Slavonic borrowings

Besides the two main groups of borrowings (Romanic and Germanic) there are also borrowings from a lot of other languages. We shall speak about Russian borrowings, borrowings from the language which belongs to Slavonic languages.

There were constant contacts between England and Russia and they borrowed words from one language into the other. Among early Russian borrowings there are mainly words connected with trade relations, such as: pood, vodka, and also words relating to nature, such as: taiga, tundra, steppe etc.

There is also a large group of Russian borrowings which came into English through Russian literature of the 19^th century, such as: Narodnik, duma, zemstvo, volost etc.

Etymological doublets

Sometimes a word is borrowed twice from the same language. As a result, we have two different words with different spellings and meanings but historically they come back to one and the same word. Such words are called etymological doublets. Two words at present slightly differentiating in meaning may have originally been dialectal variants of the same word. Thus, we find in doublets traces of Old English dialects. Examples are: whole in the old sense of healthy and hale. The latter has survived in its original meaning and is preserved in the phrase hale and hearty. Both come from Old English hal.

Sometimes etymological doublets are the result of borrowing different grammatical forms of the same word, e.g. the comparative degree of Latin super was superior which was borrowed into English with the meaning high in quality or rank. The superlative degree (Latin supremus) in English supreme was borrowed with the meaning outstanding, prominent. So superior and supreme are etymological doublets formed from different grammatical forms of the Latin adjective super.

International words

As the process of borrowing is mostly connected with the appearance of new notions which they serve to express, it is natural that the borrowing is seldom limited to one language. Words of identical origin that occur in several languages as a result of simultaneous or successive borrowings from one ultimate source are called international words.

International words play an especially important part in different terminological systems including the vocabulary of science, industry and art. The origin of this vocabulary reflects the history of world culture.

The rate of change in technology, political, social and artistic life was greatly accelerated in the 20th century and so the number of international lexical units increased greatly, e.g. we can mention a number of words connected with the development of science: algorithm, antenna, antibiotics, cybernetics, gene, microelectronics, etc.

The international wordstock is also growing due to the influx of exotic borrowed words like: anaconda, kraal, orang-outang, sari, etc.

We find numerous English words in the field of sport: football, out, match, tennis, time, ring, boots and many others. There are English international words referring to clothing: jersey, pullover, sweater, tweed, shorts, leggings etc.

Answer the following questions:

1. What groups are native words subdivided?

2. What is the oldest layer of words in English?

3. Which group of native vocabulary is larger, Indo-European or Common Germanic?

4. What is the difference between borrowed words and native ones?

5. What is understood by source of borrowings and origin of borrowings?

6. Give the classification of Romanic borrowings.

7. Explain the influence of French on the English spelling.

8. Give the classification of Germanic borrowings.

9. What words are called etymological doublets?

10. What words are called international words?