The Origin of English Words and the Nature of Present-day Vocabulary Flashcards
What is the origin of Germanic languages?
(map)
Indo-European language – spoken at Pontic-Caspian Steppes 3000 BC
Indo-Aryan/Iranian vs. European branch – Germanic, Balto-Slavic, Romance
What languages belong to the Germanic branch?
North: Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese
East: Gothic – died out (Crimea)
West: High German Low German Yiddish Dutch
Afrikaans (Dutch vernacular, South Afr.)
Flemish (Netherlands + Belgium) Frisian (Coastal part of Nederlands and Northwestern Germany) English
Describe the stages of development of English Vocabulary
Pre-English period
Romano-Celtic Culture: Celtic, Latin (Roman)
The Celts – original people (bin, ass, Avon, London, Dover, Leeds, York)
Part of the Roman Empire 43 - 410 AD
(Latin: cheese, plant, dish, street, wall, wine, pound)
Old English (5th to 11th AD) Anglo-Saxons 5th – 6th AD (summer, house, storm, life, make, burn, ice, keep)
Latin 597 AD
(bishop, priest, monk, altar
+ some already existing Greek words,
e.g. church, angel, devil); origin vs. source
Pope Gregory the Great; Augustine of Canterbury
The Vikings 8th – 11th AD
Old Norse language by the Danes
and the Norwegians (angra, casta, lagu, taka, deyia, illr, reisa, hitta, husbondi, windauga, skinn, sky, ʠeir)
Middle English (1066 – 15th AD)
Norman Conquest
French (jury, estate, legacy, grill, fry, boil, chase, scent, duke, viscount, prince, baron,
-ity fidélité, -our rumeur, -ant …… endings)
Modern English (since the Great Vowel Shift ((end 14th)/15th/(1550) – on)
Renaissance – Latin and Greek (diagnosis, athlete, catastrophe, encyclopaedia /explicit, index, major, minor; King James Bible (1611)
How do we categorise present-day English words?
Native words (core vocabulary, shorter, informal)
Indo-European, Anglo-Saxon
mother, father, daughter, brother, sun, moon, eye, wolf / summer, winter, house, storm, hope, life, learn, hear, sea, shirt, rain, make, ice, bake, keep, burn, shoe, …
Borrowings (loanwords)
kindergarten, sauerkraut, lager, waltz, concerto, opera, soprano, cocoa, potato, sherry, yacht, dock, veranda, …
Hybrid words
beauti+ful, bear+able, …
How do we categorise assimilation of borrowed words?
Fully assimilated – foreign character no longer felt
wine, cup, altar, street, mile, bishop, husband, gate, they, flat, kill, knife, give, table, face, battle, …
Partially assimilated – not fully assimilated semantically, phonetically, orthographically, or grammatically
sheik, regime, bacillus, formula, genus, ballet
Unassimilated (barbarisms)
faux pas, haute couture, houte cuisine, protégé
What are etymological doublets/triplets?
The same source but in ME have different lexical status (developed in two/three different words)
skirt - shirt
flower - flour
Borrowings from two/three different languages with common historical roots: (canal (Latin canalis) vs. channel (Old French chanel)
Borrowings from the same language twice but in different periods:
corpse (Norman French) vs. corps (Modern French)
cavalry (NFr.), vs. chivalry (MFr.)
triplets:
hospital (Latin hospitale)
hostel (Norman French hostel)
hotel (French hotel)
or
capture (Latin (captura)
catch (Norman French cachier)
chase (French chasse)
core vocabulary + structure of a germanic language
picture in ppt
