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Borrowing of French words.
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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.
Italian borrowings.
Cultural and trade relations between Italy and England brought many Italian words into English. 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 mostly Italian is famous by its influence in music and in all Indo-European languages musical terms were borrowed from Italian: alto, baritone, basso, tenor, falsetto, solo, duet, trio, quartet, quintet, opera, operette, libretto, piano, violin.
Among the 20-th century Italian borrowings we can mention: gazette, incognitto, autostrada, fiasco, fascist, diletante, grotesque, graffitto etc.
Spanish borrowings.
Spanish borrowings came into English mainly 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, tobbaco, 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, though their number is much less than borrowings from Romanic languages.
Scandinavian borrowings.
By the end of the Old English period English underwent a strong influence of Scandinavian due to the Scandinavian conquest of the British Isles. Scandinavians belonged to the same group of peoples as Englishmen and their languages had much in common. As the result of this conquest there are about 700 borrowings from Scandinavian into English.
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Scandinavians and Englishmen had the same way of life,their cultural level was the same, they had much in common in their literature therefore there were many words in these languages which were almost identical, e.g.
ON OE Modern E
syster sweoster sister
fiscr fisc fish
felagi felawe fellow
However there were also many words in the two languages which were different, and some of them were borrowed into English, such nouns as: bull, cake, egg, kid, knife, skirt, window etc, such adjectives as: flat, ill, happy, low, odd, ugly, wrong, such verbs as: call, die, guess, get, give, scream and many others.
Even some pronouns and connective words were borrowed which happens very seldom, such as: same, both, till, fro, though, and pronominal forms with «th»: they, them, their.
Scandinavian influenced the development of phrasal verbs which did not exist in Old English, at the same time some prefixed verbs came out of usage, e.g. ofniman, beniman. Phrasal verbs are now highly productive in English /take off, give in etc/.
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 were also words denoting objects used in everyday life which were borrowed from German: iceberg, lobby, rucksack, Kindergarten etc.
In the period of the Second World War the following words were borrowed: Volkssturm, Luftwaffe, SS-man, Bundeswehr, gestapo, gas chamber and many others. After the Second World War the following words were borrowed: 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 mainly borrowed in the 14-th century, such as: freight, skipper, pump, keel, dock, reef, deck, leak and many others.
Besides two main groups of borrowings (Romanic and Germanic) there are also borrowings from a lot of other languages. We shall speak about Russian borrowings, borrowings from the language which belongs to Slavoninc languages.
Russian borrowings.
There were constant contacts between England and Russia and they borrowed words from one language into the other. Among early Russian borrowings there are mainly words connected with trade relations, such as: rouble, copeck, pood, sterlet, vodka, sable, and also words relating to nature, such as: taiga, tundra, steppe etc.
There is also a large group of Russian borrowings which came into English through Rushian literature of the 19-th century, such as: Narodnik, moujik, duma, zemstvo. volost, ukase etc, and also words which were formed in Russian with Latin roots, such as: nihilist, intelligenzia, Decembrist etc.
After the Great October Revolution many new words appeared in Russian connected with the new political system, new culture, and many of them were borrowed into English, such as: collectivization. udarnik, Komsomol etc and also translation loans, such as: shock worker, collective farm, five-year plan etc.
One more group of Russian borrowings is connected with perestroika, such as: glasnost, nomenklatura, apparatchik etc.
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ETYMOLOGICAL DOUBLETS
Sometimes a word is borrowed twice from the same language. As the result, we have 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 there are some groups of them:
Latino-French doublets.
Latin English from Latin English from French
uncia inch ounce
moneta mint money
camera camera chamber
Franco-French doublets
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