Borrowed Words

The rich variety of the English vocabulary reflects the vast number of words it has taken from other languages. These range from Latin, Greek, Scandinavian, Celtic, French, Italian, Spanish, and Russian to, among others, Hebrew, Maori, Malay, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, andYiddish. Philip Durkin's full and accessible history reveals how, when, and why. He shows how to discover the origins of loanwords, when and why they were adopted, and what happens to them once they have been. The long documented history of English includes contact with languages in a variety of contexts, including: the dissemination of Christian culture in Latin in Anglo-Saxon England, and the interactions of French, Latin, Scandinavian, Celtic, and English during the Middle Ages; exposure to languages throughout the world during the colonial era; and the effects of using English as an international language of science. Philip Durkin describes these and other historical inputs, introducing the approaches each requires, from the comparative method for the earliest period to documentary and corpus research in the modern. The discussion is illustrated at every point with examples taken from a variety of different sources. The framework Dr Durkin develops can be used to explore lexical borrowing in any language. This outstanding book is for everyone interested in English etymology and in loanwords more generally. It will appeal to a wide general public and at the same time offers a valuable reference for scholars and students of the history of English. Philip Durkin introduces and investigates how successive phases of language contact have made their mark on the vocabulary of English. Underlying the whole enterprise is an impressive, sagacious control of basic (and more advanced) principles, which are gradually laid out before the reader and illustrated with much thought. This is an important and engaging book. Richard Dance, University of CambridgePART I: INTRODUCTION ; 1. Introducing Concepts ; 2. Introducing the Data ; PART II: EARLY CONTACTS IN CONTINENTAL EUROPE AND BRITAIN ; 3. Historical and Cultural Background to c. 1150 ; 4. Very Early Borrowings into Germanic ; 5. Old English in Contact with Celtic ; PART III: OLD ENGLISH AND PROTO-OLD ENGLISH IN CONTACT WITH LATIN ; Introduction to Part III ; 6. An Overview of Latin Loanwords in Old English ; 7. Interrogating the Data from Chapter 6 ; 8. Methodologies: sound change; word geography; loanwords versus semantic borrowing ; Conclusions to Part III ; PART IV: SCANDINAVIAN INFLUENCE ; Introduction to Part IV ; 9. Introduction to Scandinavian Loanwords in English ; 10. Identifying Scandinavian Borrowings, and Assessing their Impact ; Conclusions to Part IV ; PART V: BORROWING FROM FRENCH AND LATIN IN MIDDLE ENGLISH ; Introduction to Part V ; 11. Exploring the Contact Situation and Identifying Loans ; 12. Quantifying French and Latin Contributions to Middle English ; 13. Example Passages from English and Multilingual Texts ; Conclusions to Part V ; PART VI: LOANWORDS INTO ENGLISH AFTER 1500; HOW BORROWING HAS AFFECTED THE LEXICON ; Introduction to Part VI ; 14. Borrowing from Latin and French after 1500 ; 15. Loanwords from Other Languages: test cases ; 16. Long-term Effects of Loanwords on the Shape of the English Lexicon ; 17. General Conclusions and Pointers for Further Investigation ; References ; Index