LECTURE 2

ETYMOLOGY

Native Words

The term “etymology” means “the origin of words”. As to their origin words
are divided into native and borrowed. A borrowed word (loan word) is a word
taken from another language and modified in phonemic shape, spelling, paradigm
and meaning according to the standards of English. A native word is a word that
belongs to the original English stock as known from the earliest available
manuscript of the Old English period. The native words are further subdivided into
2 groups:
I. Indo-European stock includes words of the oldest layer. They fall into
definite semantic groups:
1) terms of kinship: father, mother, brother, son;
2) parts of human body: arm, ear, eye, foot, heart;
3) words naming the most important objects and phenomena of nature:
sun, moon, star, wind, water, tree, stone;
4) names of animals: bull, cat, goose, wolf, crow;
5) some frequent verbs: to come, to sit, to stand, to bear;
6) adjectives denoting concrete physical properties: hard, quick, slow,
red, white;
7) personal and demonstrative pronouns.
8) names of things of everyday life, instruments, clothes, buildings:
nail, needle, rake, roof, hammer, yard, box, boat, hat, jar, knife, spoon,
shed, shelter
9) most numerals.
II. Words of common Germanic stock form a much bigger part of the native
vocabulary. They have parallels in other Germanic languages. Here belong:
1) nouns: winter, storm, ice, bridge, shop, house, hat, shoe, hope;
2) adjectives: broad, deep, deaf;
3) adverbs, pronouns, and prepositions.
Native words constitute about 80% of the first 500 most frequent words. They are
characterized by a high lexical and grammatical valency, they have developed
polysemy and enter a number of set expressions. They are often monosyllabic and
show a great word-building power.

Borrowed Words

English history is famous for contacts with other countries and the English
vocabulary is responsive to every change in the life of the speaking community. It
has been estimated that 70% of the English words are borrowed, which is due to
the specific conditions of the language development. The Roman invasion, the
Danish conquest, the Norman conquest, British colonialism caused important
changes in the vocabulary.
 Why are words borrowed?
• to fill a gap in vocabulary
Latin butter, plum and beet – no words in Saxon vocabulary
potato and tomato from Spanish when these vegetables were first brought to
England
• no gap in the vocabulary but denoting some new aspect
one more word is borrowed because it represents the same concept in some new
aspect, enlarging groups of synonyms and greatly enriching the expressive
resources of the vocabulary.
Latin cordial was added to friendly; French desire to wish; Latin admire and
French adore to like and love
• “Accidental" borrowings (blindly, for no obvious reason)
Quite a number of such "accidental" borrowings are very soon rejected by the
vocabulary and forgotten.
The adjective large was borrowed from French in the meaning of wide. It was not
actually wanted, because it fully coincided with the English adjective wide without
adding any new shades or aspects to its meaning. It entered another synonymic
group with the general meaning of "big in size".
Speaking about borrowed words we use the following terms:
● source of borrowing is the language from which the loan word is taken
into English;
● origin of borrowing is the language to which the word may be traced:
Eng. paper French papier Lat. papirus Greek papiros.
● translation loan is a word formed from the material already existing in
English but according to the pattern taken from another language (morpheme-by-
morpheme translation): masterpiece – meisterstück.
● semantic loan is development of a new meaning in an English word due
to the influence of a related word from another language: to dwell had the meaning
to wander, but under the influence of Scandinavian it got the meaning to live.
The number of loan words in English is very high, so the mixed character of
the English vocabulary is obvious, but the leading role in the vocabulary
development belongs to word-formation and semantic changes which are
genuinely English. Loan words were absorbed by the English language according
to its standards so now it is sometimes difficult to tell an old borrowing from a
native word. But some borrowings preserve their peculiarities in pronunciation,
spelling and morphology:
Phonetic peculiarities:
● the initial position of sounds [v, ჳ, dჳ]: vacuum, valley, genre.
● the letters j, x, z in initial position and such combinations as ph, kh, que,
eau in any position: philosophy, khaki, beauty.
● ch is pronounced as [t∫] in native words: child; as [k] in Greek words:
character, echo; as [∫] in French words: machine.
Grammatical peculiarities:
 Irregular plural forms of nouns: phenomenon – phenomena, oasis – oases.
Morphological peculiarities:
  Borrowed suffixes and prefixes: education, disagree, detestable (latin),
arrogance, appointment, marriage, dangerous (French).

Celtic Elements in the English Vocabulary

Before Anglo-Saxon tribes invaded the British Isles they were inhabited by
Celts. Anglo-Saxons conquered them and ousted Celts from their territory so the
Celtic population did not influence the English vocabulary very much. Thus,
original Celtic words are very few in number (under a dozen): bannock, bin, dun,
tor, Britain, Kent, Wales, practically all river-names. Later from the living Celtic
languages some words were introduced by the Irish missionaries in the north:
whisky, slogan (initially meant battle cry), bog. Some Celtic words entered the
English vocabulary through other languages (typically, via French and/or Latin):
clock, trousers, pet, carry, budget, carpenter.

Scandinavian Elements

The Scandinavian invasion began in the VIIIth century and the Danish
language started penetrating into English. Since both languages were Germanic, it
facilitated mutual understanding and borrowing.
The consequences of various borrowings were different.
1. Sometimes the English language borrowed a word for which it had no synonym.
These words were simply added to the vocabulary. Examples: law, fellow
2. The English synonym was ousted by the borrowing. Scandinavian taken (to
take) and callen (to call) ousted their English synonyms niman and clypian,
respectively.
3. Both the English and the corresponding Scandinavian word are preserved, but
they became different in meaning. Compare Modern English native words and
Scandinavian borrowings:
Native Scandinavian
heaven sky
starve die
4. The process of borrowing was accompanied by a shift of meaning. Thus, the
word dream originally meant "joy, pleasure"; under the influence of the related
Scandinavian word it developed its modern meaning.
Sometimes it is difficult to say if the word is native or of Scandinavian
origin. They say that the word is Scandinavian if it is not met in written documents
till the XIth century: gate, husband, sky, window, same, both. Sometimes the sound
criterion is applied to tell a Scandinavian word from a native one – [sk] (spelled sk
and sc) in Scandinavian words (skull, scream), [∫] – in English (ship, shop). There
are some toponymic names of Scandinavian origin: with element by (Scan. byr –
village): Grimsby, Derby; with element foss (waterfall): Fossbury; toft meaning a
piece of ground or homestead as in Brimtoft, Eastoft, Nortoft. Personal names of
Scandinavian origin end in –son: Stevenson, Johnson.
Latin Borrowings
 About a quarter of Latin vocabulary was taken into English and now around
60% of all borrowings in English have Latin and Greek origin. Among Latin
borrowings we distinguish:
● those borrowed through immediate contacts (orally). They are mostly
monosyllabic and denote things of every day life: butter, wine, dish, cheese. They
also refer to trade and military sphere: cheap, street. All these words are
successfully assimilated.
● those borrowed through writing. They are mostly long bookish words.
There were some borrowings from Latin by Germanic tribes before they
settled in the British Isles (zero period/continental borrowings): wall, cup, pound.
There were 4 great influxes of Latin words into English.
The first one is connected with the Roman conquest when most of the oral
borrowings entered the English vocabulary.
The second great influx of Latin words started to come into English in the
VII century when England was converted into Christianity. Since Latin was the
th

language of church, words of religious sphere are mostly of Latin origin: candle,
devil, temple, priest. Some words of this period referred to other spheres of life:
cap, silk, school, circle. They were also thoroughly assimilated.
The third great influx came through French after the Norman conquest in
1066.
But the greatest stream of Latin words came into English during the period
of Renaissance. Among them:
1) terms of philosophy, mathematics, physics: vacuum, radius, momentum.
2) terms of law and administration: coroner, veto, alibi.
3) terms of medicine: diagnosis.
4) terms of geography: continent, equator.
Abbreviations from Latin: e.g., etc.

Norman French Elements

The French layer equals Latin in bulk: English owes 30% of its vocabulary
to French. The Normans who conquered England spoke the language which was
somewhat different from the central French dialect. French borrowings penetrated
into English in 2 ways: from the Norman dialect (after 1066) and from the national
French literary language (beginning with the XVth century).
During 2 centuries after the conquest the linguistic situation in England was
rather complex. The feudal lords spoke the Norman dialect, the ordinary people
spoke English. Scientific and religious literature was in Latin. The court documents
and fiction were written in French. Latin and French were also used in
administration and school teaching. Thus the Anglo-Norman dialect developed
which was a good conductor of French words into English. Gradually some of
them ousted their Saxon equivalents or became synonyms to them: help – aid,
weak – feeble.
Before the conquest only a few words were borrowed from French: turn,
false, proud, market. In the XII-XVIth centuries French borrowings reflect the
social status of Norman invaders and their supremacy in economy, politics and
culture. Among them:
1) legal terms: accuse, jury, prison;
2) military terms: army, peace, battle, officer, soldier, powder;
3) religious terms: saint, pray, clergy;
4) government and administration terms: parliament, state, country;
5) trade and every day affairs: grocer, barber, tailor, beef, pleasure,
comfort;
6) terms of rank: duke, prince;
7) educational terms: pupil, lesson, pen, pencil;
8) terms of art: beauty, color, image, design, costume.
In most cases such words were completely assimilated. French [ჳ] turned
into [dჳ]: age, marriage; [i:] into [ai]: crime, design; [a:] into [ei]: blame, grace;
[∫] into [t∫]: chance, change. The stress shifted to the first syllable. Later French
borrowings kept their peculiarities of form and pronunciation: garage, machine,
technique.

Assimilation of Loan Words

The term “assimilation” denotes a partial or total conformation to the

phonological, graphical and morphological standards of the receiving language and
its semantic system. The degree of assimilation depends on 3 factors:
1) the length of the period of usage of the word;
2) the word’s importance for communication purposes and thus its
frequency;
3) whether it is borrowed orally or through written sources. Oral borrowings
are assimilated faster and more completely than the written ones.
According to the degree of assimilation all borrowings fall into 3 groups:
1. Completely assimilated words. They are found in all the layers of older
borrowings: Lat. cheese, street, wine; Scan. root, gate, take, want, happy, ill;
French: table, chair, face, figure. They follow all morphological, phonological and
graphical standards of English. They are the most numerous borrowings. They are
very frequent, stylistically neutral and take active part in word formation.
2. Partially assimilated words. They are subdivided into:
a) words not assimilated semantically (exotic words) denote objects
and notions peculiar to the country they come from: sari, rickshaw,
sombrero;
b) words not assimilated grammatically. They are nouns borrowed
from Latin or Greek which preserve their original plural form:
phenomenon (na), crisis (es), datum (ta);
c) words not assimilated phonologically: machine, police, regime;
d) words not assimilated graphically: ballet, buffet.
3. Unassimilated words (barbarisms): alibi, de-facto.
 Etymological Doublets and Triplets

Etymological doublets are 2 words of the same language which were

derived from the same basic word, but because of the different date of its borrowing
they have different forms.
In Old English the Latin word discus was borrowed to denote a round plate.
It has undergone phonetic changes and acquired the form dish. But later on it
appeared that English needed a word to name a round object in sports. Again the
word discus was borrowed but since phonetic changes were completed, it acquired
the less changed form disk.
Etymological doublets may be Latin – French: canal – channel, captain –
chieftain; Scandinavian – English: skirt – shirt, raise – rear.
Etymological triplets are groups of three words of common root. They occur
rarely. e.g. hospital університетський гуртожиток (Lat.), hostel an establishment
which provides inexpensive food and lodging (Norm. Fr.), hotel (Parisian Fr.). to
capture (Lat.) to catch (Norm. Fr.), to chase (Par. Fr.) (pursue in order to catch or
catch up with)
International Words

The appearance of new words is connected with the appearance of new

notions. That is why it is natural that borrowing is seldom limited to one language.
Words of identical origin which occur in several languages as a result of
simultaneous borrowing from one source are called international words. They
play an important part in terminological systems and among words denoting
abstract notions: antenna, atomic, cybernetics. Such words are also numerous in
sports and art: time, match, club, jazz, rock, film. Among international words a
special place is occupied by the so-called translator’s false friends (pseudo
international words/interlingual homonyms). These are words of different
languages which have similar sound form but different meanings: magazine –
магазин, complexion – комплекція, sympathy – симпатія.