The role of the borrowings in the English language
Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
State Educational Institution of Higher Professional Training
«Irkutsk State Linguistic University»
Department of Theoretical
Linguistics
The role of the borrowings
in the English language
By the student of group TMPA1-09-06
Faculty of the English Language
Major: Theory and Methods of
Foreign Languages and Cultures Teaching
Ekaterina B. Bokhieva
Thesis Advisor:
Svetlana K. Voronova
Candidate of philological
sciences
Irkutsk 2011
Contents
Introduction………………………………………………
1. Theoretical background……………………………………………………
1.1 Definiton………………………………………………………
1.2 History of the English language…………………………………………...…..
1.3 Loanword periods………………...……………………………………
1.3.1 The Zero period…………………………………...……………………
1.3.2 The First period…………………………………………………………….
1.3.3 The Second period…………………………………………………………..
1.3.4 The Third period…………………………………………………….………
1.3.5 The Modern period………………………………………………….………
1.4 Different kinds of borrowings………………………………………….…….
1.5 What kinds of words are borrowed?.....................
1.6 How many words are loanwords?....................
2. An investigation of the origin of
the words in “God save the Queen”…..…….21
Conclusion……………………………………………………
List of the literature……………………………………………………
Appendix 1……………………………………………………………………….
Introduction
People all around the globe with different
mother tongues often have the same opinion regarding loanwords in their
languages; they mostly do not like them. They wish that their own native
words would be used instead and often fear that too much borrowing could
lead to their mother tongue eventually dying out. A lot of this fear
has been directed on the English language the last decades. Due to its
tremendous rise as a global language many English words have entered
other languages in all parts of the world. Babysitter and makeup are
just two examples of common English words that are used in many other
languages around the globe. Today, many countries are trying to reduce
the influence that English has on their native tongues. In France, for
example, laws are passed that make it illegal to use an English word
in official contexts when there are native words that could be used
instead [5 P. 23]. However, English is not the only language that has
played an important role in “exporting” words to other languages.
Latin and French, for example, are two other languages that have had
a deep impact on many others throughout history. Most people do not
seem to realize that borrowing words from other languages is a very
old and common linguistic phenomenon. All languages have some words
in their vocabulary that are of foreign origin, and so does the English
language. This essay will focus on exactly this subject: the role borrowings
in English. The paper will deal with many aspects concerning this topic.
The essay will be divided in two major parts: a theoretical and an empirical
part. In the theoretical part, essential information will be given on
the subject. What languages do loanwords in English come from? When
and why were these words borrowed? In the empirical part, the British
national anthem, “God Save the Queen”, will be analyzed. How many
words in the text originally come from other languages? What other languages
do these words come from? What kinds of words are loanwords? “God
Save the Queen” was chosen as the object to be examined, because
a national anthem usually has the purpose of symbolizing a people and
its country. Therefore it is interesting to discover if the words that
are used in the song are also native English words.
1. Theoretical background
1.1 Definition
A substantial amount of all English
words have been borrowed from other languages. These words are usually
called “loanwords”, since they are not native English words. In
Merriam-Webster’s Online dictionary the word “loanword” is
defined in this way: “a word taken from another language and at least
partly naturalized [12]. Naturalized means in this case “to introduce
into common use or into the vernacular” [16]. Loanwords are often
even more widely known than native words since their “borrowing served
a certain purpose, for example to provide a name for a new invention”
[12]. An example of such a borrowing is “pizza”. Since the Italians
were those who introduced pizzas in England, the English borrowed the
word from them [11].
The word “loanword” is in
fact a type of loanword itself. The word comes from the German word
“lehnwort”, which means precisely loanword. In this case, the meaning
of the German words (lehn + wort), the English equivalents are used.
This type of borrowing is called a calque. As this example shows us,
there are different kinds of borrowings, and they can be divided into
subgroups. These subgroups will be discussed later in the essay.
The word “borrow” is often
used in literature on loanwords to symbolize that a language uses a
word that originally comes from another language. In this paper the
term will also be used, even though the word is somewhat misleading.
The word “borrow,” indicates that the item borrowed will be
returned, and since this obviously is not the case, “borrow”
may not be the best metaphor in this particular case.
In order for loanwords to enter a language
it is necessary that some people of the “borrowing” language
are bilingual. These people have to be able to understand and to some
extent speak the “lending” language so that words can be borrowed
from that language.
Borrowings enter a vernacular in a
very natural way. The process starts off with that bilingual people
of a certain language community start using words from another language.
These people often choose to use certain foreign words because they
feel that these words are more prestigious than their native ones. As
time passes, more and more people start using the word and eventually
the word has become a part of the vocabulary of the borrowing language.
An example of this is how it became popular for the upper class in Germany
in the beginning of the 18th century to speak French. Between, 1650
and 1770, France was the leading political and cultural nation in Europe,
and the French language was very popular and prestigious during this
time. Many wealthy Germans also wanted to be part of the culture and
therefore learned French and became bilingual [3 P. 143]. The majority
of Germans, who were poor peasants, however, still spoke German, but
many French loanwords managed to enter the German vocabulary. Examples
are the words “Kostüm”, “Parfüm”, “Promenade” and “Balkon”
[3 P. 143]. Often, the original native word exists alongside the borrowed,
but many times the native word died out.
Sometimes however, the “borrowing”
language does not have a native word with the same meaning as the loanword.
When this is the case, certain concepts, ideas or objects of the “lending”
language community are new to the people of the “borrowing”
language community. So, instead of making up a complete whole new word
for the idea or object they simply borrow the word from the people they
came in contact with. An example of this is the word “bagel”. The
word was adopted from the Yiddish language, since the Jews were those
who introduced bagels to the rest of the world [19]. Many other languages,
including English, therefore borrowed the word “bagel”.
Another reason for borrowing lexica
from other languages is when a language uses words that are not semantically
differentiated enough. An example of such a case is how the English
used the word “lufu” (love) when they meant “charity” before
the 12th century. Since “lufu” also had the meaning as it has today
it was at times unclear what a person meant. This resulted in that the
English borrowed the word “charity” from French, in order to be
able to more specifically distinguish between the two words [2 P. 87].
Most English loanwords have been a
part of the English vocabulary for a long time. Many people would not,
for example, consider the word, “simple” to be a loanword,
since it was borrowed centuries ago. “Simple” entered the English
language around 1220 and was adopted from the French language [13].
The word is, however, not originally a French word, but had once been
borrowed from Latin [13]. As this example shows us, loanwords can have
existed in our vocabulary for a very long time, but still be loanwords.
In order for us to be able to distinguish between borrowings and native
words, however, we have to understand and know the history of the English
language.
1.3 Loanword periods
English has borrowed words from virtually
all languages on earth. The British came in contact with many different
people and languages when the British Empire colonized various parts
of the world. Hindi words, like shampoo and pajamas, for example, were
adopted into English after the British had colonized India and there
had been contact between the natives and British [20]. English has,
in this sense, been a very open language, and not been afraid of borrowing
material from other languages.
One language had especially a deep
impact on English: Latin. Latin has influenced English exceedingly throughout
history, and the first period of Latin influence took place around 2000
years ago on the Germanic dialects that would one day develop into English.
Christian missionaries coming to Britain in the 6th century and 7th
century brought with them Latin religious terms which entered the English
language: abbot, altar, apostle, candle, clerk, mass, minister, monk,
nun, pope, priest, school, shrive. It is often said that English is,
to some extent, as much a Romance language as a Germanic one,n because
of the tremendous amount of words that have been borrowed from Latin
and French.
The next part of the essay will look
at loanword periods in the history of the English language. There are
five major Romance loanword periods. These periods are the zero period,
the first period, the second period, the third period and the modern
period [17].
We will also look at other languages
that have helped shape the English vocabulary.
1.3.1 The zero period
Even before English became English,
in other words, before the Angles, Jutes and the Saxons moved to the
British Isles, the dialects they spoke on the continent came in contact
with the Romans and their language, Latin. Even though the Germanic
languages and Latin derived from the same source, namely the Indo European
language, they had developed in different directions and were back then,
as they are today, completely different languages. At this point in
history, the Romans were far more technically advanced than the Germanic
people [3 P. 55]. They had plenty of words in their vocabulary that
the Germanic people did not have, because they had not developed the
objects or ideas yet. An example of this is that they only lived in
wooden houses and had not discovered the art of building houses out
of stone.
When they came in contact with the
Romans, though, and learned this new technique, they borrowed the Latin
terms [3 P. 55]. Most of these words were quite short and therefore
“easily adaptable to the highly inflected Germanic languages”
[17].
The words often had to do with cooking,
military matters, commerce and trade [17]. Examples of words that were
borrowed during this period are “mule”, “chalk” and
“linen” [8].
1.3.2 The first period
During the first period, which began
in year 43 A.D. and continued until 449 A.D., “Latin was the official
language of the administration” in the British Isles [17]. The
Anglo-Saxons had not yet migrated to the British Isles and the Celts,
the indigenous people of Britain, were living there. The Romans had
occupied the country, and their language, Latin, became the official
language. Many Latin loanwords entered Celtic languages during this
period, and these loanwords were then passed on to the Anglo-Saxons
when they moved to Britain. Here are some examples of the loanwords,
which entered the language during this period : ambassador, bannock,
bard, bracket, breeches, car, career, carry, charge, druid, embassy,
piece, vassal.
1.3.3 The second period
During the second period, which took
place between 597 A.D. and 1066 A.D., the Romans christianized the Anglo-Saxons.
This period can be divided into two parts, the Early and the Benedictine
period [17]. During the Early period many words were borrowed from Latin
that were related to the Anglo-Saxons new religion, Christianity [17].
Examples of such words are “bishop”, “mass” and “pope” [17].
Words relating to other subjects were also borrowed, like school and
plant. During the Benedictine period, many exotic and learned words
were borrowed [9].
During this period there was also some
borrowing of Celtic words. Celtic name words for places and rivers were
frequently borrowed, and today many of the names of towns in England
have their origin in the Celtic language. Examples are: London, Cornwall
and Thames [19]. However, only a few “normal” Celtic loanwords
entered the English language during this time. The explanation for this
is most likely that the Anglo-Saxons were the conquerors and the Celts
the conquered, and the powerful people only seldom borrow words from
the people they have defeated. Additionally, there was not much contact
between the Celts and the Anglo-Saxons and the relationship between
them was presumably hostile [9].
There was also a profound Scandinavian
influence on the English vocabulary during this period. The Vikings
occupied the northeastern parts of England and Scotland, later to be
called the Danelaw, in the 9th and 10th Century, and therefore many
words from their mother tongue, Old Norse, entered the English language.
Words, like “dream”, “sky” and the pronoun “they” are examples
of words that were borrowed from the Old Norse language [12]. Since
Old English and Old Norse were fairly similar languages, it is likely
that a colloquial Anglo-Norse arised in the Danelaw area [6 P. 63].
In this colloquial it was easy for many Old Norse words to replace Old
English ones. A further example of a word that was once borrowed from
Old Norse is “window”. The Scandinavian name was “vindöga”´,
but in some Scandinavian languages like Swedish, for example, the word
is not used anymore. The Swedes borrowed the word “fönster” from
Low German in the 15th century, and this example shows us that other
languages, in this case English, may save a word from dying out, because
they became loanwords [3 P. 130].
1.3.4 The third period
In year 1066 A.D. the Norman Conquest
took place. The Anglo-Saxons were defeated, and since the Normans spoke
Norman French, their language became the official language in England
[17]. Both in business and in the government Norman French was the language
that was used (examples are : attorney, bailiff, chancellor, chattel,
country, court, crime,
defendent, evidence, government, jail,
judge, jury, larceny, noble,
parliament, plaintiff, plea, prison,
revenue, state, tax, verdict) [6 P. 74]. Norman French was a local variant
of Old French that was spoken in the area of Normandy in the 10th century.
The people that lived in this area and spoke this dialect where originally
of North Germanic origin, which lead to that Norman French had a considerable
amount of Germanic influence [20].
Thousands of words, from all kinds
of fields, were borrowed from Norman French into English after the Norman
Conquest. Words like: castle, marry, noun, language, glory and poet
are all examples of loanwords from this time [20]. Many of the borrowed
words came from the field of administration, state, politics, war, law
and art [2 P. 53]. This third period continued into the 16th Century,
which means that for more than 400 years Norman French influenced English.
It is likely that many French words entered the English language, because
the upper class that had spoken French continued to use many French
words when the country went over to speaking English. Other people then
imitated their language, because of their social standing and education,
and the result was that thousands of French borrowings were adopted
[6 P. 75]. In the middle of the 14th century, a French dialect called
Central French or Parisian became the official standard in France and
on the British Isles [6 P. 75]. The loanwords that entered during this
time are therefore borrowed from this dialect. Many of them do not exist
in French anymore.
Some of them have however “survived”
in English. Examples of such words are close, feature, fuel and remain
[17].
Some 10,000 French words entered the
English vocabulary during the Norman occupation. Around 75% of these
words are still “alive” and used in English today [14].
Today it is also possible to look at
English words and understand how certain aspects of society worked during
this time. If we look at the words “beef” and “cow”, for
example, it is clear to see that the words are not of the same origin
even though their semantic relationship is obvious. The explanation
for this is that the word “beef” derives from Norman French,
while “cow” is of Germanic origin. Due to the fact that the
French people were those who could afford to eat “beef” during
this period, since many of them belonged to the aristocracy, they used
a word from their language. The people who tended the cattle, however,
were mostly the Anglo-Saxons and therefore they used the Germanic word
“cow” [20].
Many times, words of Germanic and Romance
origin that had the same meaning existed side by side. The Romance word
was often more formal and not as emotional as the native word [9]. Today,
many of these words are still used. Examples are the synonyms doom and
judgment, and odor and scent [9].
In the 14th and 15th Century there
was also a considerable amount of Latin influence. Due to translations
of Latin literature, and the fact that some people read literature written
in Latin, Latin loanwords managed to enter the English language [9].
The writings of Trevisa, Lanfranc, Arderne, and Wyclif are some famous
scientific and theological works that were translated during this period
[7 P. 8]. Examples of Latin loanwords from this period are “commit”,
“create” and “impress”.
1.3.5 The Modern Period
During the Renaissance in the 15th
century Latin and Greek became important languages once again. Scholars
and intellectuals studied classical texts that were written in Greek
and Latin, which eventually led to many loanwords from these languages
entering the vocabulary of other European languages, like English. Thousands
of words were borrowed during this
period, and many of them had already
been borrowed from French some centuries earlier. Now, the “same”
word entered the language, only this time from Latin directly [17].
“Perfect” is an example of a word that was borrowed twice. In Middle
English the word was “parfit” and had been borrowed from French,
but during the Modern Period the word was changed into “perfect”,
because the Latin equivalent was “perfectus”, and it was considered
better if the word resembled the Latin word [17].
1.4 Different types of borrowings
As mentioned earlier in the essay,
there are different types of borrowings. In the empirical part of the
essay the words in “God Save the Queen” will not be divided
into subgroups, and the word “loanword” will still be used
as the overall term. However, most linguists categorize borrowings in
this way:
Loanwords are words that keep their
meaning and phonetic shape, when they find their way into another language.
The word “pizza”, for example, which has its origin in Italian,
has the same “shape”, in other words, is pronounced and written
in the same way in both English and Italian, which makes it a “real”
loanword. It is also important that the word is inflected in the same
way. The plural forms therefore also have to be identical in both languages.
A semantic loan is a borrowing where
“the meaning of a foreign word is transferred onto an existing native
word [9]. An example of a semantic loan is the word “God”. The word
is a native English word and existed in Old English as well, but the
Christian meaning it has today was borrowed from the Romans and their
religion when they came to the British Isles.
A calque or a “loan translation”
is a “one-to-one translation of a foreign model” [9]. An example
of a calque is the English word “embody”, which has its origin in
the Latin equivalent “incorporare”. The word “loanword” is also
a calque.
The names of the days of the week are
further examples of loan translations. They were borrowed from Latin
approximately around 400 A.D. All Germanic people, except the Gothic,
used the Germanic equivalents of the Roman gods when they named the
days of the week, and the names are therefore from Germanic mythology
[6 P. 60].
The word “calque” can also
stand for a “loan transfer”, which is almost the same as a loan
translation, the only difference being that “at least one part is
semantically different from the model” [9]. An example of such
a calque is the German word “Wolkenkratzer”, which literally means
“cloudscraper”. Here “cloud” is used instead of “sky”, while
the word “scraper” is correspondingly translated.
A loan creation is another form of
borrowing. A loan creation is a rather complicated type of borrowing,
since a word or the meaning of word is not actually borrowed. If a new
word is created in a language, and there was some sort of influence
from other languages, even if only to a small degree, it is called a
loan creation [9].
1.5 What kinds of words are borrowed?
Usually, words that refer to exotic
ideas, concepts or objects are borrowed. An example of this is how names
of animals that do not inherently come from Great Britain are often
loanwords in English [12]. The name of the animal is
borrowed from the language that is
spoken in the country in which the animal originally comes from or lives
in.
When we examine loanwords in different
languages we will find that most of these borrowings are nouns. Nouns,
and lexical words in general, are borrowed more frequently than grammatical
words. The can be explained with the fact that a major reason for borrowing
lexica is to extend the referential potential of a language. Since reference
is established primarily through nouns, these are the elements borrowed
most easily.
1.6 How many words are loanwords?
As this essay has shown, a vast amount
of all English words are of foreign origin. Other languages also have
loanwords in their vocabulary, but many of them do not have borrowings
to the high extent that English does. An explanation for this is the
fact that English is “fairly free of phonetic restrictions in its
syllable structure” [12].
Words that therefore originally come
from other languages, and that are differently structured, can anyhow
be easily adopted into English.
Another reason is the fact that there
has been relatively little opposition against loanwords in English.
In many other European countries there has been a great deal more resistance
against adopting and using words from other languages. In Germany, for
example, there have been many purist periods throughout history, where
language-associations have tried to
reduce the amount of loanwords in German.
This type of purism directed against loanwords is called “xenophobic
purism” and has not been as successful in Great Britain [12]. There
was, however, some active resistance against loanwords in English in
the 19th and 20th century. Many English writers thought consciously
of using Anglo-Saxon words instead of Romance words when there were
two synonyms to choose from [12]. An example of this is how many of
them chose to use the word “foreword”, which is a word of Anglo-Saxon
origin, instead of “preface”, which is a Romance word.
There are many different studies on
borrowings in the English language. Linguists havetried to find out
how many borrowings there are in the English language and the corresponding
percentages. Most of them come to the conclusion that the majority of
English words are of foreign origin, but they do not reach the same
numbers and percentages. Below are two different studies, both drawing
different conclusions.
Aronstein comes to the conclusion that
55% of all English words are borrowed from Latin and French. 35% are,
according to Aronstein, native English words, while 10% are loanwords
from other languages [4 P. 64].
In the “Shorter Oxford Dictionary”
however, only 22 % of the 80 000 entries are of native Anglo-Saxon origin,
and 64% are Romance and Greek loanwords. 4% of the words have been borrowed
from other Germanic languages, like Old Norse, Yiddish or High and Low
German. 2% were loanwords from non-European languages, and the rest
of the words, which accounted to 10%, were words that had derived from
proper names or the origin was unknown [2 P. 72].
Many of the words, which were examined
in the two studies, are, however, hardly used in daily life. It is therefore
important to consider that the percentages that are shown from the two
studies do not regard how often a word is used. The most common words
in English are namely native English words, while a large quantity of
those words that are only seldom used are loanwords. Aronstein, for
example, analyzed the words that Shakespeare used in his works and came
to the result that 86% of all the words he used were of Germanic origin
[2 P. 11].
2.An investigation of the origin of
the words in “God save the Queen”
In order to examine the words in “God
save the Queen”, an etymological dictionary will be needed. Such a
dictionary does not explain what a certain word means, but instead it
gives information on what the word meant years ago, where its origin
lies and how it came into the language. In this paper we will not focus
on the semantic change of the words, and neither will we look at where
a word originally comes from and therefore not trace the word back to
its ultimate origin. We will only focus on finding out which words are
borrowings and which the Online Etymology Dictionary.
I began the analysis by categorizing
the words in their respective word classes. Grammarians and linguists
are not in agreement on how many word classes there are, and how words
are supposed to be classified. Some believe that there are only seven
word classes while others suggest as many as 20. For this essay, I have
decided to choose a categorization that only has eight word classes
in order to simplify the analysis. These eight major word classes are,
nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, pronouns,
articles, and interjections.
Someday people might be singing “God
save the King” instead of “God save the Queen” when
they sing their national anthem. When the British monarch is male the
word “Queen” is namely exchanged for “King”, so that the
song corresponds to the monarchal situation.
It is unknown who the composer or author
of the national anthem is. There have been plenty of speculations on
which they could be, and people such as James Oswald, Dr. Henry Carey
and Jean Baptist Lully have all been mentioned as possible candidates
[12]. Today, however, approximately 200 years after the song became
the national anthem, the composer and author are still unidentified.
“ God Save the Queen” is one of
the first songs to be used as a national anthem. In the beginning of
the 19th century, when the song became Great Britain’s national anthem,
it was uncommon for countries to have national anthems, which they used
for nationalistic purposes.
The song was first publicly sung in
a theater in 1745 when the band leader decided to play it after hearing
that Prince Charles Edward Stuart had defeated the army of King II at
Prestonpans, near Edinburgh [18]. At this time the song was not the
official national anthem, but the audience liked the performance so
much, and the song became such a present [18].
Today there is no authorized version
of the song, “as the words are a matter of tradition” [18]. Normally,
only the first, but sometimes also the second verse of the song are
sung, but the national anthem actually does consist of five verses.
These have been added to the original first two verses over the years,
and are not as famous as the first ones, since they are not sung very
often. For this essay, however, all verses will be analyzed, in order
to have as many words as possible for the investigation and to make
the result as precise and reliable as possible [Appendix 1].
“God Save the Queen” consists of
92 different words. Of the 92 words, 29 belong to the group of nouns.
24 words are verbs and 17 are adjectives. Five words are adverbs, six
are prepositions and three are conjunctions. Six pronouns were found
and one definite article and one interjection.
The 92 words were then analyzed regarding
their origin. The outcome was approximately that what I had expected.
57 words, which accounts to 62% of all investigated words were of Old
English origin. 22 words, or 24% of the words were Old French loanwords.
5.4% or five of the 92 words were loanwords from Old Norse, while 2.2%
or two words were of Anglo-
French origin. 4.4% of all words or
four words had been borrowed from Latin directly, and 1% had been borrowed
from Middle German. One When one examines the 57 native English words,
one realizes that many of these words are fundamental and basic words
in the English vocabulary. Verbs that describe very basic human actions
are found in this group. Examples are the verbs “live”, ”send”,
“see”, “give” and “sing”. Among these words are also the
two auxiliary verbs “may” and “should”. One could draw the conclusion
that words like these do not normally get borrowed from other languages,
since they account for the most elementary and primary vocabulary that
all languages ought to have in order to be labeled as a language. Therefore,
the Anglo- Saxons did not borrow these words from the Romans, Normans
or the other people they came in contact with, since they already existed
in their vocabulary.
Not only verbs, but also nouns and
pronouns that describe fundamental objects, people or ideas can be found
in the group of the native English words. “Brothers”, “world”,
“men” and “arm” are examples of such words. These
are words that are so basic that all human languages have them as part
of their vocabulary. Obviously, all human beings in the world have families
and body parts and need the respective terms.
All pronouns, except for one, that
were found among the 92 words were of Old English origin. “Her”,
“us”, “thee”, “we” and “she” are
all native words, and these words are also typical main words in a language.
All three conjunctions that were found
are also of Old English origin. These words are needed in a language
to explain relations between sentences, and in order to make the language
logical. The fact that these words are native words is not surprising,
since Old English also needed conjunctions to make it a structured language.
The six prepositions that were found
are also all native English words. These words are also needed in a
language in order for it to be logical and complete, since prepositions,
just as conjunctions, describe the relationship between words. The Anglo-Saxons
did not borrow such words, since they already had them, but also because
grammatical words like these normally do not carry any prestige and
are therefore not borrowed. Only if a word from another language is
more prestigious or has a connotation that the native word lacks, would
it be meaningful to borrow a word.
A further distinction with the words
that are of Old English origin is that they are fairly short. Most of
them only have between three and five letters, while many of the loanwords
have more. Native English words often only have one syllable, while
many of the other words consist of more. Only seven of the 57 native
words had more than one syllable. A reason for this could be that native
words have obviously been a part of the language the longest, and have
therefore had the most time to be changed and simplified.
Many of the words that were examined
were loanwords from Old French. 24% of all words were borrowed from
this language. It is important to remember that most of these words
are originally of Latin origin. More than 90% of all Old French words
came from Vulgar Latin [12]. These French loanwords are verbs,
adjectives and nouns. Not one single
preposition, conjunction, pronoun, definite article or interjection
was borrowed from French. This confirms, once again, the statement put
forward in the theoretical part; grammatical words or function words
are normally not borrowed.
All verbs that were found in this group
are weak verbs. “Save” and “fix” are two such examples.
The strong verbs in English are almost always of proto Germanic origin,
and are therefore native words. When one examines German, English and
Swedish strong verbs, for example, it is possible to see that they all
derive from the same source, due to their resemblance.
Many of the adjectives that are of
Old French origin have the ending “ous”, as in the words “gracious”,
“victorious” and “glorious”. Here we can easily identify that
these words are of Romance origin, since the suffix “ous” is originally
from Latin [10].
Almost all of the 92 words that are
connected to the fields of politics are French loanwords. Such examples
are the words “reign”, “enemies”, “nations”,
French was the administrative language
on the British Isles. These words show us that French was the language
that was spoken in the field of politics.
One remarkable thing is that the name
“Britain” is also a loanword from Old French. It was borrowed
in the end of the 13th century, in a time when many French loanwords
were adopted. Most of the Old French borrowings entered the English
language in the 13th and 14th century, which makes them loanwords from
the third Romance period. Only the words “politics” and “assassins”
are from the Modern Period, and it is unknown when the word “gracious”
was adopted.
These words show us that English borrowed
an enormous amount of words from French during this period, and that
the words come from all different aspects of society. “Voice”,
“tricks” and “pour” are three more examples of words
that were borrowed during this period.
English has a large amount of lexica,
in comparison to many other languages. This can be explained with the
fact that English has borrowed a great deal of words from other languages
and simultaneously kept the native vocabulary. This is a major reason
why English has so many synonyms that only have small differences in
connotation.
Only two words were found that had
once been borrowed directly from Norman French or Anglo French; “confound”
and “extend”. This was rather surprising, considering the vast amount
of borrowings there is in English from this French dialect. One possible
explanation for this is the classification system used in etymological
works. The Etymology dictionary most likely states that a word is an
Old French borrowing when a word is identical in Norman French and Old
French. Only when a word is distinctively Norman French does the dictionary
label it as such Lockwood [6 P. 79], for example, uses the term Old
French when the dialects Norman French and Central French are “not
tangibly distinguished”.
Altogether, the French loanwords made
up 26.2%, which means that slightly more than one out of four words
were of French origin. This is a rather large percentage, in comparison
to how many French loanwords were found in Shakespeare’s works. This
could be explained with the fact that “God Save the Queen” is a
political anthem, and therefore many of the words are in one way or
the other connected to politics. As we saw in the theoretical part,
politics is one of those fields, in which a great deal of words were
borrowed during the third Roman period, so this has probably played
a role in the outcome of the analysis.
Five words were found that were borrowed
from Old Norse. “Happy”, “them”, “gifts”,
“laws” and “their” all have their origin in the North
Germanic language. The fact that the pronoun “them” managed
to enter the English language shows us the profound influence that Old
Norse must have had on English. It is unusual that pronouns and grammatical
words are borrowed, and only when the “lending” language community
was powerful and there was much contact between the groups could this
be possible. The fact that Old Norse and Old English were fairly similar
languages is also a reason for the large amount of borrowings from Old
Norse [2 P. 18]. The languages, most likely, mixed into each other and
this made it easier to borrow loanwords. The five words that were borrowed
from Old Norse entered the English language approximately 200 to 400
years after the first Scandinavian settlements in Great Britain in the
10th century. This gives us a picture of how long time it may take before
words are adopted from one language to another. Of the five native Old
Norse words, two are adjectives, two are nouns and one is a pronoun.
The word “law” also revels
to us in what fields the Scandinavians were powerful. In year 878 A.D.,
the Danish legal system was introduced in the northern parts of the
country, and consequently some legal terminology was borrowed [2 P.17].
The word “law” is one example.
The word “gift” which is also
an Old Norse borrowing and therefore also of Germanic origin exists
beside its synonym “present” in the English vocabulary today.
This word, on the other hand, is of Romance origin, and was borrowed
from Old French around 1225 A.D. This is one example of two synonyms
in English that have both been borrowed, and that do not
have a native equivalent.
Four Latin loanwords were found among
the 92 examined words. “Frustrate”, “cause”, “family”
A further reason is that the Renaissance
and the interest in classical texts had just begun in Europe.
Conclusion
The results confirm that English is
a very open language with regards to its acceptance to adopt foreign
words into its vocabulary. There has been little resistance against
loanwords in Great Britain in comparison to many other European countries.
In Great Britain, purist groups, whose ultimate goal is to make a language
free of foreign influences, were never as successful as in Germany for
example [19]. As a consequence, the English have borrowed words from
all kinds of people that they have come in contact with over the years.
The Romance languages have had the longest and deepest impact on the
English language and both Latin and French have played a major role
in “lending” words to English.
The people that spoke these Romance
languages were not only powerful people abroad, but many of them also
lived in the British Isles. There was, in other words, direct contact
between the English and the people from whom they borrowed lexica, and
this direct contact, which was also of long duration, resulted in this
vast borrowing. Great Britain’s history is hence a major reason why
a large amount of English words are of foreign origin.
The words in “God Save the Queen”
proved not to be any different than the words in general in the English
vocabulary. Many of them had once been borrowed from other languages,
but the majority was native English words. The results coincide with
the percentages shown in the theoretical part of the essay. There we
could see that linguists come to the conclusion that the majority of
words in a dictionary are of foreign origin. When the most commonly
used words are analyzed, however, we saw that most of them were native
English words. The words in “God Save the Queen” are all fairly
common words, and therefore the majority was of Anglo-Saxon origin.
This paper has showed that linguistic
borrowing is an old way of acquiring new vocabulary, and not a new phenomenon
of our globalized world. People of different cultures have always interacted
with each other, and there has always been an exchange of lexica due
to this interaction. Loanwords enrich a language, since the vocabulary
gets larger and each word therefore acquires a more specific and subtle
meaning and this should be kept in mind before one simply criticizes
and dismisses borrowings.
List of the literature
1. Apologising in British English; M. Deutschmann, Sweden, Umeå University: 2003 - 262 p.
5. English as a Global Language; D. Crystal, Cambridge University Press: 1997 - 229 p.
6. Languages of the British Isles past and present; W. B. Lockwood, London: 1999 - 262 p.
7. Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology; C. T. Onions, Oxford University Press: 2004 - 1042 p.
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