Etimology – branch of lexicology, which deals with the different possesses of assimilation or adaptation of the English words The English vocabulary is very rich. From the point of view of etymology, English vocabulary can be divided into 2 parts: 70% of borrowings in English language, 30% of native words. Borrowings usually take place under 2 circumstances: 1) when people have a direct contact with another people; 2) when there is a cultural need to borrow a word from another languages.
ROMANIC BORROWINGS. Latin borrowings: they are divided into 3 periods: 1) 5 century, words are connected with trade (pound, inch, kitchen, wall, port); 2) the time of Christianity, words are connected with religion (Latin words: alter, cross, dean; Greek words: church, angel, devil, anthem); 3) time of renaissance, words were borrowed after great vowel shift (17 century) (item, superior, zoology, memorandum, vice versa, AM, PM). French: the largest group of borrowings is French borrowings. Most of them came into English during the Norman Conquest. Normans belong to the race of scand. origin but during their residence in Normandy they had given up the native language and adopted the French dialect. During 3 centuries after the Norman Conquest French was the language of the court, of the nobility. There are following semantic groups of French borrowings: 1) words relating to government (administer, empire, state); 2) ~military affairs (army, war, battle); 3) ~jurisprudence (advocate, petition, sentence); 4) ~fashion (luxury, coat, collar); 5)~jewelry (topaz, pearl); 6)~ food and cooking (lunch, cuisine, menu); 7)~literature and music (pirouette, ballet). Italian: cultural and trade relations between England and Italy in the epoch of renaissance brought in many Italian words: 1) musical terms: concert, solo, opera, piano, trio; 2) political terms: manifesto; 3) geological terms: volcano, lava. Among the 20th century Italian borrowings, we can mention: incognito, fiasco, and graffiti. Spanish: a large number of such words was penetrated in English vocabulary in 1588 when Phillip 2 sent a fleet of armed ships against England (armada, ambuscade); trade terms: cargo, embargo; names of dances and musical instruments: tango, rumba, guitar; names of vegetables and fruits: tomato, tobacco, banana, ananas. GERMANIC BORROWINGS: Scandinavian: By the end of the Old English period English underwent a strong influence of Scandinavian due to the Scandinavian conquest of the British Isles. As a result of this conquest there are about 700 borrowings from Scandinavian into English (pronouns: they, them, their; verbs: to call, to want, to die; adj: flat, ill, happy; noun: cake, egg, knife, window. German: in the period of Second World War such words were borrowed as: luftwaffe (возд. авиация); bundeswehr (вооруженные силы ФРГ). After the Second World War the following words were borrowed: Volkswagen, berufsverbot (запрет на профессию (в ФРГ)), and some other words(cobalt, wolfram, iceberg, rucksack). Dutch: Holland and England have had constant interrelations for many centuries and more then 2000 Dutch words were borrowed into English. Many of them are nautical terms and were mainly borrowed in the 14th century, such as: skipper, pump, keel, dock; and some words from everyday life: luck, brandy, boss. Russian: Among early Russian borrowings there are mainly words connected with trade relations, such as: rubble, kopeck, sterlet, vodka, and words relating to nature: taiga, tundra, steppe. After the October revolution many new words appeared in Russia, connected with the new political system, new culture, and many of them were borrowed into English: collectivization, udarnik, Komsomol and also translation loans: five-year plan, collective farm. One more group of Russian borrowings is connected with perestroika, suck as: glasnost, nomenclature, and apparatchik. Native words are divided into 3 basic groups: 1) the words which have cognates (words of the same etymological root, of common origin) in many Indo-European languages. For ex: family relations: father (Vater), mother, daughter, son; parts of human body: foot, heart, nose; wolf, cow, cat; numerous verbs: stand, sit; the numerals from 1 to 100; heavenly bodies: sun, moon, star. 2) the words, which have cognates with words of the language of the Germanic group. Some of the main groups of Germanic words are the same as in the I-E group/ For ex: parts of human body: head, hand, arm, finger; animals: bear, fox; natural phenomena: rain, frost; human dwellings and furniture: house, bench; adj: green, blue, old, good, small, high; verbs: see, hear, tell, say, drink, give. 3) the English element proper. Ex.: bird, boy, girl, woman, lord, always. Assimilation – the process of adaptation phonetic, gram. and semantic features of language. 3 basic types: phonetical – sounds are adopted; grammatical – when a borrowed word occurs (спутник); semantic – connected with the meaning of the word.
International words. It is often the case that a word is borrowed by several languages and not just by one. Such words usually convey concepts, which are significant in the field of communication. Many of them are of Latin and Greek origin. Most names of sciences are international, e.g. philosophy, chemistry, biology; sports terms: football, baseball, tennis; foodstuffs and fruits imported from exotic countries: coffee, chocolate, banana, grapefruit; clothing: pullover, shorts.
Etymological doublets – are pairs of words, which have one and the same original form, but which have acquired different forms and even different meanings during the course of linguistic development. Ex: the words shirt and skirt etymologically descend from the same root. Shirt is a native word, skirt is a Scandinavian borrowings. Their phonetic shape is different, and yet there is a certain resemblance, which reflects their common origin. Their meanings are also different but easily associated: they both denote articles of clothing. Etymological triplets (groups of three words of common root) – hospital (Lat) – hostel (Norm. Fr) – hotel (Par. Fr).
Translation-Loans. This term is equivalent to borrowing. They are not taken into the vocabulary of another language more or less in the same phonetic shape in which they have been functioning in their own language, but undergo the process of translation. It is obvious that it is only compound words, which can be subjected to such an operation, each stem being translated separately. Ex: collective farm (колхоз); wonder child (Wunderkind); five-year plan (пятилетка)
2. Types of Lexicology. General and Special Lexicology.
General lexicology is a part of linguistics (общее языкознание). It studies the vocabulary in general irrespective of (безотносительно) the specific features of any particular language.
Special lexicology is the lexicology of a particular language (частная лексикология).
Historical lexicology studies the historic changes of words in the course of language development. It studies the development of the vocabulary, the origin of words, their semantic relations in the course of time and the development of their meaning. The word “diachronic” consists of two morphemes: dia (“through”) and chronos (“time”), i.e. in the course of time.
Descriptive lexicology studies the vocabulary of a particular language at a definite stage of its development. The word “Synchronic” consists of two morphemes: syn (“together with”) and chronos (“time”).
3. Ancient Germanic languages.
The Germanic languages
From the middle of the 1st millennium BC, there is evidence of Germanic populations in southern Scandinavia and northern Germany. Their migrations from the 2nd century BC onwards are recorded in history. The linguistic and archaeological data seem to indicate that the last linguistic changes affecting all of the Germanic languages took place in an area which has been located approximately in Southern Sweden, Southern Norway, Denmark, and the lower Elbe.
During their expansion, the Germanic tribes, who spoke an Indo-European language, mixed with other European tribes whose language is unknown. About 80 percent of Germanic word roots are of non-Indo-European origin.
The Germanic languages are organized into three groups, North Germanic, West Germanic and East Germanic. Gothic, an East Germanic language, is the oldest Germanic language of which much is known. The main text corpus is a Bible translation by the bishop Ulfila from the 4th century C.E. (Common Era, also known as AD). The East Germanic languages (Gothic, Vandalic, Burgundian, Lombardic, Rugian, Herulian, Bastarnae, and Scirian) do not have present-day descendants.
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