3.5. Greek borrowings

Words from Latin, Scandinavian and French constitute the bulk of all borrowed words in English. However, borrowings from other languages also form an important part of present-day English vocabulary.

In Old English period there were very few words that came into English from Greek. Such was the word church which became known already to the Germanic tribes before their invasion of Britain. Most Greek words came into English through Latin and French: abbot, bishop, apostle, monk, priest, school, idea, fancy, catalogue, chronicle.

It was only in the Renaissance period that borrowing was directly from Greek: lexicon, myth, petal, sympathy, atom, philosophy, physics. But even here some of the words came through classical Latin (gymnastics, drama, athlete) and French (astronomy, geography, geometry, theatre, tragedy, idiom, dialect).

Nowadays the influence of Greek is felt in the sphere of special terminology because of the frequent use of Greek morphemes: telephone, telegraph, television, aerodrome, aerodynamic, aerogram, photograph, phonograph, etc.

3.6. Italian borrowings

Borrowing from Italian started in the 15^th-16^th centuries. Italy at that time was a country with high culture which influenced not only England but the whole of Europe. The vocabularies of many languages reflect this influence because many words became international, i.e. they are met in most world languages.

All Italian borrowings can be arranged into several semantic groups:

1. terms of house-building and architecture: balcony, fresco, studio, corridor, cornice, mezzanine, stucco, loggia, colonnade;

2. military terms: colonel, alarm, cartridge, cavalry, infantry, pistol, squadron;

3. words dealing with finance: bank, bankrupt;

4. names of food: pizza, cappuccino, macaroni, spaghetti;

5. words referring to no particular semantic group: casino, volcano, lagoon, revolt, risk, monkey, bandit, mafia, mafioso (pl. mafiosi), umbrella, influenza, incognito, to manage, to isolate.

Especially numerous are Italian borrowings referring to the sphere of music:

1. names of musical instruments: (violon)cello, piano, violin;

2. singing voices: bass, baritone, tenor, contralto, soprano;

3. musical compositions: sonata, opera, aria;

4. other musical terms: solo, duet, concert, libretto, tempo, bel canto.

In the first half of the 20^th century with the emergence in Italy and Germany of a new form of dictatorship the Italian words fascist and fascism came to be used in many languages including English.

3.7. Spanish borrowings

One of the richest European countries in the 16^th century was Spain. The discovery in 1492 by Christopher Columbus of a new continent started the colonization of the so-called New World. The colonizers came to see new lands with new animals and plants. They exploited the newly colonized territories and brought back with them new foodstuffs such as potato, tomato, cocoa, chocolate, banana. The names of these foodstuffs came through Spanish into many languages.

There were contacts of two kinds between England and Spain: trade relations at first, military conflicts later since the two countries had to fight for supremacy in world markets. All this enriched the vocabulary of English with Spanish borrowings.

We can single out the following semantic groups among them:

1. trading terms – cargo, embargo, contraband;

2. foodstuffs and other products – in addition to what was mentioned above we may name also tobacco, cigar, cork, quinine;

3. natural phenomena and names of animals and plants – hurricane, tornado, canyon, savannah, pampas, mosquito, coyote, armadillo, cockroach, maize;

4. military terms: armada, guerrilla;

5. miscellanea – bravado, canoe, matador, mulatto, Negro, ranch, renegade, junta, corral, lasso, comrade, macho, cafeteria.