Evolution and functioning of French borrowings in the English vocabulary in the field of fashion, food, clothes

The following list is a small sampling of the loanwords that came into English in different periods and from different languages.

If borrowings are testimonials to our (“our” being humans) “physical mobility and mental laziness” then the British would probably win the gold medal. How could a country whose original inhabitants were Celts have ceded that language to the one we currently know as English? It is because of the many times that the British Isles were invaded, obviously by outsiders, who brought their language, dialects and customs into the country. As the invaders settled in, they transformed both the written and spoken words of the English residents, who were able to adapt through the assimilation of borrowed words.

Otto Jespersen1, in his book Growth and Structure of the English Language, points out that the English language is a “chain of borrowings” that was a result of the conquests of Britain by various invaders. The foreigners brought their languages to England but were unable to completely impose their languages on the British. Instead, the foreigners' languages were intermixed as if being thrown into a blender with the native speakers' words. With that, these groups succeeded, to varying degrees, in influencing the evolution of written and spoken English as we now know it.

First came the Romans and with their occupation of England, introduced Latin to some, but not all, its inhabitants. While the Celts co-existed with the Romans and “continental Germans,” only a few hundred borrowed Latin words are found in Old English, which was basically a “self-sufficing” language, according to Jespersen. With the Teutonic/Germanic invasions of 450 A.D., the Celtic language was relegated to the mists of its Irish island. But the inhabitants of England needed to communicate with their new neighbors and the borrowing of words began.

The Christianization of the country in the 6th Century forced more inhabitants to adopt Latin words and phrases through the Church. Still, these borrowed Latin words were used mainly in the realm of the upper classes when “every educated Englishman spoke and wrote Latin as easily as he spoke and wrote his mother tongue,” according to James Bradstreet Greenough and George Lyman Kittredge2 in their book, Words and Their Ways in English Speech. These “educated” men (and I would think women, too) could use the borrowed words both in conversation and on the written page.

Once the Angles, Saxons and Jutes arrived in Britain, and with the Celts displaced, the language literally began evolving as the new-arrivals began settling in. The Celtic influence began rapidly diminishing as the so-called “superior” borrowed words began to take hold. While at first speaking their own Teutonic languages, upon establishing themselves with the native inhabitants their language gradually drifted away from their home countries and began to mesh with one another. Of course, the language from this period would be barely recognizable to most, if not all, (except for etymologists) present-day readers. Yet, while the Angles, Saxons and Jutes brought us the original English language, the foundation of English as we know it today is Germanic with a massive French influence.

The history of the English language, and its borrowings, is founded on three invasions: Teutonic; Scandinavian (Vikings); and, most importantly, by the Norman conquest of England by the Duke of Normandy in 1066. (Luckily, the Nazis never made it across the Channel.) The Teutonic and Scandinavian invasions obviously affected the native language. But it was the French-speaking Normans, led by William the Conqueror (Guillaume le Conquйrant), who introduced the greatest, most extensive and most permanent collection of borrowed or “loan” words, as Jespersen is fond of writing, to the English language upon their successful 1066 invasion of the island.

The Norman occupation lasted much longer than that of the Norse invasion and unlike the Scandinavians, who co-existed with the invaded, the Normans overwhelmed the English. The British status quo was tossed out as the Normans reconfigured the structures of England, from its legal system to its religions, by becoming the ruling masters of the island.

While the Normans brought their French to the British Isles, they, too, were also operating in a sense with borrowed words. If, as Greenough and Kittredge point out, French is simply Latin in a “corrupt form” then the conquered British inhabitants would have had to absorb two borrowed languages -- French and Latin. And the question for them, if they chose to ask it, is from which genesis the written or spoken words the Normans brought to the shores came from -- Latin or French.

The invading Normans also introduced a sort of language class warfare to the Britons. If a foreign language is thrust upon the conquered, one would think that it would spread from top to bottom through all strata of the inhabitants. The “losing” language would thus disappear. Yet, that did not happen after the Normans' arrival. The conquered nobles adopted the French model, but the peasants retained the Germanic tongue, setting up both a class and a linguistic divide that would remain until their languages, and borrowed words, blended into Middle English.

But morphing French words and phrases into the English language does not mean there was a certain borrowing snobbery. Writers, such as Chaucer, or diplomats, the royalty, high-ranking members of the military and businessmen who were familiar with French culture (and given the closeness of European borders, easily attainable), readily adopted and adapted words borrowed from the French into the English language. In many cases, the borrowing was not cavalier, but was a necessity to communicate.

The Norman Conquest forced the creation of an entirely new way of English life, influencing the language of its law, religion, medicine and arts. Since the French/Latin-speakers were the dominant power, the Britons had to borrow words in order to simply communicate with their new masters who “ousted” some of the local vernacular. These “newcomers” may have rid some of the centuries-old English synonyms, but they became ingrained because of their ties to the originals. The Anglo-Saxon king and queen survived the French influence, but with the Normans along came such titles as duke and duchess. Well, Britons would have to be able to understand what either of these two terms meant and, thus, they would assimilate these borrowed words into, if not every day use, their sometime use.

According to Jespersen, many British adopted borrowed French words not only to communicate, but because they felt it was the “fashion” to imitate their “betters.” Again, while some might perceive this as a form of snobbery, many of us do strive to improve our language skills. While saying someone tried to overthrow a government is basic and to the point, using coup d'etat as the phrase is instantly recognizable to many readers and, almost, puts more of a sense of urgency to the event. You could say a woman is stylish, which I am sure she would appreciate, but substituting the borrowed chic usually makes more of an impact. Obviously, our knowledge of borrowed words not only expands our vocabulary but enables us to converse with one another.

While it is understandable that the Britons would borrow words that did not exist in their native language, such as majesty and mayor, it is somewhat mystifying why they would replace their swin with the French porc. That is unless you consider how the English farmers and French aristocrats dealt with livestock. With these two related words, the Germanic swin is more down-to-earth while the French porc was considered more refined. Swin evolved into the present-day swine, which is what English peasants would have been raising, while the porc or pork would have been what the upper-class French would eat. It is “animal versus food” and, again, the borrowings would elevate the perceived social standing of the English man or woman who used the French word. And as Greenough and Kittredge illustrate, sometimes the foreign word, such as divide, becomes more popular than the inhabitants' cleave. Also, one word can crowd out another, with the native being the one shunted aside as in what happened to the local ey which was replaced by the Scandinavian egg.

The French language-influence on the English presented them with more abstract words than what the Britons might have considered to be their clear and concrete definitions of their native words. The English child as opposed to the borrowed French infant, or the English freedom compared to the French liberty are examples.

The amazing thing about the transformation and evolution of the English language is the extent to how receptive the country's inhabitants were to outside languages, particularly French and Latin. It is almost as if an invader could plant a language seed and the Britons would cultivate it. But unlike the French who most likely would stay with that one language plant, the English (perhaps because of their love of gardening) seemed intent on growing as many synonymous words as possible. And, continuing with this somewhat silly gardening analogy, Jespersen points out that many times “the English soil has proved more fertilizing than the French soil” for transplanted words. Why offer one native word, as the French seem to enjoy, when you can convert a multitude of borrowed words and multiply them into synonymous bits of language as the English seem wont to do? Or, as the University of Minnesota's professor and author of Word Origins and How We Know Them, Dr. Anatoly Liberman3 asks in his lecture, A Coat of Many Colors, is it “better to have two nostrils or one?” With a multitude of similar words, the English at least, seem to have embraced the “two nostrils” theory, sometimes using both the native and the borrowed words side-by-side.

This borrowing has also helped inflate the size of English dictionaries. The voluminous English dictionaries, as compared to French, German or Dutch dictionaries for example, can credit their size to the borrowings of foreign words the British adopted. If the English were originally concerned that their native language was not up to snuff with the French or Latin tongues, the Britons' borrowings might give new meaning to “size matters.”

While I have mainly focused on the Norman Conquest and the seismic language shift 1066 created in the linguistic world, there were others that might have been subsequently involved in English-word borrowings -- if they had arrived in time. Among them are Spanish and Italian, but as Greenough and Kittredge point out, while their influence upon English literature has “been very great, but upon (English) vocabulary these languages have had no appreciable effect.” That is because the Normans made the goal first and the English had basically borrowed all the words and phrases they needed.

England's emergence as a superpower brought it, in a sense, border expansion because of colonialism. This also introduced its people to sights they had never seen and for which they would need descriptive words. The Britons could only borrow them as there was no native term to express what they encountered.

There were no such things as boomerangs or kangaroos in England, so when the Britons came upon them instead of creating entirely new words to define them, the easier alternative was to borrow the Australian words. Elephants, leopards and panthers also were not native to England and, again, these animal names would have to be borrowed for Britons to describe them to one another. Even the tomato, unknown in the country until its introduction from the New World, would have to be named. Borrowing from the Spanish tomate, the British settled on tomato.

While these examples were new words to the English and diversified their vocabulary, they did not affect the “structure” of their speech. Instead, they were “simply the adoption of names for particular things,” according to Greenough and Kittredge.

The Renaissance brought a multitude of classical words, particularly from France and Italy, increasing the Latin influence on language in England. But Italy, along with Spain, contributed few borrowed words because the English language was nearly completely formed by this age. The new words and phrases enriched the British language, but Jespersen believes at somewhat of a cost. Because of the various invasions, the English had, over time, begun to “shrink from consciously coining new words out of native material.” That concept brings us full circle back to the “physical mobility and mental laziness” aspect of borrowing words.

These, in a sense, exotic words now easily roll off the tongues of English-speaking people. We all know what a kindergarten, from the German, means. Most would know what a baguette or croissant, from the French, also mean. And, staying with baked goods, the Yiddish bagel (originally beygl) is certainly well known to many English-speaking people, particularly New Yorkers.

But do all foreign or exotic words lend themselves to borrowing and become ingrained in the English language? In The Lexicographer's Dilemma, author Jack Lynch4 brings up the Arabic jihad and questions whether it is an English word yet. Before September 11, 2001, I doubt many English speakers had heard of the word. By September 12, I believe that jihad was as familiar a phrase to us as the word bread.

Lieberman, in one of his lectures, illustrated the borrowed words sputnik and perestroika. At various points in time these borrowed words were all the rage. While I was too young to comprehend sputnik when it was launched, throughout my early school years I learned its significance. Yet, I doubt that any person in high school today would understand the word or fathom how quickly it was borrowed into the English language.

The same fate awaited perestroika. About six years after it was proposed in the Soviet Union, the word filled inches of newspaper copy in the mid 1980s. But I would be amazed to find any mention of Gorbachev's initiative for today's English-speaking newspaper readers. If borrowed words are a “result of language contact in a certain place at a certain time,” as Lieberman phrases it in Word Origins, then these two Russian words fit the bill perfectly. But these etymons probably have little “staying power,” particularly since neither really forms ties with other words. So, like the many borrowed words from the past that failed to live on, these two are also probably consigned to the linguistic junk heap, at least for English readers.

In wrapping up, the borrowing of words illustrates that when two languages compete for domination over one another, adaptability and adoptability are key ingredients. The Celts did not understand this and their language was marginalized. The Germanic-speakers faced the same fate when confronted with the Norman Conquest, but many of the higher-educated Britons saw the (Gallic) writing on the wall and chose to borrow the necessary words and phrases to communicate in a changed environment. By, out of necessity, opting to borrow from their foreign rulers, the English language evolved into the most extensive and prolific on the planet.

Germanic period

Latin

The forms given in this section are the Old English ones. The original Latin source word is given in parentheses where significantly different. Some Latin words were themselves originally borrowed from Greek. It can be deduced that these borrowings date from the time before the Angles and Saxons left the continent for England, because of very similar forms found in the other old Germanic languages (Old High German, Old Saxon, etc.). The source words are generally attested in Latin texts, in the large body of Latin writings that were preserved through the ages.ancor'anchor'

butere'butter' (L < Gr. butyros)

cealc'chalk'

ceas'cheese' (caseum)

cetel'kettle'

cycene'kitchen'

cirice'church' (ecclesia < Gr. ecclesia)

disc'dish' (discus)

mil'mile' (milia [passuum] 'a thousand paces')

piper'pepper'

pund'pound' (pondo 'a weight')

sacc'sack' (saccus)

sicol'sickle'

straet'street' ([via] strata 'straight way' or stone-paved road)

weall'wall' (vallum)

win'wine' (vinum < Gr. oinos)

II. Old English Period (600-1100)

Latinapostol'apostle' (apostolus < Gr. apostolos)

casere'caesar, emperor'

ceaster'city' (castra 'camp')

cest'chest' (cista 'box')

circul'circle'

cometa'comet' (cometa < Greek)

maegester'master' (magister)

martir'martyr'

paper'paper' (papyrus, from Gr.)

tigle'tile' (tegula)

Celticbrocc'badger'

cumb'combe, valley'

(few ordinary words, but thousands of place and river names: London, Carlisle,

Devon, Dover, Cornwall, Thames, Avon...)

Middle English Period (1100-1500)

Scandinavian

Most of these first appeared in the written language in Middle English; but many were no doubt borrowed earlier, during the period of the Danelaw (9th-10th centuries).

anger, blight, by-law, cake, call, clumsy, doze, egg, fellow, gear, get, give, hale, hit, husband, kick, kill, kilt, kindle, law, low, lump, rag, raise, root, scathe, scorch, score, scowl, scrape, scrub, seat, skill, skin, skirt, sky, sly, take, they, them, their, thrall, thrust, ugly, want, window, wing

Place name suffixes: -by, -Thorpe, -gate

French

Law and government--attorney, bailiff, chancellor, chattel, country, court, crime, defendent, evidence, government, jail, judge, jury, larceny, noble, parliament, plaintiff, plea, prison, revenue, state, tax, verdict

Church--abbot, chaplain, chapter, clergy, friar, prayer, preach, priest, religion, sacrament, saint, sermon

Nobility--baron, baroness; count, countess; duke, duchess; marquis, marquess; prince, princess; viscount, viscountess; noble, royal (contrast native words: king, queen, earl, lord, lady, knight, kingly, queenly)

Military--army, artillery, battle, captain, company, corporal, defense,enemy,marine, navy, sergeant, soldier, volunteer

Cooking--beef, boil, broil, butcher, dine, fry, mutton, pork, poultry, roast, salmon, stew, veal

Culture and luxury goods--art, bracelet, claret, clarinet, dance, diamond, fashion, fur, jewel, oboe, painting, pendant, satin, ruby, sculpture

Other--adventure, change, charge, chart, courage, devout, dignity, enamor, feign, fruit, letter, literature, magic, male, female, mirror, pilgrimage, proud, question, regard, special

Also Middle English French loans: a huge number of words in age, -ance/-ence, -ant/-ent, -ity, -ment, -tion, con-, de-, and pre-.

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether a given word came from French or whether it was taken straight from Latin. Words for which this difficulty occurs are those in which there were no special sound and/or spelling changes of the sort that distinguished French from Latin

IV. Early Modern English Period (1500-1650)

The effects of the renaissance begin to be seriously felt in England. We see the beginnings of a huge influx of Latin and Greek words, many of them learned words imported by scholars well versed in those languages. But many are borrowings from other languages, as words from European high culture begin to make their presence felt and the first words come in from the earliest period of colonial expansion.

Latin

agile, abdomen, anatomy, area, capsule, compensate, dexterity, discus, disc/disk, excavate, expensive, fictitious, gradual, habitual, insane, janitor, meditate, notorious, orbit, peninsula, physician, superintendent, ultimate, vindicate

Greek (many of these via Latin)

anonymous, atmosphere, autograph, catastrophe, climax, comedy, critic, data, ectasy, history, ostracize, parasite, pneumonia, skeleton, tonic, tragedy

Greek bound morphemes: -ism, -ize

Arabic

via Spanish--alcove, algebra, zenith, algorithm, almanac, azimuth, alchemy, admiral

via other Romance languages--amber, cipher, orange, saffron, sugar, zero, coffee.

1.3.2 The borrowed words in the Modern English language

Early Modern English Period (1500-1650). The effects of the renaissance begin to be seriously felt in England. We see the beginnings of a huge influx of Latin and Greek words, many of them learned words imported by scholars well versed in those languages. But many are borrowings from other languages, as words from European high culture begin to make their presence felt and the first words come in from the earliest period of colonial expansion.

French

French continues to be the largest single source of new words outside of very specialized vocabulary domains (scientific/technical vocabulary, still dominated by classical borrowings).

High culture--ballet, bouillabaise, cabernet, cachet, chaise longue, champagne, chic, cognac, corsage, faux pas, nom de plume, quiche, rouge, roulet, sachet, salon, saloon, sang froid, savoir faire

War and Military--bastion, brigade, battalion, cavalry, grenade, infantry, pallisade, rebuff, bayonet

Other--bigot, chassis, clique, denim, garage, grotesque, jean(s), niche, shock

French Canadian--chowder

Louisiana French (Cajun)--jambalaya

Spanish

armada, adobe, alligator, alpaca, armadillo, barricade, bravado, cannibal, canyon, coyote, desperado, embargo, enchilada, guitar, marijuana, mesa, mosquito, mustang, ranch, taco, tornado, tortilla, vigilante

Italian

alto, arsenal, balcony, broccoli, cameo, casino, cupola, duo, fresco, fugue, gazette (via French), ghetto, gondola, grotto, macaroni, madrigal, motto, piano, opera, pantaloons, prima donna, regatta, sequin, soprano, opera, stanza, stucco, studio, tempo, torso, umbrella, viola, violin

from Italian American immigrants--cappuccino, espresso, linguini, mafioso, pasta, pizza, ravioli, spaghetti, spumante, zabaglione, zucchini

Dutch, Flemish

Shipping, naval terms--avast, boom, bow, bowsprit, buoy, commodore, cruise, dock, freight, keel, keelhaul, leak, pump, reef, scoop, scour, skipper, sloop, smuggle, splice, tackle, yawl, yacht

Cloth industry--bale, cambric, duck (fabric), fuller's earth, mart, nap (of cloth), selvage, spool, stripe

Art--easel, etching, landscape, sketch

War--beleaguer, holster, freebooter, furlough, onslaught

Food and drink--booze, brandy(wine), coleslaw, cookie, cranberry, crullers, gin, hops, stockfish, waffle

Other--bugger (orig. French), crap, curl, dollar, scum, split (orig. nautical term), uproar

German

bum, dunk, feldspar, quartz, hex, lager, knackwurst, liverwurst, loafer, noodle, poodle, dachshund, pretzel, pinochle, pumpernickel, sauerkraut, schnitzel, zwieback, (beer)stein, lederhosen, dirndl

20th century German loanwords--blitzkrieg, zeppelin, strafe, U-boat, delicatessen, hamburger, frankfurter, wiener, hausfrau, kindergarten, Oktoberfest, schuss, wunderkind, bundt (cake), spritz (cookies), (apple) strudel

Yiddish (most are 20th century borrowings)

bagel, Chanukkah (Hanukkah), chutzpah, dreidel, kibbitzer, kosher, lox, pastrami (orig. from Romanian), schlep, spiel, schlepp, schlemiel, schlimazel, gefilte fish, goy, klutz, knish, matzoh, oy vey, schmuck, schnook,

Scandinavian

fjord, maelstrom, ombudsman, ski, slalom, smorgasbord

Russian

apparatchik, borscht, czar/tsar, glasnost, icon, perestroika, vodka

Words from other parts of the world

Sanskrit

avatar, karma, mahatma, swastika, yoga

Hindi

bandanna, bangle, bungalow, chintz, cot, cummerbund, dungaree, juggernaut, jungle, loot, maharaja, nabob, pajamas, punch (the drink), shampoo, thug, kedgeree, jamboree

Dravidian

curry, mango, teak, pariah

Persian (Farsi)

check, checkmate, chess

Arabic

bedouin, emir, jakir, gazelle, giraffe, harem, hashish, lute, minaret, Mosque, myrrh, salaam, sirocco, sultan, vizier, bazaar, caravan

African languages

banana (via Portuguese), banjo, boogie-woogie, chigger, goober, gorilla, gumbo, jazz, jitterbug, jitters, juke(box), voodoo, yam, zebra, zombie

American Indian languages

avocado, cacao, cannibal, canoe, chipmunk, chocolate, chili, hammock, hominy, hurricane, maize, moccasin, moose, papoose, pecan, possum, potato, skunk, squaw, succotash, squash, tamale (via Spanish), teepee, terrapin, tobacco, toboggan, tomahawk, tomato, wigwam, woodchuck

(plus thousands of place names, including Ottawa, Toronto, Saskatchewan and the names of more than half the

states of the U.S., including Michigan, Texas, Nebraska, Illinois)

Chinese

chop suey, chow mein, dim sum, ketchup, tea, ginseng, kowtow, litchee

Japanese

geisha, hara kiri, judo, jujitsu, kamikaze, karaoke, kimono, samurai, soy, sumo, sushi, tsunami

Pacific Islands

bamboo, gingham, rattan, taboo, tattoo, ukulele, boondocks

Australia

boomerang, budgerigar, didgeridoo, kangaroo (and many more in Australian English)

Modern English began around the 16th Century and, like all languages, is still changing. One change occurred when the suffix of some verb forms became s (loveth, loves; hath, has). Auxiliary verbs also changed (he is risen, he has risen).

Norman French is the 11th century language of France and England. It is an Indo-European language.

In 1066, the Norman king, William the Conqueror, invaded England. Many Norman French words entered the language after this. In general, the Normans were the nobility, while the native English were their servants. The names of domestic animals and their meats show this relationship. The animal name is English ("cow", "sheep", "pig") while the names of the meats derived from these animals is French ("beef", "mutton", "pork").

Language belongs to each of us. Everyone uses words. What is there in a language that makes people so curious? The answer is that there is almost nothing in our life that is not touched by language. We all speak and we all listen so we are all interested in the origin of words, in how they appear and die. Nowadays 750 million people all over the world use English. It has become the language of the planet.

Most of words are the same, but there are some differences. For example in Middle English ynogh is enough in modern English; longe is long; agoon is ago and so on, but they are a little bit similar in writing, so it is not very difficult to understand them.

Though the number of French loans in the modern period is relatively minor in comparison to Middle English, the contribution is most important. The French Loans were primarily borrowed to provide richness to the language. Whilst it was arguable during the Restoration whether the loans were corrupting or enriching the language, today there is no doubt or disputable grounds to argue that the loans did nothing but enrich the English language.

The borrowing of vocabulary is rapprochement of nations on the ground of economic, political and cultural connections. The bright example of it can be numerous French borrowings to English language.

Attempts to continue borrowings in 20th century did not have special success because language became more independent.

In my opinion we managed to study the problems of French borrowings in the English language. We understood possible ways of penetrating French words in the English language, we have seen difference ways of difference types of borrowings.

In spite of arrival of the words from different languages into the English vocabulary, the English Language did not suffer from large flow of foreign elements.

On the contrary its vocabulary has been enriched due to the taken foreign elements.

Native Etymologically the vocabulary of the English language is far from being homogenous. It consists of two layers - the native stock of words and the borrowed stock of words In fact native words comprise only 30% of the total number of words in the English vocabulary. The native words have a wider range of lexical and grammatical valiancy, they are highly polysemantic and productive in forming word clusters and set expressions.

Borrowings-the term is used to denote the process of adopting words from other languages and also the result of this process. Borrowed words or loanwords are words taken from another language and modified according to the patterns of the receiving language. In many cases a borrowed word especially one borrowed long ago is practically indistinguishable from a native word without a thorough etymological analysis.

Source of borrowings. - is appliede to the lang from which particular words were taken into Engl. Original borrowings. - the term is applied to the language the word may be traced to. Assimilation - the process of the changing of the adopted words. A. of thr borrowings includes changes in: sound form; morphological strct; grammar charact-s; usage.

Completely assimilated borrowings - are the words which have undergone all types of Assimilation. They are active in word formation. Partially assim-d b. - the words which lack one of the types of A. They are subdivided into: borrow. not ass-d grammatically (nouns borrowed from Latin or Greek); borrow. not ass-d phonetically (contain peculiarities in stress, not standard for English); barbarisms - words from other lang., used by English people in conversations or writing, but not assimilated in any way.

Why are words borrowed? Wars, conquests; trade, international and cultural relations; to fill the gap in vocabulary; words, which express some particular notion; enrichment of word groups (syn., ant…).

The fact that for many of the above words Germanic equivalents already existed in English and continued to exist led to a stylistic splitting of the vocabulary of English. Thus a word like work is a Germanic word and the normal everyday word whereas labour is a Romance loanword which is regarded as being on a higher level, cf. `I have some work to do now', `The value of labour in our society'. In other cases the Romance loanword has come to have a slightly different meaning to the Germanic base word, cf. ask and demand where the latter (Romance) word has the implication of insisting on something.

Among the various types of changes which took place in the period in which Middle English borrowed from French through direct contact, are those which led to a mixing of Germanic and Romance elements. Thus one has cases of assimilation in which an English word was created on the basis of a similar sounding French word. Here one has an instance of the French form complementing the English one. For example, the English verb choose obtained a noun choice on the basis of a borrowing of French choix.

In some cases one can no longer decide whether the Germanic or the Romance form of a word has survived into Modern English. Thus in the case of the adjective rich one cannot tell whether it is a continuation of the Old English rice or the later French borrowing riche. However, one can in many cases see a contamination of the morphology of words due to French borrowing. With the previous adjective one can see the Romance suffix in the noun formed from it: richess as opposed to Old English richdom with the Romance ending -ess.

The form of a word may have been changed without its meaning having been affected. With the Old English word iegland / iland (cf. German Eiland) one arrives at the later spelling island under the influence of French isle. Note that the s here is unetymological, i.e. was never pronounced in English. Some French loanwords were influenced by changes later than Middle English. This is for example the case with Old French viage which was borrowed into Middle English but where the later French form voyage was borrowed into English and adapted in its pronunciation. The same is true of the Middle English noun flaute which was changed under the influence of later French flute.

The form of many French loanwords can be used to date borrowing. As mentioned above there are two strands of French influence, an early Anglo-Norman one and a later Central French one. These can be identified phonologically as can be seen in the word pairs catch and chase or cattle and chattels (from captiare and capitale in Latin respectively). In the first word one sees Middle English cacchen which was borrowed from North French cachier as the retention of the /k/ before /a/ was a feature of Norman French.

After 1250 the influence of Central French was predominant in England. In this variety of French the original /k/ retained in Norman French was shifted to /t?/ which is reflected in the writing where c was changed to ch. Thus we have the Central French verb chacier being borrowed into Middle English as chacen, Modern English chase. Note that the later borrowing did not replace the earlier one in keeping with the principle that if two variant forms come to be distinguished semantically their continuing existence in the language is as good as guaranteed. Not so with a number of other Norman French borrowings which were replaced by the later Central French ones: calice, carite, cancel; chalice, charite, chancel.

The Central French /t?/ underwent the further change to /?/ in the course of the post-Middle English period and later loans reflect this. Thus we have change and chief as Middle English loans from Central French with /t?/ but words like chef and champagne with /?/ are of a later origin.

Similar differences in pronunciation can be used to date other loanwords from French. For example the relationship of /dћ/ and /ћ/ shows the relative chronology of borrowing. The older loans such as siege, judge, age show the affricate /dћ/ whereas newer loans from the Early Modern English period have the simple fricative typical of Modern French as in rouge /ru:ћ/; with the word garage there still exist two alternative pronunciations /?gжr?d?/ and /g??r?:?/.

One can also recognise later borrowings by the vowel quality when the stress is found on the final syllable: memoir (cf. the earlier loan memory), liqueur (cf. the earlier form liquor).

England's emergence as a superpower brought it, in a sense, border expansion because of colonialism. This also introduced its people to sights they had never seen and for which they would need descriptive words. The Britons could only borrow them as there was no native term to express what they encountered.

There were no such things as boomerangs or kangaroos in England, so when the Britons came upon them instead of creating entirely new words to define them, the easier alternative was to borrow the Australian words. Elephants, leopards and panthers also were not native to England and, again, these animal names would have to be borrowed for Britons to describe them to one another. Even the tomato, unknown in the country until its introduction from the New World, would have to be named. Borrowing from the Spanish tomate, the British settled on tomato.

While these examples were new words to the English and diversified their vocabulary, they did not affect the “structure” of their speech. Instead, they were “simply the adoption of names for particular things,” according to Greenough and Kittredge.

The Renaissance brought a multitude of classical words, particularly from France and Italy, increasing the Latin influence on language in England. But Italy, along with Spain, contributed few borrowed words because the English language was nearly completely formed by this age. The new words and phrases enriched the British language, but Jespersen believes at somewhat of a cost. Because of the various invasions, the English had, over time, begun to “shrink from consciously coining new words out of native material.” That concept brings us full circle back to the “physical mobility and mental laziness” aspect of borrowing words.

These, in a sense, exotic words now easily roll off the tongues of English-speaking people. We all know what a kindergarten, from the German, means. Most would know what a baguette or croissant, from the French, also mean. And, staying with baked goods, the Yiddish bagel (originally beygl) is certainly well known to many English-speaking people, particularly New Yorkers.

But do all foreign or exotic words lend themselves to borrowing and become ingrained in the English language? In The Lexicographer's Dilemma, author Jack Lynch brings up the Arabic jihad and questions whether it is an English word yet. Before September 11, 2001, I doubt many English speakers had heard of the word. By September 12, I believe that jihad was as familiar a phrase to us as the word bread.

Liberman, in one of his lectures, illustrated the borrowed words sputnik and perestroika. At various points in time these borrowed words were all the rage. While I was too young to comprehend sputnik when it was launched, throughout my early school years I learned its significance. Yet, I doubt that any person in high school today would understand the word or fathom how quickly it was borrowed into the English language.

The same fate awaited perestroika. About six years after it was proposed in the Soviet Union, the word filled inches of newspaper copy in the mid 1980s. But I would be amazed to find any mention of Gorbachev's initiative for today's English-speaking newspaper readers. If borrowed words are a “result of language contact in a certain place at a certain time,” as Liberman phrases it in Word Origins, then these two Russian words fit the bill perfectly. But these etymons probably have little “staying power,” particularly since neither really forms ties with other words. So, like the many borrowed words from the past that failed to live on, these two are also probably consigned to the linguistic junk heap, at least for English readers.

In wrapping up, the borrowing of words illustrates that when two languages compete for domination over one another, adaptability and adoptability are key ingredients. The Celts did not understand this and their language was marginalized. The Germanic-speakers faced the same fate when confronted with the Norman Conquest, but many of the higher-educated Britons saw the (Gallic) writing on the wall and chose to borrow the necessary words and phrases to communicate in a changed environment. By, out of necessity, opting to borrow from their foreign rulers, the English language evolved into the most extensive and prolific on the planet.

Celtic borrowings When the Anglo-Saxons took control of Britain, the original Celts moved to the northern and western fringes of the island - which is why the only places where Celtic languages are spoken in Britain today are in the west (Welsh in Wales) and north (Scottish Gaelic in the Scottish Highlands). Celtic speakers seem to have been kept separate from the Anglo-Saxon speakers. Those who remained in other parts of Britain must have merged in with the Anglo-Saxons. The end result is a surprising small number - only a handful - of Celtic borrowings. Some of them are dialectal such as cumb (deep valley) or loch (lake). Reminders of Britain's Celtic past are mainly in the form of Celtic-based placenames including river names such as Avon, `river', Don, Exe, Severn and Thames. Town names include Dover, `water', Eccles, `church', Kent, Leeds, London and York.

More recently, though, Celtic words were also introduced into English from Irish Gaelic - bog, brogue, blarney, clan, slogan, whisky.

Scandinavian borrowings.

The Scandinavian influence on Britain can be thought of in terms of three episodes.

Firstly, we can think of the period 750-1016 when the Vikings (Scandinavians) began attacking the northern and eastern shores of Britain and settling in those parts of Britain. There was a state of enmity between the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings, so unsurprisingly, not many Scandinavian borrowings took place; these include husbonda (husband) and lagu (law).

Secondly, we can consider the period 1016-1050, where the conditions were more or less similar to the earlier period, only that King Alfred the Great had succeeded in uniting the Anglo-Saxons through actively promoting the English language (among other things). There were more borrowings, including cnif (knife) and diegan (die).

Finally, we have the period 1050-1480. The French-speaking Normans took over Britain in 1066, and both the English and Scandinavians were given the same fate and were subdued by the Normans. Naturally, the English and the Scandinavians come together and interact with each other more closely. Therefore, a massive influence of the Scandinavian languages on English, in both grammar and vocabulary.

Unless you are a specialist, it is very difficult to pick out Scandinavian loan-words in English. This is because they seem to have the same quality and texture as Anglo-Saxon words. They are ordinary, everyday words, and quite often monosyllabic and include grammatical words (like the verb are (to be), or the pronouns their, them and they and some of the commonest words in English today like bag, dirt, fog, knife, flat, low, odd, ugly, want, trust, get, give, take, raise, smile and though. A good number of sc- or sk- words today are of Scandinavian origin (scathe, scorch, score, scowl, scrape, scrub, skill, skin, skirt, sky). Scandinavian loan-words are therefore more usefully considered as core items. Why is this so?

1 The English and Scandinavian belong to the same Germanic racial, cultural and linguistic stock originally and their language, therefore, shared common grammatical features and words. But changes had occurred in the languages during the couple of centuries of separation of the two sets of people.

2 The Scandinavians came to settle, rather than conquer or pillage. They lived alongside the Anglo-Saxons on more or less equal terms.

3 Under the Norman French, particularly, the two different groups fashioned a common life together as subjects.

Under these conditions:

(a) the English word sometimes displaced the cognate Scandinavian word: fish instead of fisk; goat instead of gayte;

(b) the Scandinavian word sometimes displaces the cognate English word: egg instead of ey, sister instead of sweoster;

(c) both might remain, but with somewhat different meanings: dike-ditch, hale-whole, raise-rise, sick-ill, skill-craft, skirt-shirt;

(d) the English word might remain, but takes on the Scandinavian meaning dream (originally `joy', `mirth', `music', `revelry'); and

(e) the English words that were becoming obsolete might be given a new lease of life, eg dale and barn.

Latin borrowings

Latin, being the language of the Roman Empire, had already influenced the language of the Germanic tribes even before they set foot in Britain. Latin loanwords reflected the superior material culture of the Roman Empire, which had spread across Europe: street, wall, candle, chalk, inch, pound, port, camp.

The native Celts had also learnt some Latin, and some of these were borrowed by the Anglo-Saxons in Britain: sign, pearl, anchor, oil, chest, pear, lettuce.

Latin was also the language of Christianity, and St Augustine arrived in Britain in AD 597 to christianise the nation. Terms in religion were borrowed: pope, bishop, monk, nun, cleric, demon, disciple, mass, priest, shrine. Christianity also brought with it learning: circul, not (note), paper, scol (school), epistol.

Many Latin borrowings came in in the early MnE period. Sometimes, it is difficult to say whether the loan-words were direct borrowings from Latin or had come in through French (because, after all, Latin was also the language of learning among the French). One great motivation for the borrowings was the change in social order, where scientific and philosophical empiricism was beginning to be valued. Many of the new words are academic in nature therefore: affidavit, apparatus, caveat, corpuscle, compendium, equilibrium, equinox, formula, inertia, incubate, momentum, molecule, pendulum, premium, stimulus, subtract, vaccinate, vacuum. This resulted in the distinction between learned and popular vocabulary in English.

Greek borrowings

Greek was also a language of learning, and Latin itself borrowed words from Greek. Indeed the Latin alphabet is an adaptation of the Greek alphabet.

Many of the Greek loan-words were through other languages: through French - agony, aristocracy, enthusiasm, metaphor; through Latin - ambrosia, nectar, phenomenon, rhapsody. There were some general vocabulary items like fantasy, cathedral, charismatic, idiosyncrasy as well as more technical vocabulary like anatomy, barometer, microscope, homoeopathy.

During the Renaissance and after, there were modern coinages from Greek elements (rather than borrowings). For example, photo- yielded photograph, photogenic, photolysis and photokinesis; bio- yielded biology, biogenesis, biometry, bioscope; tele- yielded telephone, telepathy, telegraphic, telescopic. Other Greek elements used to coin new words include crypto-, hydro-, hyper-, hypo-, neo- and stereo-.

Other borrowings

As a result of empire and trade contacts, the lexicon of English continued to acquire terms from other languages including the following:

4 American: racoon, coyote, prairie, wigwam

5 Australian: wallaby, kangaroo, boomerang

6 Arabic: saffron, sequin, tamarind, alchemy, zenith

7 Persian: naphtha, jasmine, chess, lilac

8 Japanese: samurai, kimono

9 Other Asian regions: avatar, yoga, stupa, karma, curry, bangle, chop, catamaran, mandarin, ketchup, kowtow

For users of English in England, America, the rest of Europe, etc., these settle around periphery, not as learned words but as exotica.

CHAPTER 2. THE FUNCTIONING OF FRENCH BORROWINGS IN THE FIELD OF FASHION, FOOD, CLOTHES

2.1 Functioning of French borrowings in Middle English

Borrowing as means of replenishing the vocabulary of present-day English is of much greater importance and is comparatively active only in the field of scientific terminology and social-political terminology as many terms are often made up of borrowed morphemes, mostly morphemes from classical languages.

The influence which English exerted on our language is seen in all aspects of life, social, political and hardly any walk of live was unaffected by it. The first point to be emphasized is that here we are not dealing with completely new ideas introduced from a different type of civilization and culture, but rather the imposing by a dominant race of their own terms for ideas which were already familiar to the subject race. Such a state of affairs obviously means that there will arise pairs of words the native and the foreign term for the same idea and a struggle for survival between the two, so that one of the words was eventually lost from the language, or survived only with some differentiation of meaning.

Borrowed words have been called «The milestones of philology» - said O. Jespersen - because they permit us (show us) to fix appreciatively the dates of linguistic changes. They show us the course of civilization and give us information of the nations». The well-known linguist Shuchard said «No language is entirely pure», that all the languages are mixed. Borrowed words enter the language as a result of influence of two main causes of factors; linguistic and extra-linguistic.

A native word is a word which belongs to the original stock. An English native word is a word which belongs to Anglo-Saxon origin. To the native words we include words from Common Germanic language and from Indo-European stock.

A borrowed word, a loan word or borrowing is a word taken over from another language and modified in phonemic shape, spelling, paradigm or meaning according to the standards of the language.

For example, in its 15 century long history recorded in written manuscripts the English language happened to come in long and close contact with several other languages mainly Latin, French and Old Norse. The great influx of borrowings from these sources can be accounted for by a number of historical causes. Due to the great influence of the Roman civilization Latin was for a long time used in England as the language of learning and religion. Old Norse was the language of the conquerors who were on the same level of social and cultural development and who nudged rather easily with the local population in the 9th, 10th and the first half of the 11th century. French (Norman dialect) was the language of the other conquerors. Who brought with them a lot of new nations of a higher social system developed feudalism it was the language of upper classes, of official documents and school instruction from the middle of the 11th century to the end of the 14th century.

It must be pointed out that while the general historical reasons for borrowing from different languages have been studied with a considerable degree of through the purely linguistic reasons for borrowings are still open to investigation. The number and character of borrowings do not only depend on the historical conditions, on the nature and length of the contacts, but also on the degree of the genetic and structural proximity of languages concerned. The closer the languages the deeper and more versatile is the influence.

Borrowed words enter the language as a result of influence of two main causes or factors: linguistic and extra-linguistic. Economic, cultural, industrial, political relations of speakers of the language with other countries refer to extra-linguistic factors.

For example, due to the great influence of the Roman civilization Latin was for a long time used in England as the language of learning and religion. Old Norse of the Scandinavian tribes was the language of the conquerors. French (Norman dialect) was the language of the other conquerors who brought with them a lot of new notions of a higher social system, developed feudalism. It was the language of upper classes, of official documents and school. The same is in Uzbek language. Due to the expansion of Islam religion, Arabic was used for centuries in Central Asia as the language of science and religion1. For about two centuries Russian language hold a dominant position in the nations of former Soviet Union. It was priority to know Russian and it was a language of communication and friendship. These factors are extra-linguistic ones.