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The extensive borrowing from Latin and French brings about an increased dissociation of the vocabulary, i.e. fewer and fewer semantically related words are also formally morphologically related on the basis of transparent word-formation patterns. This increased and partly exaggerated borrowing also starts the controversy about ‘hard words’ or ‘inkhorn terms’, i.e. learned words that average people without a classical education would not understand. It is this controversy and the problems underlying it which prompt the appearance of monolingual dictionaries, at the beginning just in the form of lists, e.g. Cawdrey (1604), who in the preface gives the following reason for the book. It was, he says,

gathered for the benefit & helpe of Ladies, Gentlewomen, or any other vnskilfull persons, Wherby they may the more easily and better vunderstand many hard English wordes, which they shall heare or read in Scriptures, Sermons, or elswhere, and also be made able to vse the same aptly themselues.

The inkhorn controversy was also commemorated in Shakespeare’s Love’s Labours Lost by the pedant Holofernes, and later on in the eighteenth century by Mrs Malaprop in Sheridan’s The Rivals, hence the term ‘malapropism’. At the same time we also witness a considerable loss of old vocabulary, which, however, is less easy to document, and, in the second half of seventeenth century, also the loss of many neologisms. This is especially due to the systematic weeding-out of doublets as a symptom of the progressive and conscious regularisation of the language.

During the whole eModE period borrowing was the most frequent way of enrichment and word formation was less prominent. In the eighteenth century, however, the tide is beginning to turn, and word formation becomes more important than borrowing, probably because the foreign word-formation patterns had become sufficiently established to really become productive within the English vocabulary. The main reasons for borrowing were the expanding functions of the standard language from a means for regular everyday communication to technical usage in law, religion, medicine, science, etc., and a growing fashion that favoured learned words.

4.4.2.1Latin

Latin was the dominant source of borrowed lexis in eModE. Between 1560 and 1670 well over half of the loanwords attested in the CED come from Latin, the peak period being 1610–24. These were mainly bookish lexical items, but quite a few also became part of the general vocabulary. The morphological integration of the loans into the English morphological system primarily resulted in the loss of verbal inflections of the borrowed items. But sometimes some Latin features were preserved, e.g. plural forms such as fungus: fungi, cactus: cacti/cactuses.

The following provide some examples in chronological order:

Vocabulary 259

4.4.2.3Greek

Many Greek loans entered English via Latin, e.g. alphabet, drama, dilemma, catastrophe, archive, programme, electric, camera, anaesthesia. But there are also quite a few direct loans during this period, due to the increased interest in Antiquity in the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods, e.g. crisis, hegemony, pathos, praxis, hypothesis, epiglottis, meteorology, psyche, cosmos, elastic, euphemism, narcosis, phlox, monotony, philander.

4.4.2.4Italian

In Tudor times there were direct trade connections with Italy through the Flemish trade conducted with Venice; moreover private travel to Italy became fashionable (in the course of the Grand Tour of the continent). Typical borrowings of this period are artichoke, parmesan, regatta, frigate, traffic, ballot, bankrupt, carnival, sonnet, lottery, duel, arcade, stanza, motto, manage, garb, umbrella, gala, firm, volcano, granite, lava, malaria, influenza, cupola, fresco, stucco, villa, concerto, falsetto, opera, oratorio, sonata, solo, tempo, trombone, soprano, aria, pianoforte.

4.4.2.5Spanish

During the first part of the eModE period there were increased contacts with Spain, primarily due to the personal connections of Queen Mary, but also via trade, which introduced a number of Spanish loans, and through Spanish also loans from overseas: cask, anchovy, sherry, cargo, renegade, booby, creole, desperado, armada, embargo, flotilla, tornado, sombrero, guitar, siesta, marinade, cigar; cannibal, negro, maize, potato, alligator, tobacco, banana, vanilla, avocado, barbecue, tortilla.

4.4.2.6Other languages

One important source during this period was Dutch. Trading relations, shipbuilding, but also painting (notably the ‘Dutch masters’ such as Rembrandt) played an important role here, hence easel, sketch, landscape, hose, scone, dock, dollar, yacht, wagon, snuff, filibuster, split, rant, cruise, brandy, tea, smuggle, drill, skate, hustle, schooner, cookie, yankee, mangle.

Other European and non-European languages were also involved, e.g. Portuguese (apricot, flamingo, molasses, mango, mandarin, guinea, tank, pagoda, teak, veranda); Celtic (whisky, bog, brat, trousers, galore, glen, plaid, slogan, flannel); non-European (horde, caftan, jackal, yoghurt, pasha, turban, shah, bazaar, caravan, parsee, typhoon, curry, coolie, toddy, guru, cot, pundit, bungalow, jungle, bamboo, ketchup, soy, mikado, wigwam, racoon, opossum, moccasin, moose, skunk, tomahawk, caucus, jaguar). The latter are certainly due to the expansion of the British empire in connection with the beginning colonisation of overseas countries.