek (many of these via Latin)

• anonymous, atmosphere, autograph, catastrophe, climax, comedy, critic, data, ectasy, history, ostracize, parasite, pneumonia, skeleton, tonic, tragedy
• Greek bound morphemes: -ism, -ize

Arabic

• via Spanish—alcove, algebra, zenith, algorithm, almanac, azimuth, alchemy, admiral
• via other Romance languages—amber, cipher, orange, saffron, sugar, zero, coffee

Period of major colonial expansion, industrial/technological revolution, and American immigration.

Words from European languages

French
French continues to be the largest single source of new words outside of very specialized vocabulary domains (scientific/technical vocabulary, still dominated by classical borrowings).

• High culture—ballet, bouillabaise, cabernet, cachet, chaise longue, champagne, chic, cognac, corsage, faux pas, nom de plume, quiche, rouge, roulet, sachet, salon, saloon, sang froid, savoir faire
• War and Military—bastion, brigade, battalion, cavalry, grenade, infantry, pallisade, rebuff, bayonet
• Other—bigot, chassis, clique, denim, garage, grotesque, jean(s), niche, shock
• French Canadian—chowder
• Louisiana French (Cajun)—jambalaya

Spanish

• armada, adobe, alligator, alpaca, armadillo, barricade, bravado, cannibal, canyon, coyote, desperado, embargo, enchilada, guitar, marijuana, mesa, mosquito, mustang, ranch, taco, tornado, tortilla, vigilante

Italian

• alto, arsenal, balcony, broccoli, cameo, casino, cupola, duo, fresco, fugue, gazette (via French), ghetto, gondola, grotto, macaroni, madrigal, motto, piano, opera, pantaloons, prima donna, regatta, sequin, soprano, opera, stanza, stucco, studio, tempo, torso, umbrella, viola, violin
• from Italian American immigrants—cappuccino, espresso, linguini, mafioso, pasta, pizza, ravioli, spaghetti, spumante, zabaglione, zucchini

Dutch, Flemish

• Shipping, naval terms—avast, boom, bow, bowsprit, buoy, commodore, cruise, dock, freight, keel, keelhaul, leak, pump, reef, scoop, scour, skipper, sloop, smuggle, splice, tackle, yawl, yacht
• Cloth industry—bale, cambric, duck (fabric), fuller’s earth, mart, nap (of cloth), selvage, spool, stripe
• Art—easel, etching, landscape, sketch
• War—beleaguer, holster, freebooter, furlough, onslaught
• Food and drink—booze, brandy(wine), coleslaw, cookie, cranberry, crullers, gin, hops, stockfish, waffle
• Other—bugger (orig. French), crap, curl, dollar, scum, split (orig. nautical term), uproar

German

• bum, dunk, feldspar, quartz, hex, lager, knackwurst, liverwurst, loafer, noodle, poodle, dachshund, pretzel, pinochle, pumpernickel, sauerkraut, schnitzel, zwieback, (beer)stein, lederhosen, dirndl
• 20th century German loanwords—blitzkrieg, zeppelin, strafe, U-boat, delicatessen, hamburger, frankfurter, wiener, hausfrau, kindergarten, Oktoberfest, schuss, wunderkind, bundt (cake), spritz (cookies), (apple) strudel

Yiddish (most are 20th century borrowings)

• bagel, Chanukkah (Hanukkah), chutzpah, dreidel, kibbitzer, kosher, lox, pastrami (orig. from Romanian), schlep, spiel, schlepp, schlemiel, schlimazel, gefilte fish, goy, klutz, knish, matzoh, oy vey, schmuck, schnook,

Scandinavian

• fjord, maelstrom, ombudsman, ski, slalom, smorgasbord

Russian

• apparatchik, borscht, czar/tsar, glasnost, icon, perestroika, vodka

Words from other parts of the world

Sanskrit

• avatar, karma, mahatma, swastika, yoga

Hindi

• bandanna, bangle, bungalow, chintz, cot, cummerbund, dungaree, juggernaut, jungle, loot, maharaja, nabob, pajamas, punch (the drink), shampoo, thug, kedgeree, jamboree

Dravidian

• curry, mango, teak, pariah

Persian (Farsi)

• check, checkmate, chess

Arabic

• bedouin, emir, jakir, gazelle, giraffe, harem, hashish, lute, minaret, mosque, myrrh, salaam, sirocco, sultan, vizier, bazaar, caravan

African languages

• banana (via Portuguese), banjo, boogie-woogie, chigger, goober, gorilla, gumbo, jazz, jitterbug, jitters, juke(box), voodoo, yam, zebra, zombie

American Indian languages

• avocado, cacao, cannibal, canoe, chipmunk, chocolate, chili, hammock, hominy, hurricane, maize, moccasin, moose, papoose, pecan, possum, potato, skunk, squaw, succotash, squash, tamale (via Spanish), teepee, terrapin, tobacco, toboggan, tomahawk, tomato, wigwam, woodchuck
• (plus thousands of place names, including Ottawa, Toronto, Saskatchewan and the names of more than half the
  states of the U.S., including Michigan, Texas, Nebraska, Illinois)

Chinese

• chop suey, chow mein, dim sum, ketchup, tea, ginseng, kowtow, litchee

Japanese

• geisha, hara kiri, judo, jujitsu, kamikaze, karaoke, kimono, samurai, soy, sumo, sushi, tsunami

Pacific Islands

• bamboo, gingham, rattan, taboo, tattoo, ukulele, boondocks

Australia

• boomerang, budgerigar, didgeridoo, kangaroo (and many more in Australian English)

---

Have you ever wondered why there are three different concepts for one word in the English language, for instance weird, odd and strange? This is because native and foreign terms co-exist in English: weird derives from Old English, odd from Old Norse and strange from Old French.

This lexical variation is not a new development: throughout the history of our language, English has been adding thousands of words to its lexicon by acquiring new words from other, often unrelated, languages: risotto and pizza comes from Italian, vodka from Russian, Goulash from Hungarian, coffee and yoghurt from Turkish and ketchup from Chinese.

Lexical borrowing

Borrowing means that words which originated in one language are now used in another, even by people who don’t speak the ‘lending’ language. Many terms are borrowed or coined to cover the lexical gaps which have arisen as a result of technological developments, for instance the word television derives from Greek tele ‘far’ + Latin visio ‘thing seen’.

But it gets even more grammatical… According to Haugen (1950), there are five different types of lexical borrowing:

• Loanword: the word and the meaning are borrowed, e.g. hummus (or humous)
• Loan-translation: literal word-for-word translation of both parts of the lending compound, e.g. superman derives from the German ‘Übermensch’
• Loan-rendition: the translation vaguely captures the original meaning: refrigerator is translated as ‘ice-box’ in Chinese
• Loan-blend: one part of the compound is borrowed, the other one translated
• Semantic loan: only the meaning is borrowed, not the word

RELATED: How India Influenced the English Language

Borrowing in the English language

Already in Old English times, many Celtic loans were used to describe place names, e.g. Cumberland is ‘the land of the Cymry or Britons’. Latin loans were mainly used for terms associated with Christianity, for instance munuc ‘monk’ or mæsse, ‘mass’. Old Norse and Old English were mutually intelligible and therefore many everyday terms were borrowed from Old Norse: common nouns (fellow, sky), adjectives (ugly, loose, ill), verbs (take, cast), prepositions (till), conjunctions (though), pronouns (they).

In Middle English over 10,000 French loan words arrived in two stages. Before 1250 mainly technical words were borrowed from Norman French: legal (government, prison, court), religious (clergy, abbot, sacrament), military (army, soldier, sergeant) and miscellaneous (pork, beef, mutton) terms. And after 1250 mainly cultural terms were acquired from Parisian French: fashion (fashion, dress, coat), domestic settings (curtain, towel, blanket), social life (leisure, dance, music) and literature (poet, prose, romance).

In Early Modern English the largest expansion of vocabulary was through word-formation processes and borrowing: mainly from Latin (perfect, logic) and French (elegant, decision), but also from other languages, such as Greek (theology, trilogy), Italian (opera, balcony), Spanish and Portuguese (alcohol, alligator).

The modern English language vocabulary possesses a rich history and is characterized by a great number of borrowed words from other languages during different steps of its development.

The reasons why the words were borrowed into English are the following:

Close interaction with a nation for whom English is not the mother tongue

A certain language is imposed on the English people as a result of numerous invasions

The mother tongue lacks the word for denoting a certain notion or object

The notion or object, which is peculiar for another country, is borrowed by the English people, altogether with the word, denoting the object.

The words are borrowed from another language as synonyms that give various shades of meaning to the words already existing in the language. [Арнольд 1986: 205]

Throughout the centuries, the British Isles underwent waves of invasions by Romans, Danes, and Norman French, each inevitably contributing to the way of life on the conquered land and leaving their trace on English vocabulary. [J.Algeo 2010: 247]

The words of Latin origin began to appear in the English language in the 1^st century BC. This process is closely connected with the occupation of the territory belonging to Germanic tribes by the Roman invaders. The adopted words naturally indicate the new conceptions that the Germanic peoples acquired from this contact with a higher civilization. [Albert C.Baugh, Thomas Cable 2002: 73]

During this period, mainly the words having to do with agriculture, cattle-breeding, and military affairs were borrowed. Many of the words borrowed in the Old English period have survived into Modern English. Among them are the following words: ancor ‘anchor’ (Lat. ancora), butere ‘butter’ (Lat. būtyrum), cealc ‘chalk’ (Lat. calx), cēse ‘cheese’ (Lat. cāseus), cetel ‘kettle’ (Lat. catillus), cycene ‘kitchen’ (Vul. Lat. cucīna, var. of coquīna), disc ‘dish’ (Lat. discus), mangere ‘-monger, trader’ (Lat. mangō), mīl ‘mile’ (Lat. mīlia [passuum]), piper ‘pepper’ (Lat. piper), pund ‘pound’ (Lat. pondō ), sacc ‘sack’ (Lat. saccus), sicol ‘sickle’ (Lat. secula), strǣt ‘ (Lat. [via] strata ), weall ‘wall’ (Lat. vallum). [J.Algeo 2010: 249]

Moreover, the Germanic tribes owe the knowledge of some new fruits and vegetables of which they had no idea before to the Romans. Thus, the English vocabulary was enlarged by the Latin names for new food products, such as cherry (Lat. cerasum), pear (Lat. pirum), plum (Lat. plunus), pea (Lat. pisum), beet (Lat.beta), plant (Lat.planta). [Антрушина 1985: 35]

A large plaster of borrowed Latin words appeared in the English language as a result of Christianization of England in the 7^th century AD. The borrowed words indicated the objects and ideas associated with church and religious rituals. [Антрушина 1985: 36] E.g. alter ‘altar’ (Lat. altar), (a)postol ‘apostle’ (Lat. apostolus), balsam (Lat. balsamum), dēmon (Lat. daemon), messe ‘mass’ (Lat. missa, позже messa), martir ‘martyr. [J.Algeo 2010: 250]

The introduction of Christianity meant the building of churches and the establishment of monasteries. Latin, the language of the services and of ecclesiastical learning, became widely spread throughout England. Schools were established in most of the monasteries and churches. [Albert C.Baugh, Thomas Cable 2002: 76]

A great number of Latin borrowings came into usage during the New English period (since 1500). The words were borrowed at the same time directly from Latin and from Greek as the ultimate source with the Latin as the immediate source. [Антрушина 1985: 38; J.Algeo 2010: 251]. All these words enriched the English language vocabulary in the fields of science, art and culture: e.g. datum, status, phenomenon, philosophy, method, music [Антрушина 1985: 38].

It is difficult to overestimate the immense impact on English vocabulary made by the French language. After the Norman Conquest, the Anglo-Saxon nobility was deprived of their real estate and political rights. All the leading positions were distributed among the Norman conquerors, thus, French became the language of the official class in England. [Аракин 2003: 173].

French words of Norman dialect penetrated every aspect of social life, but most of the words had to do with political life and government (counsel, government, state, parliament, country); judicial proceedings (court, judge, justice, condemn, attorney); army and military affairs (war, battle, army, regiment, victory, cannon, mail). Construction and architecture (palace, pillar, chapel); religion and church (religion, clergy, parish, prayer); school (lesson, pupil, pen, pencil); trade (fair, market, money, mercer) and art (art, colour, ornament).

There is also a great number of loan translations from French, such as marriage of convenience (mariage de conveyance), that goes without saying (ça va sans dire), and trial balloon (ballon d’essai).

It is interesting to note that the same French word may be borrowed at various periods in the history of English, like gentle (thirteenth century), genteel (sixteenth century), and jaunty (seventeenth century), all from French gentil. (Gentile, however, was taken straight from Latin gentīlis, meaning ‘foreign’ in post Classical Latin.) It is similar with chief, first occurring in English in the fourteenth century, and chef, in the nineteenth. [J.Algeo 2010: 256]

In Modern English, there are the words of French origin and the native English words, which denote the same notion. However, they are different in their stylistic value. The English words are neutral, and the borrowed French words may be characterized as “bookish” and “high-flown” [Аракин 2003: 177]. E.g. (to begin — to commence, to come – to arrive, to wish – to desire, to do – to act, speech – discourse, harm – injury, help — aid).

The Renaissance period is characterized by extensive cultural contacts between the major European states. During this period, a great number of words of French origin entered the English language and enriched its vocabulary in the fields of science, culture and art. The peculiar feature of such borrowings is that their French pronunciation is preserved. (machine, police, magazine, ballet, matinée, scene, technique). [Антрушина 1985: 38]

Scandinavian loanwords appeared in the English language at the end of the 8^th century AD, when England underwent several Scandinavian invasions.

The newly borrowed words did not denote any new notions – they indicated commonly used objects and habitual actions. [Аракин 2003: 169] In some cases, Scandinavian borrowings so closely resemble their English cognates that it becomes almost impossible to say whether the word was borrowed or not.

Sometimes an English word acquired a new meaning under the influence of a Scandinavian word similar in form. The initial meaning of the word “dream”, for instance, was “joy”. Later on, under the Scandinavian influence it changed its meaning according to the cognate word draumr ‘vision in sleep. ’

Most of the words in Modern English beginning with the sound combination [sk] are of Scandinavian origin e.g. scowl, scrape, scrub, skill, skin, skirt, sky.

References

Антрушина Г.Б., Афанасьева О.В., Морозова Н.Н. Лексикология английского языка. — М.: Высшая школа, 1985. — 223 с.

Аракин В.Д. История английского языка. — М.: ФИЗМАТЛИТ, 2003. — 272 с.

Арнольд И.В. Лексикология современного английского языка. — М. : Высшая школа, 1986. — 295 с.

Пословицы в фразеологическом поле: когнитивный, дискурсивный, сопоставительный аспекты: монография / Н.Ф. Алефиренко [и др.]; под ред. проф. Т.Н. Федуленковой. – Владимир: Изд-во ВлГУ, 2017. 231 с. (С. 176-196)

Современная фразеология: тенденции и инновации: монография (том посвящается д.ф.н. проф. Т.Н. Федуленковой по случаю юбилея) / Н.Ф. Алефиренко, В.И. Зимин, Т.Н. Федуленкова и др. – М.-СПб-Брянск: «Новый проект», 2016. – 200 с.

Традиции и инновации в лингвистике и лингводидактике: Материалы Международ. конф. в честь 65-летия д.ф.н. проф. Т.Н. Федуленковой / ВлГУ им. А.Г. и Н.Г. Столетовых. Владимир, 2015. 268 c.

Федуленкова Т.Н. Лекции по английской фразеологии библейского происхождения. М.: ИД АЕ, 2016. – 146 с.

Федуленкова Т.Н. Сопоставительная фразеология английского, немецкого и шведского языков: курс лекций. М.: ИД Акад. Естествознания, 2012. – 220 с.

Федуленкова Т.Н., Адамия З.К., Чабашвили М. и др. Фразеологическое пространство национального словаря в сопоставительном аспекте: монография. Т.2. / под ред. Т.Н. Федуленковой. – М.: ИД Академии Естествознания, 2014. – 140 с.

Федуленкова Т.Н., Иванов А.В., Куприна Т.В. и др. Фразеология и терминология: грани пересечения: монография – Архангельск: Поморский университет, 2009. – 170 с.

Федуленкова Т.Н., Садыкова А.Г., Давлетбаева Д.Н. Фразеологическое пространство национального словаря в сопоставительном аспекте: монография. Т.1. / отв ред. Т.Н. Федуленкова. – Архангельск: Поморский университет, 2008. – 200 с.

Cross-Linguistic and Cross-Cultural Approaches to Phraseology: ESSE-9, Aarhus, 22-26 August 2008 / T. Fedulenkova (ed.). Arkhangelsk; Aarhus, 2009. 209 p.

John Algeo The Origins and Development of the English Language:. — Wadsworth: Cengage Learning, 2010. — 347 с.

Albert C.Baugh, Thomas Cable A History of the English Language. London: Routledge, 2002. 447 с.

The
degree of assimilation of borrowings depends on 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.

Accordingly
borrowings are subdivided into: completely assimilated, partly
assimilated and non-assimilated (barbarisms).

Completely
assimilated borrowings are not felt as foreign words in the language,
cf the French word «sport» and the native word «start».
Completely assimilated verbs belong to regular verbs, e.g. correct
-corrected. Completely assimilated nouns form their plural by means
of s-inflexion, e.g. gate- gates. In completely assimilated French
words the stress has been shifted from the last syllable to the last
but one.

Semantic
assimilation of borrowed words depends on the words existing in the
borrowing language, as a rule, a borrowed word does not bring all its
meanings into the borrowing language, if it is polysemantic, e.g. the
Russian borrowing «sputnik» is used in English only in one of its
meanings.

Partly
assimilated borrowings are subdivided into the following groups: a)
borrowings non-assimilated semantically, because they denote objects
and notions peculiar to the country from the language of which they
were borrowed, e.g. sari, sombrero, taiga, kvass etc.

b)
borrowings non-assimilated grammatically, e.g. nouns borrowed from
Latin and Greek retain their plural forms (bacillus — bacilli,
phenomenon — phenomena, datum -data, genius — genii etc.

c)
borrowings non-assimilated phonetically. Here belong words with the
initial sounds /v/ and /z/, e.g. voice, zero. In native words these
voiced consonants are used only in the intervocal position as
allophones of sounds /f/ and /s/ ( loss — lose, life — live ). Some
Scandinavian borrowings have consonants and combinations of
consonants which were not palatalized, e.g. /sk/ in the words: sky,
skate, ski etc (in native words we have the palatalized sounds
denoted by the digraph «sh», e.g. shirt); sounds /k/ and /g/ before
front vowels are not palatalized e.g. girl, get, give, kid, kill,
kettle. In native words we have palatalization , e.g. German, child.

Some
French borrowings have retained their stress on the last syllable,
e.g. police, cartoon. Some French borrowings retain special
combinations of sounds, e.g. /a:3/ in the words : camouflage,
bourgeois, some of them retain the combination of sounds /wa:/ in the
words: memoir, boulevard.

d)
borrowings can be partly assimilated graphically, e.g. in Greak
borrowings «y» can be spelled in the middle of the word (symbol,
synonym), «ph» denotes the sound /f/ (phoneme, morpheme), «ch»
denotes the sound /k/(chemistry, chaos),«ps» denotes the sound /s/
(psychology).

Latin
borrowings retain their polisyllabic structure, have double
consonants, as a rule, the final consonant of the prefix is
assimilated with the initial consonant of the stem, (accompany,
affirmative).

French
borrowings which came into English after 1650 retain their spelling,
e.g. consonants «p», «t», «s» are not pronounced at the end of
the word (buffet, coup, debris), Specifically French combination of
letters «eau» /ou/ can be found in the borrowings : beau, chateau,
troussaeu. Some of digraphs retain their French pronunciation: ‘ch’
is pronounced as /sh/, e.g. chic, parachute, ‘qu’ is pronounced
as /k/ e.g. bouquet, «ou» is pronounced as /u:/, e.g. rouge; some
letters retain their French pronunciation, e.g. «i» is pronounced
as /i:/, e,g, chic, machine; «g» is pronounced as /3/, e.g. rouge.

Modern
German borrowings also have some peculiarities in their spelling:
common nouns are spelled with a capital letter e.g. Autobahn,
Lebensraum; some vowels and digraphs retain their German
pronunciation, e.g. «a» is pronounced as /a:/ (Dictat), «u» is
pronounced as /u:/ (Kuchen), «au» is pronounced as /au/ (Hausfrau),
«ei» is pronounced as /ai/ (Reich); some consonants are also
pronounced in the German way, e.g. «s» before a vowel is pronounced
as /z/ (Sitskrieg), «v» is pronounced as /f/ (Volkswagen), «w» is
pronounced as /v/ , «ch» is pronounced as /h/ (Kuchen).

Non-assimilated
borrowings (barbarisms) are borrowings which are used by Englishmen
rather seldom and are non-assimilated, e.g. addio (Italian),
tete-a-tete (French), dolce vita (Italian), duende (Spanish), an
homme a femme (French), gonzo (Italian) etc.

CLASSIFICATION
OF BORROWINGS ACCORDING

TO
THE LANGUAGE FROM WHICH THEY WERE BORROWED

ROMANIC
BORROWINGS

Latin
borrowings.

Among
words of Romanic origin borrowed from Latin during the period when
the British Isles were a part of the Roman Empire, there 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. At this time the Latin alphabet was borrowed which ousted
the Runic alphabet. These borrowings are usually 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 mostly
scientific words because Latin was the language of science at the
time. These words were not used as frequently 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 appear in Modern English as well. Mostly they
are words formed with the help of Latin and Greek morphemes. There
are quite a lot 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
influence of French on the English spelling.

The
largest group of borrowings are French borrowings. Most of them came
into English during the Norman conquest. French influenced not only
the vocabulary of English but also its spelling, because documents
were written by French scribes as the local population was mainly
illiterate, and the ruling class was French. Runic letters remaining
in English after the Latin alphabet was borrowed were substituted by
Latin letters and combinations of letters, e.g. «v» was introduced
for the voiced consonant /v/ instead of «f» in the intervocal
position /lufian — love/, the digraph «ch» was introduced to denote
the sound /ch/ instead of the letter «c» / chest/ before front
vowels where it had been palatalized, the digraph «sh» was
introduced instead of the combination «sc» to denote the sound /sh/
/ship/, the digraph «th» was introduced instead of the Runic
letters «0» and « » /this, thing/, the letter «y» was
introduced instead of the Runic letter «3» to denote the sound /j/
/yet/, the digraph «qu» substituted the combination «cw» to
denote the combination of sounds /kw/ /queen/, the digraph «ou» was
introduced to denote the sound /u:/ /house/ (The sound /u:/ was later
on diphthongized and is pronounced /au/ in native words and fully
assimilated borrowings). As it was difficult for French scribes to
copy English texts they substituted the letter «u» before «v»,
«m», «n» and the digraph «th» by the letter «o» to escape the
combination of many vertical lines /«sunu» — «son», luvu» —
«love»/.

Borrowing
of French words.

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, mainly 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.

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