Lecture 1. Etymological survey of the English word stock of native origin and the problem of their definition.
I. The origin of English words.
1.Words of native origin.
2.The foreign element in the English language. a)The Celtic element
b)The Classical element
c) The Scandinavian element
d)The Norman-French element
II. Source of borrowing and origin of borrowing
III. Assimilation of borrowings
1) Definition of the term «assimilation».
2) Types of assimilation.
3) Etymological Doublets.
4) Hybrids
5) International words.
The vocabulary of modern English is a product of a number of epochs. The existence of English Language began when Germanic tribes had occupied all the lowlands of Great Britain.
A native word is a word which belongs to the original English stock as known from the earliest available manuscripts of the Old English period. The term native is often applied to words whose origin cannot be traced to any other language. The native words are subdivided into those of Indo-European stock and those of common Germanic origin.
The words having cognates in the vocabularies of different Indo-European languages form the oldest layer. They fall into definite semantic groups. Among them we find: 1) terms of kinship
(father, mother, son, daughter, brother, bride, boy, man, woman, wife, child)
2) Words naming the most important objects and phenomena of nature: sun, star, moon, wood, water, stone.
3) Names of birds, fish, animals (domestic): bee, bug, calf, cock, cow, dog, duck, ox.
4) Parts of human body: arm, ear, eye, foot, heart, knee, elbow etc
A much bigger part of this native vocabulary layer is formed by words of the Common Germanic stock, i.e. of words having parallels in German, Norwegian, Dutch, Icelandic, etc. But none in French or Ukrainian. They are usually of general character: summer, winter, storm, ice, rain, room, hat, hope, life, etc. Many adverbs and pronouns belong to this layer.
Together with the words of the common Indo-European stock these Common Germanic words form the bulk of the most frequent elements used in any style of speech.
Quite a number of adverbs and pronouns also belong here. The native element is mostly monosyllabic.
It has been approximately estimated that more than 60% of the English vocabulary are borrowings and about 40% are words of native origin.
2.FOREIGN ELEMENT IN THE ENGLISH VOCABULARY
The English vocabulary falls into elements of different etymology. The part played by borrowings in the vocabulary of a language depends upon the history of each given language, being conditioned by direct linguistic contacts and political, economic and cultural relationship between nations. English history contains innumerable occasions for all types of such contacts.
A) the celtic element
No language is so composite as English; none so varied as to its vocabulary. Strangely enough the Celts, who were the original inhabitants of England, contributed little or nothing to this language save few names of places.
Modern investigations have shown that the number of Celtic words in English vocabulary apart from numerous place names before the 12th century is not very considerable.
Examples of Celtic loan-words appearing in Old English and preserved until the present time are: down (hill), dun (colour), bin ( a chest of corn ).The words claymore (старовинний палаш ), plaid (плед ), shamrock (трилисник), whisky, for illustration, are all of Celtic origin, but none of them existed in the English of Anglo- Saxon period.
The influence of Celtic upon English may be traced in names of places. Celtic names are common in all parts of England though much more largely in the north and west and especially in Scotland and Ireland.
Here are few words Celtic in origin which have acquired international currency: budget, career, clan, flannel, mackintosh, plaid, tunnel.