1.2. Means of enriching vocabulary

While creating new words the English language, as we have mentioned above, principally resorted to its own, internal means: word derivation, primary affixation and vowel interchange, and word composition.

1.2.1. Internal means of enriching vocabulary

• word derivation

In Old English affixation was widely used as a word-building means.

There were very many suffixes, with the help of which new nouns, adjectives, adverbs and sometimes verbs were formed, for instance:

• noun suffixes of concrete nouns:

-ere fisc + ere (fisher)

-estre spin + estre (spinster) } denoting the doer of the action

-inз cyn + inз (king)

• noun suffixes of abstract nouns:

-ð trēow + ð (truth)

-nis зōd + nis (goodness)

-scip frēnd + scip (friendship)

-dōm frēo + dōm (freedom)

-hād cild + hād (childhood)

• adjective suffixes

-iз īs + iз (icy), bys + iз (busy)

-isc Engl + isc (English), Frens + isc (French)

-ful car + ful (careful)

-lēas slæp + lēas (sleepless)

Prefixes were used on a limited scale and they generally had a negative meaning:

for- for + Зiefan (forgive)

mis- mis + dæd (misdeed)

un- un + cūð (uncouth)

Vowel interchange:

Noun Verb

Sonз (song) singan (to sing)

Dōm (doom) deman (to deem)

- Word composition

Word composition was a well-developed means of enriching vocabulary in Old English. For instance:

Nouns

sǽ + man (seaman), gold + smið (goldsmith),

monan +dæз (Monday), sunan + dæз (Sunday)

Engla + land (land of Angles)

Adjective

īc + ceald (ice-cold)

3. External means of enriching vocabulary

As we understand, borrowings into a language are a result of contacts with other nations. The Germanic tribes had but few contacts with other nations at the beginning of A.D., consequently the number of borrowed words in Old English was not great. The main borrowings that we can single out in Old English were Latin and Celtic borrowings.

• Latin borrowings

The first Latin borrowings entered the language before the Germanic tribes of Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians invaded the British Isles, i.e. at the time when they still lived on the continent. Due to trade relations with their southern powerful neighbour – the Roman Empire – Germanic tribes learned a number of products that had been unknown to then, and, consequently, their names. So the first stratum of borrowings is mainly words connected with trade. Many of them are preserved in Modern English, such as:

pound, inch, pepper, cheese, wine, apple, pear, plumb, etc.

The second stratum of words was composed of loan Latin words that the German tribes borrowed already on British soil from the Romanized Celts, whom they had conquered in the 5^th century. Those were words connected with building and architecture, as the preserved nowadays:

title, wall, wall, mill, etc.

They denoted objects which the Germanic invaders encountered on the British Isles.

The third stratum of Latin loan words was composed of words borrowed after the introduction of the Christian religion. They are generally of a religious nature, such as the present-day words:

bishop, devil, apostle, monk.

As Latin was the language of learning at the time, there also entered the language some words that were not directly connected with religion, such as:

Master, school, palm, lion, tiger, plant, astronomy, etc.

- Celtic borrowings

The Celtic language left very few traces in the English language, because the Germanic conquerors partly exterminated the local population, partly drove them away to the less fertile mountainous parts of the country, where they were not within reach of the invaders. The Celtic-speaking people who remained on the territory occupied by the Germanic tribes were slaves, and even those were not numerous. It is small wonder therefore that the number of Celtic loan words was limited. Among the few borrowed words we can mention:

Down (the downs of Dover), binn (bin – basket, crib, manger),

Some Celtic roots are preserved in geographical names, such as:

Kil (church – Kilbrook), ball (house – Ballantrae), esk (water – river Esk)

and some others.