Borrowings. Causes and ways of borrowings. Latin, Scandinavian and French borrowings
A borrowed word or a borrowing is a word taken over from another language and assimilated in phonemic shape, spelling, paradigm or meaning, or at least in some of these aspects, according to the standards of the English language. Borrowing words from other languages has been characteristic of English throughout its history. More than two thirds of the English vocabulary are borrowings.
Different languages served as sources of borrowing at different periods of the development of the English language due to purely historical causes and facts among which the most important and most influential are: the Roman invasion, the introduction of Christianity, the Danish and Norman conquests, and at present, direct linguistic contacts and political, economical and cultural relationships with other nations. So English during its historical development borrowed words from:
1) Celtic: 5th – 6th c. A.D.;
2) Latin: 1st c. B.C., 7th c. A.D., the Renaissance period – 14th – 16th c.;
3) Scandinavian: 8th – 11th c. A.D.;
4) French: Norman borrowings – 11th – 13th c. A.D., Parisian borrowings – the Renaissance period;
5) Greek: the Renaissance period;
6) Italian: the Renaissance period and later;
7) Spanish: the Renaissance period and later;
8) Russian: the Renaissance period and later;
9) German, Indian and other languages.
In the 1st century B.C. the Germanic tribes, that later gave rise to the present-day nation of Englishmen, lived on the territory of Europe, which was occupied by the Roman Empire. So the 1st layer of borrowings represents those from the Latin language. Semantically this group comprises mostly names of foodstuff and fruit and vegetables, e.g. butter (<Lat. butirum), cheese (<Lat. caseus), cherry (<Lat. cerasum), pear (<Lat. pirum), plum (<Lat. prunus), pea (<Lat. pisum), beet (<Lat. beta), pepper (<Lat. piper), cup (<Lat. cuppa), plant ((<Lat. planta), kitchen (<Lat. coquina), mill (<Lat. molina), port (<Lat. portus), wine (<Lat. vinum). The Germanic tribal languages gained a considerable number of new words and were thus enriched.
The 5th century A.D. as several of the Germanic tribes migrated across the English Channel to the British Isles they were confronted by the Celts, the original inhabitants of the Isles. Through their numerous contacts with the Celts, the Anglo-Saxon languages assimilated a number of Celtic words, e.g. Modern English bald, down, glen, druid, bard, cradle etc. Especially numerous among the Celtic borrowings were place names, names of rivers, hills etc., e.g. Avon, Exe, Esk, Usk, Ux originate from the Celtic words meaning ‘river’ and ‘water’. The name of the English capital originates from Celtic Llyn+dun in which the former is another Celtic word for ‘river’ and the latter stands for ‘a fortified hill’, the meaning of the whole being ‘ a fortress on the hill over the river’.
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Besides, during this period some Latin words entered the Anglo-Saxon languages through Celtic, such as street (<Lat. strata via), wall (<Lat. vallum).
The 7th century A.D. became significant for Christianization of England. As Latin was the official language of the Christian Church, so the spread of Christianity was accompanied by a new wave of Latin borrowings. These loans came mostly from church Latin and indicated in the first place persons, objects and ideas associated with church and religious rituals, e.g. priest (<Lat. presbyter), bishop (<Lat. episcopus), monk (<Lat. monachus), nun (<Lat. nonna), candle (<Lat. candela). Besides, the first schools in England being church schools and the first teachers - priests and monks, it is only natural that educational terms were also borrowed from Latin, e.g. school (<Lat. schola<Gr.), scholar (<Lat. scholaris) and magister (<Lat. magister).
From the end of the 8th century to the middle of the 11th century England underwent several Scandinavian invasions which also left their trace on the English vocabulary. Examples of early Scandinavian borrowings are: to call, to cast, to die, to take, law, husband (<Sc. Hus+bondi, i.e. ‘inhabitant of the house’), window (<Sc. Vindauga, i.e. ‘the eye of the wind’), ill, loose, low, weak. Some of the Scandinavian borrowings of this period are easily recognized by the initial sk-combination, e.g. ski, skill, skin, skirt, sky.
Besides some English words changed their meaning under the influence of Scandinavian words of the same root, e.g. the Old English bread which meant ‘piece’ got its modern meaning by association with the Scandinavian braud, or the Old English dream meaning ‘joy’ adopted the meaning of the Scandinavian draumr, cf. R. дрёма.
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In 1066 after the famous battle of Hastings the Norman Conquest began which lasted for about two hundred years and brought many events in national, social, political life as well as lead to numerous borrowings from the Norman dialect of the French language. These borrowings formed various semantic groups penetrating every aspect of social life:
Administrative words: council, government, parliament, power, state;
Legal terms: court, crime, judge, justice, prison;
Military terms: army, battle, enemy, officer, soldier, war;
Educational terms: lesson, library, pen, pencil, pupil, science;
Names for everyday life objects: autumn, dinner, plate, river, saucer, supper, table, uncle;
Names of foodstuff: veal, beef, pork etc.
The Renaissance period in England as elsewhere was marked by significant interest in the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome. Science, art and culture were developing, hence a considerable number of Greek and Latin borrowings in these strata of the language, and these are mostly abstract words and numerous scientific and artistic terms, e.g. to create, to elect, intelligent, filial, major, minor, moderate, permanent, datum, method, music, phenomenon, philosophy, status <Latin; atom, cycle, ethics, aesthetic <Greek.
French borrowings of this period happened to be from the Parisian dialect, e.g. ballet, bourgeois, machine, matinee, police, regime, routine, scene, technique etc.
Italian also gave a large number of words to the English language, e.g. alarm, bankrupt, bulletin, colonel, dilettante, fascist, fiasco, gazette, graffiti, manifesto, piano, opera, violin etc.
Not only words as a whole were borrowed by the language. As soon as a borrowing was not felt in the language as something alien and there accumulated enough words of similar structural patterns, their constituent morphemes both roots and affixes began their independent life in producing new words, thus there appeared in the English language hybrid words, i.e. words consisting of a native root and foreign affixes or vice versa, e.g. eatable=native root+ Latin suffix; lovable=native root+ Latin suffix; dentist= Latin root+ Greek suffix; schoolboy= Greek root+ English root etc.
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To distinguish a borrowing in the English language let us enumerate some of the derivational affixes of Latin and French origin.
Latin affixes: -ion, -tion, -ate, -ute, -ct, -d(e), dis-, -able, -ant, -ent, -or, -al, -ar in the words like session, relation, create, attribute, conduct, applaud, disable, curable, accurate, constant, absent, major, cordial, solar etc.
French affixes: -ance, -ence, -ment, -age, -ess, -ous, en- in the words like endurance, patience, government, village, actress, serious, enable etc.
Spanish borrowings of the earlier period are mostly names of fruit and vegetables, recent groups of these are either trade terms or names of dances and musical instruments, e.g. apricot, banana, cocoa, potato, tomato, tobacco, cargo, embargo, tango, rumba, habanera, guitar etc.
Alongside borrowings proper, translation and semantic borrowings can be distinguished. Translation borrowings, or translation loans, are words and expressions formed from the material already existing in the English language but according to the patterns taken from another language, by way of literal morpheme-for-morpheme translation, e.g. wall newspaper <R. стенгазета, lightning war<Germ. Blitzkrieg, masterpiece <Germ. Meisterstuck, wonder child<Germ. Wunderkind, first dancer <Ital. prima ballerina, collective farm< Rus. колхоз.
Semantic borrowing is the development in an English word of a new meaning under the influence of a related word in another language, e.g. the English word ‘pioneer’ meant ‘explorer’ and ‘one who is among the first in new fields of activity’, but under the influence of the Russian word’пионер’ it has come to mean ‘a member of the Young Pioneers’ League’.
Due to the process of borrowing the English word stock was replenished by international words, i.e. words of identical origin that occur in several languages as a result of simultaneous or successive borrowing from one ultimate source, e.g. antenna, music, radio. International words play an especially important role in different terminological systems including the vocabulary of science, industry and art. Due to the accelerated rate of development of science and technology such international words enriched the English language as algorithm, antibiotics, automation, bionics, gene, cyborg etc. The origin of some international words reflects the history of world culture, the mankind’s debt to Italy is reflected in the great number of words connected with architecture, painting and especially music, e.g. allegro, andante, aria, arioso, barcarole, baritone, concert, duet, opera, piano etc.
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We find numerous English words in the sphere of sport, e.g. football, out, match, tennis, time out, ring, referee, set etc. There are English international words referring to clothing, e.g. jersey, pullover, sweater, tweed, shorts, leggings etc.
International words must not be confused with other words which ultimately come from the same source but have diverged in meaning. Such words are called ‘false friends’, or ‘false cognates’, cf. accurate and аккуратный, conserves and консервы.
Causes and Ways of Borrowing. As it has already been stated above the causes of borrowing are historic and linguistic factors. While historical causes of borrowing from different languages have been studied with a considerable degree of thoroughness and briefly outlined in the present study, the purely linguistic reasons for borrowing are still open to investigation. The number and character of borrowings do not only depend on the historical conditions, on the nature and length of 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 influence on the English language. Thus under the influence of the Scandinavian languages which were closely related to Old English some classes of words were borrowed that could not have been adopted from non-related or distantly related languages, e.g. pronouns they, their, them; a number of Scandinavian borrowings were felt as derived from native words as they were from the same root and the connection between them was easily seen, e.g. drop(Anglo-Saxon) – drip (Scand.), true (Anglo-Saxon) – tryst (Scand.); the Scandinavian influence even accelerated to some degree the development of the grammatical structure of English.
Borrowings enter the language in two ways: through oral speech and through written speech. Oral borrowing took place in the early periods of history, whereas in recent times written borrowings have gained importance. Words borrowed orally are usually short and they have undergone considerable phonetic, grammatical and semantic changes, e.g. Latin< inch, mill, street. Written borrowings preserve their spelling and some peculiarities of their sound form as their assimilation is a long process, e.g. French< communiqué, belles-lettres, naïveté.
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