Words_about_words_An_introduction_to_Eng

Sources of the English Vocabulary

Latin and Greek words was found to be the solution for the improvement of a prosaic language that lacked the sophisticated metrical resources and poetic devices that the classical languages boasted of. One of those who shared this concern was Sir Thomas Elyot, who, in his The Governor, a book meant for training the gentlemen who were going to be employed at court, enthusiastically introduced Latin and Greek words in order to improve English. Some such words are: devulgate, describe, attempate, education, dedicate, esteme. Others followed in his footsteps so that words from the classical languages flooded in: commemorate, invidious, frequency, expectation, thermometer, affable (Baugh and Cable 2002: 214215, quoted by Katamba 2005: 140).

Not all borrowings were from Latin or Greek in the Middle Ages. Arabic was, for example, another rich source of words that passed into English during this period, especially in the field of science and the Islamic religion. Examples for the former category include alchemy, alcohol, alembic, algebra, alkali, zenith, zero, while the latter category may be illustrated with words such as Koran, imam, caliph, muezzin, mullah, Ramadan, etc. Many of these have made their way into English via French, which borrowed them itself from Spanish, a very important carrier of the Arabic science and culture to Europe, since Spain was occupied by the Moors.

For centuries, French was the language of politics, protocol, diplomacy, the government and the military. Hence, a large amount of words in these semantic fields that are used in English originate in French. Katamba (2002: 141) provides the following examples to support this statement:

Military: cordon sanitaire, barrage, hors de combat, materiel, reveille; Diplomacy and protocol: corps diplomatique, charge d’affaire,

communiqué;

Government and politics: ancien regime, dirigiste, coup d’etat, laissezfaire, agent provocateur, etc.

Names of people, animals, birds and plants have entered English from all kinds of languages spoken around the world: Sherpa, Gurka (Nepal), chimpanzee (Angola), koala (Australia), zebra (Congo). The arts and culture domain is represented in terms of borrowings by words such as samba (Brazil), rhumba (Cuba), tango (Argentina), didgeridoo (Australia). Numerous words referring to food have been imported in English: goulash (Hungarian), enchiladas, tacos, nachos (Mexican Spanish), moussaka (Greek), etc. The interference of English culture with other cultures of the world has resulted into the former’s having borrowed foreign words referring to articles of dress as well. Included in this category are: sarong (Malay), parka (Aleutian), anorak (Greenlandic Eskimo), kimono (Japanese), shawl (Persian), etc. In principle, new words may be coined in

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Words about Words

English to describe all of the above, but importing the object together with its name has proved a simpler and more appropriate solution.

The same way out was resorted to in situations when English had a word or phrase to refer to a particular person, object, phenomenon or abstraction, but this was considered insufficiently appropriate to render all the features of its referent. This is how French words such as chic, flair, esprit de corps, naïve, blasé or ménage a trois have been borrowed into English. Any speaker of English would agree that the loan translations “a feeling of loyalty that exists between the members of a group” for esprit de corps or “a household with three partners” for ménage a trois lack the flavoured connotation of the French phrases and do not quite “roll off the tongue” (Katamba 2002: 142).

Last but not least, some of the English euphemisms are borrowed lexical items. In their case, it seems that less embarrassment is caused when awkward things are said using words from a foreign language. Decency lies behind the use of the euphemistic words pudenda and genitalia, of Latin origin, and it is also the rationale behind the importation of several words used to talk discreetly about shady sexual activities and the participants in them. Maison de randezvous and madame from French and gigolo and bordello from Italian are illustrative of the latter.

2.3.2. Adaptation (nativisation) of loanwords

The foreign words that are borrowed into English may undergo changes under the influence of the recipient language or they may survive in their original form. In the former case, depending on the degree to which they change, we speak about completely and, respectively, partially assimilated loan words. In the latter case, we speak about unassimilated loans.

Completely assimilated loans have become fully integrated in the system of English from an orthographic, phonetic and morphological point of view, so that someone who is not particularly knowledgeable in the field of etymology can no longer distinguish them from indigenous English words. Many of the French loanwords are included in this category: animal,

aunt, chair, change, colour, cost, dinner, escape, flower, poor, table, etc. On the other hand, completely unassimilated loans have preserved

all the characteristics they had in the language of origin. English has not exerted any influence either on their spelling or on their pronunciation and morphological peculiarities. If the recognition of the examples just quoted as originally French words is problematic, no speaker of English would find it difficult to identify words and phrases such as auberge, gendarme, mistral, maitre d’hotel, mauvais sujet, facon de parler as being French imports into English.

In between the completely assimilated and the fully unassimilated loans, there are those which are not totally foreign but not totally Anglicised

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Sources of the English Vocabulary

either. “Even after a long period of use in English, some words fail to become fully adopted. Instead, they remain on the fringes, as tolerated aliens with one foot in and one foot out of the English lexicon”(Katamba 2002: 145). Loanwords that have preserved their original grammatical characteristics or spelling but have adapted to the English pronunciation – Lat. radius-radii, bacterium – bacteria, Fr. reveille (pronounced /rivæli/ in English) - are such aliens.

2.3.3. Direct and indirect borrowing

If a language takes a word directly from another, as English has taken omelette from French, we talk about direct borrowing. If, on the other hand, a word is passed from one language to another and then to another and to another, as it is the case of the English coffee, taken from the Dutch koffie, arrived here from the Arabic kahva, itself an adaptation of the Turkish kahveh, the process is called indirect borrowing (we may consider the English coffee an indirect loan word of the Turkish kahveh).

If words are borrowed indirectly, a distinction must be made between the source and the origin of the borrowing. The source is the language from which a particular word or phrase has entered another language, while the origin is the language to which the etymon of the loan lexical item can be traced back. Thus, in the above example, the source of the English coffee is the Dutch word koffie, while its origin is the Turkish word kahveh.

In the case of direct borrowing, since there is no intermediary means between the donor and the recipient language, the source and the origin of the loan words coincide.

2.3.4. Latin words in English

To varying degrees, Latin has exerted a major influence on English from the OE period up to the modern times.

The first borrowings from Latin date from the very beginning of the Anglo-Saxon period and are the result of the contacts the Anglo-Saxons had with the Roman population and, especially, with the Roman armies, on the continent. Some of the Latin words that the former brought back to their island were concerned with the military domain, commerce and agriculture. Others were related to plants, animals, clothing, the domestic life, legal institutions and religion (the last penetrated English beginning with 597, the year that marks the introduction of Christianity in England). Examples include: cheese, pepper, wine, butter, dish, beet, pear, lily, lion, ass, candle,

shrine, monk, nun, abbot, bishop, belt, shirt, shoemaker, city, wall, tile, etc.

The process of borrowing Latin words in the OE period has modest beginnings and it cannot boast a tremendous enlargement up to the end of this interval either. It is generally estimated that a total of around five

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Words about Words

hundred words passed from Latin into English during the entire period. As Jackson and Amvela (2007) explain, this is a relatively small number if compared with that of the Latin lexical items borrowed at later times. Furthermore, many of the words borrowed from Latin in the OE period were not widely employed and some of them fell out of use quite soon. Some, however, were borrowed again later, sometimes with a slightly different meaning. Modern English sign and giant seem not to be survivors from the OE Latin loans sign and gigant, but rather recent borrowings from French, where their original form is signe and geant.

Borrowings from Latin in the OE period are frequently split into two categories in terms of register: popular and learned (Pyles, Algeo 1993: 288). The former, such as wine, plant, cat, street, were transmitted orally and are part of the everyday vocabulary used in non-specialized communication. The latter, such as clerk, demon, martyr, came into English either through the church or through various classical written sources which increased in number especially after 1000, “owing to renewed interest in learning encouraged by King Alfred and the tenth century Benedictine monastic revival” (Jackson, Amvela 2007: 40).

In the Middle English period, it was French that was the most productive source of loan words into English. Though outnumbered by French loans, Latin ones kept entering English. The latter belonged to fields such as religion: mediator, redeemer, collect (short prayer); law: client, conviction, subpoena; the sciences: dissolve, equal, essence, medicine, mercury, quadrant; scholastic activities: library, simile, scribe. Seen from a morphological perspective, the great majority of the words borrowed from Latin in the Middle English period were nouns: meditation, prolixity; adjectives: complete, imaginary, instant, populous; and verbs: admit,

commit, discuss, seclude.

A distinctive feature of Modern English is rooted in the process of simultaneous borrowing from French and from Latin characteristic of the time span under discussion: sets of three lexical items, all expressing the same fundamental notion, but slightly differing in meaning or connotation.

Kingly – royal – regal; rise – mount – ascend; fast – firm – secure; holy – sacred – consecrated are examples of such triplets. In these synonymic series, the first element is a native word and it belongs to the common language, the second is borrowed from French and it pertains to the literary language, and the third comes from Latin and is considered more learned.

Borrowing from Latin continued into the Modern English period (when words were borrowed from Greek via Latin, too). The avalanche of Latin words that entered English between 1500 and 1800 includes:

abdomen, area, digress, editor, fictitious, folio, graduate, imitate, lapse,

medium, notorious, orbit, peninsula, quota, resuscitate, sinecure, urban, vindicate (Jackson, Amvela 2007: 41).

The later Modern period was the time when English fashioned the loans from Latin in an original way, under the form of neo-classical or neo-

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Sources of the English Vocabulary

Latin words which are, at present, used not only in the international vocabulary of science and technology, but also in other areas of modern life. Examples of such coinages offered by Jackson and Amvela (2007: 41) are: aleatoric meaning “dependent on chance” (from the Latin aleator meaning “gambler”), circadian, meaning “functioning or recurring in 24-hour cycles” (from circa diem, “around the day”), pax americana meaning “peace enforced by American power” (modeled on pax romana), vexillology, “study of flags” (from the Latin vexilum meaning “flag”).

2.3.5. Scandinavian words in English

The second major influence of a foreign language on the vocabulary of English was the result of the Vikings’ (mainly Danes, but also Norwegians) raids on Britain, which began in 787 and continued intermittently for about two hundred years. By the mid ninth century, the Danes came to control most of the north and eastern part of England which was named, after the invaders, the Danelaw. Further invasions in the tenth century culminated in 991, with the English king having been forced to take the way of exile and the throne having been taken by the Danes. England remained under Danish rule for 25 years after this event.

The prolonged contact between the native population and the Danish settlers had, as Jackson and Amvela (2007) explain, a threefold linguistic consequence. First, a large number of Scandinavian place names entered English. Second, many proper names of Danish origin were borrowed and third, a lot of Danish common words became part of the everyday English vocabulary.

Examples of place names of Scandinavian origin include words ending in –by, the Scandinavian word for farm or town: Derby, Grimsby, Rugby, Naseby. Other such words end in –thorpe, meaning “village” (Baugh, Cable 2002: 98): Althorpe, Astonthorpe, Linthorpe, while still others have –thwaite, “clearing” or –toft, “homestead” in their composition: Braithwaite, Applethwaite, Storthwaite, Lowestoft, Eastoft, Sandtoft, etc.

A strong Scandinavian influence on proper names is felt especially in the north and east, in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, where over 60 percent of these seem to be the result of the native and foreign cultures having been in contact for so long. The majority of proper names of Scandinavian origin

end in –son: Davidson, Jackson, Henderson.

When the Vikings settled in England, they did so largely as equals of the natives, a fact which resulted in “adstratum influence” (Allegrini 2003: 4) i.e. neither of the two languages was politically or culturally dominant. They were supposedly mutually intelligible and bilingualism was most likely fairly spread among the Scandinavians (Kastovsky 1992: 329). This, together with the fact that the English and the Scandinavians had pretty similar cultures, enabled a close unity between them. Moreover,

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Words about Words

Scandinavian was mostly a spoken language in the conquered territories, usually banned from writing on the grounds of the existence of equivalent English forms used on paper, which were considered more formal and more literary and, therefore, more appropriate for this variant of the language. Consequently, many of the Scandinavian loan words were informal everyday lexical items, belonging to the core of the vocabulary, which is, according to Barber (2000: 133), one of the most obvious of their characteristics.

Most of the words of Scandinavian origin were made to conform to the English sound and inflectional systems. For example, as Pyles and Algeo (1993) emphasize, very common verbs such as get and give came to be used in Modern English not as variants of the OE gitan and giftan, but as survivors of their Scandinavian cognates. The personal pronouns they, them, their replaced earlier native forms. In addition, “the replacement of sidon by are is almost certainly the result of Scandinavian influence, as is the spread of the third personal singular –s ending in the present tense in other verbs” (Crystal 1995: 25).

Numerous words beginning with the consonantal cluster sc- / sk- are of Scandinavian origin: scathe, scorch, score, scowl, scrape, scare, scrub, skill, skin, skirt, sky. Sometimes, the process of borrowing from Scandinavian languages involved the mere substitution of the native word or phrase with the foreign one (as in the case of window which replaced vindauga). Other times, however, loan words were introduced to fill in a lexical gap in the recipient language – this was, for example, the case of Scandinavian legal terms or words denoting Viking warship. A large number of duplicates (pairs of words having the same referent, of which one was native and the other was borrowed) also arose from the contact of English with the Scandinavian languages. In some cases, the loan word was preserved, while the native one was discarded: egg vs. OE ey, sister vs. OE sweoster, silver vs. OE sealfor. In others, the OE word survived, while the Scandinavian was lost: path vs. ON reike, sorrow vs. ON site, swell vs. ON bolnen. There were situations, however, when both words made their way in the language up to the modern times, but developed a difference in meaning. Below are a few examples of such pairs (Jackson, Amvela 2007: 43):

Sometimes, in cases of duplicates that survived, one member of the pair is used in the standard language, while the other is restricted to

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Sources of the English Vocabulary

dialectal use. In the following examples, the former word, of OE origin, is considered standard and the latter, a loan from ON, is dialectal: cast –

werpan, yard – garth, church – kirk, leap – laup, no –nay, true – trigg. After the 11th century, Scandinavian languages ceased to be a rich

source of borrowings for English. However, modest influences continued to be felt along the centuries up to the period of Modern and present day English, when words such as muggy, rug, scud, ski, geyser, rune, saga, ombudsman have been imported.

2.3.6. Greek words in English

Though less influential than Latin, which was the language of literature, science and religion as well as the medium of instruction for about fifteen centuries (even longer in some parts of the world), Greek played its role in the evolution of the English vocabulary.

Initially, words of Greek origin were imported into English indirectly, mostly via Latin, before the Norman conquest, in 1066 and via French and Latin from the Middle English period onwards. It was only at the beginning of the Early Modern English period, after 1500, that English started borrowing directly from Greek. This must have been the consequence of the boost that Greek studies received with the coming of the Greek scholars to Europe after Constantinopole was conquered by the Turks, in 1453.

Greek provided English with a considerable number of technical terms from almost all branches of human knowledge. Greek words that were borrowed via Latin include: allegory, anaesthesia, chaos, dilemma, drama, enthusiasm, history, metaphor, paradox, “phenomenon”, rhythm,

theory, zone. Center, character, chronicle, democracy, ecstasy, harmony, machine, tyrant came from Greek via French, while acronym, autocracy, idiosyncrasy, pathos, telegram, xylophone were taken directly from Greek.

As representatives of technical vocabulary mainly, the majority of the words of Greek origin in English are considered learned and are restricted to the specialized varieties of the language. A smaller part of them managed to pass into the stock of everyday vocabulary.

2.3.7. French words in English

The most far-reaching contact that English has had through the ages has been with French. Undoubtedly, it was the period following the Norman Conquest in 1066 that witnessed the greatest impact that French had ever exerted over English. However, borrowing from French took place in an anterior epoch and has been an active phenomenon in the modern times as well.

Before 1066, the English and the French cultures got into contact with the exile of Edward the Confessor to Normandy. Edward lived there

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Words about Words

for twenty-five years and returned to England in 1041. Many of the French nobles who accompanied him on his return were given high positions in court when he acceded to the throne. Furthermore, the monastic revival started in France and many of the English monks must have studied there. The consequence of these upon the English language was that a number of French words were imported into OE (though not very many). Among them, there were: servian (“to serve”), bacun (“bacon”), arblast (“weapon”), prison (“prison”), castel (“castle”), cancelere (“chancellor”).

Following William, Duke of Normandy’s accession to the English throne, in 1066, French became the language of the government, the courts, the church and the upper social classes. However, the lower classes of the English society, which represented about 80% of the population, never learned French. They continued to speak English which thus remained a vibrant, though low-status language. In between the two ends of the social scale, there used to be the middle echelons of the “lower level officials of both church and state [who] needed to speak to the people in order to try to save their souls, to exact taxes from them, to administer justice to them, to make them work in the fields of the monastery or in the lord of the manor’s household and so on” (Katamba 2005: 152). This relatively small group of people were bilingual.

With the advance of the period, the situation changed. Many of the nobles had properties both in Normandy and in England and had split loyalties so that, in many cases, they were closer to France and the French culture than to England and its culture. The Norman kings remained dukes of Normandy and some of them were present in France for longer than they were in England. Through marriage and conquest, their French possessions expanded so much that Henry II (1154 – 1189), for example, was not only king of England, but had become the ruler of almost two thirds of France. However, gradually, through intermarriage and closer and closer contact, the Normans were integrated into the English society.

For the upper classes, this resulted into their having learnt some English, which however, they were able to use only within limits in the beginning, and mostly in code-switching contexts.

Most of the borrowing took place after the middle of the thirteenth century, “after French had been knocked off its perch as the most prestigious language in everyday use in high places and had increasingly become a written language” (Katamba 2005: 153). About 10,000 French words made their way into English in The Middle Ages, most of them in the area of government: president, government, minister, territory, counselor, council, people, power; nobility: sovereign, royal, monarch, duke, prince,

count, princess, principality, baron, baroness, noble; law: assizes, judge, jurisdiction, advocate, jury, court, law, prison, crime, accuse; war: “peace”, “battle”, admiral, captain, lieutenant.

In the period 1200 – 1500, further steps towards reviving the fortunes of English were recorded. Not least among them was King John’s

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Sources of the English Vocabulary

loss of Normandy in 1204. Yet, it was the Hundred Year War between England and France, which began in 1337, that put an end to the linguistic hegemony of French. The ruling classes were forced to take on the task of learning and using English properly, as a consequence of giving up their French interests and becoming truly English having been imposed on them.

The adoption of French words that followed the Norman Conquest continued unabated in contemporary English. The reasons behind this phenomenon are talked about by Chirol (1973), quoted by Katamba (2005). She suggests that using French projects upon the speaker or upon the matter or object talked about a “positive image of France” (Katamba 2005: 155). In broad lines, this image is that “of the French way of life, of high culture, sophistication in dress, food and social relations” (Katamba 2005: 155).

The French contribution to civilization as a whole is widely known and acknowledged. France is perceived as the land of the arts – of literature, music architecture, ballet, painting and sculpture. Therefore, it is natural that many of the technical terms used in the vocabulary of arts should be French. Examples of such terms in English include, in literature:

ballade, brochure, genre, denouement, résumé, dada, faux amis, pastiche; in painting: critique, avant garde, art nouveau, collage, baroque,

renaissance, salon; in music: rêverie, ensemble, bâton, musique, concrete, conservatoire, suite, pot-pourri; in ballet: ballet, pirouette, gavotte, pas de deux, plié, tutu, jeté, etc.

Society, refinement and fashionable living are also believed to be domains in which the French occupied a leading position. Hence, the borrowing of words and phrases such as the following, which enabled English speakers to take on the elegance of French: finesse, bizarre, tête-à-

tête, rendez-vous, élite, protégé(e), savoire-vivre, personnel, fiancé(e),

débutante, prestige, nouveau riche, élan, blasé, chauffeur, facile, c’est la vie, touché, etc.

“Victorian values encourage the hypocritical ‘No-sex-please-we’re- British’ mentality. Figures in public life in Britain are hounded out of office and governments may collapse because of sexual peccadilloes. Probably this is why there is a secret admiration for the French who do not have such hang-ups about sex. The British admire the sexual prowess of the French – or, more precisely, the French attitude to sex”, Katamba says (2005: 157). This must be the reason for the borrowing of quite numerous words of French origin connected to love and sexual life. Among these, there are:

amour, beau, belle, chaperon, liaison, affaire de Coeur, madame, etc.

The French have always been renowned for their cuisine, so, many French words having to do with food and cooking have also been borrowed along the ages. Some were anglicized, others preserved their original form. On the menu, the latter “always add to the quality of the gastronomic experience and are deemed to be worth an extra pound or two on the bill” (Katamba 2005: 157). The “cuisine” French words and phrases that have

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Words about Words

been imported into English count among them examples such as: mustard, vinegar, beef, sauce, salad, cuisine, haricot, pastry, omelette, meringue, haricot, cognac, crème caramel, pâtisserie, liqueur, éclair, flan, nougat,

glacé, sauté, flambé, garni, brasserie, à la carte, entrée, rôtisserie, hors- d’oeuvre, etc.

French fashion has also been held in high esteem for centuries. Therefore, the list of loans from French includes words in the area of clothes, hair, cosmetics, etc, such as: coiffure, blonde, brunette, lingerie,

bouquet, béret, chic, boutique, haute couture, après-ski, culottes, brassière. Some fashionable means of transportation get their names from

French as well: coupé, cabriolet.

2.3.8. Words from other European languages in English

Besides French, English has borrowed from a number of other modern European languages.

Starting with its Early Modern period, it has taken over words from Dutch and German, in the context of the commercial relationships that have been established between the Flemish / Dutch and the Englishspeaking peoples. As a consequence of the Dutch’s skillfulness in seafaring activities, English enriched with terms connected to sea life and navigation

such as: bowline, bowsprit, buoy, commodore, cruise, deck, skipper, smuggle, yacht. The Dutch and the Flemish have also been famous for their cloth making and the commercial activities connected to it so that English borrowed terms in this area as well: cambric, duck, jacket, nap, spool. Loanwords from other Low German dialects include: boor, broke, isinglass,

luck, snap, wagon, etc.

The contact of the Americans with the Dutch settlers, especially in and around New York, resulted into a number of words referring to Dutch American food having been imported into English. Among these, there are; coleslaw, cookie, cranberry, waffle. Lexical items from various other fields may be added to the list: boodle, boss, caboose, dope, Santa Claus, spook, from Dutch spoken in America, and apartheid, commandeer, commando, kraal, outspan, spoor, trek, veld, from Dutch spoken in South Africa (Afrikaans).

Unlike Low German, High German has had a less poignant impact on English. A number of words have been borrowed in specialized fields such as geology and mineralogy: cobalt, feldspar, gneiss, nickel, quartz, seltzer, zinc. Some food and drink terms have been imported together with the items they designate: delicatessen, frankfurter, noodle, schnapps, alongside a small miscellanea of other borrowings, including angst, ersatz,

Gestalt, hinterland, leitmotiv, rucksack, umlaut, waltz, etc.

Of the Romance European languages, English has borrowed from Italian, Spanish and Portuguese mainly.

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