Etymological Doublets

The changes a loan word has had to undergo depending on the date of its penetration are the main cause for the existence of so-called etymological doublets – they are two words of the same language which were derived from different roots from the same basic words.

Words which go back to one and the same source are called etymological doublets.

Let’s take such words: discus and dish.

In OE the word was borrowed from Latin to denote something round. The word had undergone all phonetic changes and came to denote a round object on which people had their meals. Completely assimilated, the word entered many word combinations (a dishcloth). But later on it appeared that English lacked a word to name a sport appliance. The word discus was borrowed again, but as it was borrowed after the period of phonetic changes, it was less assimilated. So these two words go back to one and the same source – Latin discus, but now they have different forms and meanings.

The origin of etymological doublets is different. They may be borrowed at a different period of time or through different languages.

They may be Latin – French, like

abbreviate( Lat.) (сокращать слова) – abridge (Lat.) (сокращать рассказы)

canal (Lat.) - channel (Fr.)

captain (Lat.) - chieftan ( Fr.)

cart (Lat.) – chart ( Fr.)

Scandinavian – English

screw (Sc.) (винт) – shrew (Eng.) (сварливая тётушка)

skirt (Sc.) – shirt ( Eng.)

major (Lat.) – mayor (Fr.)

International Words

The appearance of new words is connected with the appearance of new notions. That’s why it’s natural that the borrowing is seldom limited to one language. Words of identical origin that occur in several languages as a result of simultaneous borrowings from one and the same source are called international words. They play an important part in various terminological systems and among words denoting abstract notions. They are: antenna, atomic, automation, bionics, cybernetics. We meet them in English, French, Russian, Ukrainian and several other languages.

This layer is very important for the foreign language teacher, as he must know the points of similarity between such words as: control – контроль, general – генерал, industry – индустрия, magazine – магазин.

The teacher must draw his pupils’ attention to the spreading of the English vocabulary into other languages. We find numerous English words in the field of sports: football, match, time, pullover, sweater film, club, cocktail, jazz; after the Great October Social Revolution the Russian element in the international fund of words is steadily increasing. Words of international currency borrowed from Russian have spread all over the world: soviet, sputnik, kolkhoz, perestroika, glasnost.