1.2. Foreign element in the Old English vocabulary

Borrowed words constituted only a small portion of the OE vocabulary – all in all about six hundred words. The borrowings reflect the contacts of English with other tongues resulting from diverse political, economic, social and cultural events in the early periods of British history. OE borrowings come from two sources: Celtic and Latin.

1.2.1. Borrowings from Celtic

There are very few Celtic loan-words in the OE vocabulary, for there must have been little intermixture between the Germanic settlers and the Celtic in Britain. Abundant borrowing from Celtic is to be found only in place-names. The OE kingdoms Kent, Deira and Bernicia derive their names from the names of Celtic tribes. The names of York, the Downs and perhaps London have been traced to Celtic sources (Celtic dūn meant 'hill'). The name London may have originated from the Celtic compound Llyndūп which meant ’a fortress on the river bank’. This name was known to Tacitus who calls this place Londinium.

Various Celtic designations of 'river' and 'water' were understood by the Germanic invaders as proper names: Ouse, Exe, Esk, Usk, Avon, Evan go back to Celtic amhuin 'river', uisge 'water'; Thames, Stow, Dover also come from Celtic. Some elements frequently occurring in Celtic place-names can help to identify them: -comb 'deep valley' in Batcombe, Duncombe, Winchcombe; -torr 'high rock' in Torr, Torcross; -llan 'church' in Llandaff, Llanelly; -pill 'creek' in Pylle, Huntspill. Many place-names with Celtic elements are hybrids; the Celtic component, combined with a Latin or a Germanic component, make a compound place-name; e.g.

Celtic + Latin Celtic + Germanic

Man-chester York-shire

Win-chester Corn-wall

Glou-cester Salis-bury

Wor-cester Lich-field

Devon-port Devon-shire

Lan-caster Canter-bury

Outside of place-names Celtic borrowings in OE were very few: no more than a dozen. Examples of common nouns are: OE binn ‘bin’='crib', cradol ‘cradle’, bratt 'cloak', dun ‘dun’, 'dark coloured', dūn 'hill', cross ‘cross’, probably through Celtic from the L crux. A few words must have entered OE from Celtic due to the activities of Irish missionaries in spreading Christianity, e.g. OE ancor 'hermit', cursian ‘curse’. In later ages some of the Celtic borrowings died out or survived only in dialects e.g. loch (dial.) 'lake', coomb (dial.) 'valley'.

1.2.2. Latin influence on the Old English vocabulary

Latin words entered the English language at different stages of OE history. Chronologically they can be divided into two layers.

1) The earliest (first) layer comprises words which the Teutonic tribes brought from the continent when they came to settle in Britain. Contact with the Roman civilization began a long time before the Anglo-Saxon invasion. The adoption of Latin words continued in Britain after the invasion, since Britain had been under Roman occupation for almost 400 years. Though the Romans left Britain before the settlement of the Teutons, Latin words could be transmitted to them by the Romanised Celts.

Early OE borrowings from Latin indicate the new things and concepts which the Teutons had learnt from the Romans; as seen from the examples below they pertain to war, trade, agriculture, building and home life.

Below is the table for these borrowings classified in accordance with the areas they referred to.

Table 6.3