The Celtic Element in the English Vocabulary.
Before the Anglo-Saxon came Britain had been under-the Roman oppression for about four centuries. The Roman legions left Britain to defend their own capital threatened by the Goths some 30-35 years before the Anglo-Saxon invasion.
The Britons fled to Wales and Cornwall. The Celtic tribes of Ireland accepted the English language and the Celtic tribes of Scotland were influenced by the Northern form of English. Now the Celtic tongues exist in the form of Welsh, Irish, Gaelic and Highland Scotch and influence the local dialect. Among the words of Celtic origin we can mention such words as brock-baver, crag-a rock, dun-greyish-brown, down-hill. There are some geographic names: kent, avon (from amous-river), Trent (from trent – tortuous), Dover (from dour water), Torr (torr-rock), Duncombe, Helcombe (cwn, cum – canyon),
Llandaff Llandovery (Llan-church), Inverness (inver – river mouth).
The Latin Borrowings in the English Language
Approximately a quarter of the Latin vocabulary has been taken over by English. There are two layers of the Latin borrowings. The first are mostly monosyllabic words which denote everyday items. They were borrowed through immediate contact, orally.
Among them there are pear, pea, pepper, cheese, plum, butter, wine, kettle, cup,dish, line (L, linum) mortar, mule, pound (L. pondus – weight), inch – (L. uncia), monger (Lat. mango – retail trader).
Some of the names had a military flavour: port (L. portus), street (Lat. strata-paved road), wall (L vallum-fortification), mill (molina), etc.
All these words have been fully assimilated. They became headwords of whole groups of derivatives, compounds and set expressions (e.g. wineglass, wineskin, etc.)
Some Latin borrowings retained in English place-names like chester, Colchester, Manchester, Lancaster (L. castra – camp).Greenwich, Harwich (Lat. vicus-village).
The second stratum of Latin words came in the 7th century when people of England were converted to Christianity. Among those borrowings are abbot (Greek abbas-father), altar, angel, anthem, apostle, candle, disciple, devil, martyr temple, gospel (L. evangelium god spell-“good message”).
Another layer of Latin borrowings came thought French after the Norman Conquest (1066). The greatest stream of Latin words poured into English during and after the Revival of Learning, the Renaissance. Among them are terms of philosophy, mathematics and physics, such as diameter, fundamental, momentum, proposition, radius, vacuum; words pertaining to law and government like alibi, coroner, judicial, habeas corpus, veto; terms of medicine: diagnosis, anesthetic etc. There are some Latin abbreviations like e.g. (exempli gratia) – for example, i.e. (id est) – that is, etc (et cetera and soon).
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Greek words mostly came through Latin. They are recognize by their specific spelling (Ch, ph, pn, rh, as in character, chiasmus, philosophy, phenomenon, pneumatic, rhetoric, rhythmic); by the suffixes – ist, -ics, -ism, -id, -isk, -ize, -oid, -osis (e.g. theorist, acoustics, Leonid, asteroid, asterisk, communism, socialism, etc.).
After the Renaissance Greek words were introduced into English in great numbers. They mostly came as terms for various fields of science. There are also Greek prefixes that help to identify a word of Greek origin, such as; a-, an- (e.g. anarchy, aseptic); anti, ant (e.g. Antarctic, antipathy); di-, dis- (e.g. dilemma, dissyllabic) and others.
The Scandinavian Elements in the English Vocabulary
The Scandinavian invasion into England began in the 8th century. In 1017, the Danes conquered the whole of England and reigned up to 1042. The fact that the Danish and English languages were of Germanic origin facilitated mutual understanding and word borrowings. It is difficult to distinguish Scandinavian words from English ones (e.g. anger, fellow, gate, husband, sky, want, window, to hit, eye, ill, low, odd, ugly, flat, awkward, gasp, give, take, get, lift, rid, scare, die, cast, raise, happen, hasten, dangle struggle etc; pronouns: same, both, they, adverbs: hence, whence, thence; preposition till, fro.
Some English words changed their meaning under the influence of Scandinavian words, e.g. dream (OE joy), bread (OE crumb.), The Sc. byr settlement is found in by: Derby, Rugby, Gremsby, etc., Scand. foss (river) is found in Fossbury, Fossdyke.
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