Borrowings from Latin, Greek, Scandinavian

It was only after the Danes began to settle down in Britain that Scandinavian words started enteringthe English language in larger numbers. We cannot divide these words into different groupsbased on experience, for example, because Scandinavian loanwords are straight and simple, as opposed to Latin or French words. Their usage is common, familiar, and routine. Below are the typical examples of Scandinavian loan words in Modern English. All in all, there are approximately 900 Scandinavian words in the Modern English language.NOUNS: band, bank, birth, booth, brink, bull, calf, crook, dirt, down, egg, fellow, freckle, gait, gap, guess, husband, keel, kid, law, leg, link, loan, race, reef,reindeer,root, scales, score, seat, sister, skill, skin, skirt, sky, slaughter, steak, swain, trust, want, window;VERBS: bait, bask, cast, clip, crave, crawl, die, gape, gasp, get, give, glitter, hit, kindle, lift, nag, raise, rake, rid, rive, scare, scowl, screech, snub, sprint, take, thrive, thrust;ADJECTIVES: awkward, flat, ill, loose, low, meek, muggy, odd, rotten, rugged, scant, seemly, sly, tattered, tight, weakAs has already been mentioned, these words denote commonplace things and phenomena and of routine everyday use. Some new words came in for the same concepts as those already existing in OE, so the new words were often redundant in the English lexicon. However, these words entered the English as the result of the mixture of the two peoples. As Ruiz Moneva [12]notes, the most important source languages at the OE and ME periods were Celtic, Latin, French and Scandinavian. But, “contrary to what had happened with the Celts, the Scandinavian influence upon the English language is characterized by its intensity, the great and important areas of the language which were affected” [12].As was stated earlier, at one time, both languages were used side by side. This situation could have led tosix different scenarios [3, 12] (1) If words in the two languages coincided in form and meaning, the modern word had equal weight for both its English and its Scandinavian ancestors.Examples include such words asburn, hang, drag, thick,cole, fast, scrape, murk(y). (2) If the wordsdiffered in form, the English word normally survived. Examples include such words asbench, grey, leap, heathen,goat, flay, yarn, few, loath. (3) Sometimes the Scandinavian word replaced the OE word, for example, after the words had remained in use alongside for a long time. For instance, the Scandinavian word awehad its cognate eye (aye), which was an OE word. In the earlier ME period the English word was more widespread, but by 1300s the Scandinavian wordbecame more common and eventuallytook over the Old English word. The same was the case for the words such asegg – ey (OE) and egg (Scandinavian); sister – OE sweostor, ON syster, and many others.(4)In some cases, both the English and Scandinavian words survived with a difference inuse or meaning: from-fro, whole-hale, rear-raise,no-nay, craft-skill, sick-ill,hide-skin. (5) Some English words that had not been in common use were reintroduced or reinforced from the Scandinavian. Examples include such words asrim,till, dale, run,blend, and the Scottish bairn. (6) Finally, the English was modified by importing some features of the equivalent Scandinavian word. Examples include such words asgive and get with their hard g and Thursday replacing the OE ThunresdÅ‘g.Borrowing words from other languages has always been one of the important means of replenishing of the English vocabulary. There are many words in English that are of foreign origin. The language from which the loan word was taken into English is called the source of borrowing. The original language to which the word may be traced is called the origin of borrowing, e.g. the word “infantry” (пехота) has French as its source of borrowing and Italian is its origin. In etymological dictionaries the source comes first.Concluding remarksAs we could see the English language is indeed one the richest world’s language. It possesses such an wide-ranging vocabulary owing to its ability to borrow and absorb words from other vernaculars. As a result, it now comprises an enormous number of words of foreign origin. Despite these developments, the language has not been affected as far its identity is concerned: nearly 70% of vocabulary in any English text are Anglo-Saxon. Similarly, the English grammar is essentially Anglo-Saxon.ReferencesAllen E.A., English Doublets, Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 1908, 23:2:184-239 Ayers D.M., English words from Latin and Greek elements, 2nd ed., 1986, p. 158Baugh A.C. and Cable T.A History of the English Language, 5th ed., Routledge, 2002 Buck C. D. A dictionary of selected synonyms in the principal Indo–European languages: a contribution to the history of ideas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949Fennell B. A history of English. A sociolinguistic approach. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.Freeborn D, From Old English to Standard English: A Course Book in Language Variation Across Time, 2nd edn. (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1998), 73Jespersen O. Growth and the Structure of The English Language. Oxford, 1982Lounsbury T.R., History of the English Language, 1882, New York: H. Holt &Co.McArthur T. (ed.): The Oxford Companion to the English Language, (Oxford University Press, 1992).McKnight G. H. English Words and Their Background. N.Y. - Ldn., 1931McWhorter, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, 2008, pp. 89–136.Moneva R. A relevance theory approach to the Scandinavian influence upon the development of the English language // Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses 10 (1997): 183-191Okrent A., “5 Words That Are Spelled Weird Because Someone Got the Etymology Wrong”, Mental Floss, October 8, 2014 Peraki M. & Vougiouklaki C. How has Greek influenced the English language? British Council, 2015, https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/how-has-greek-influenced-english-languagePlag I. Word-formation in English, Cambridge University Press, 2003The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge University Press, 2003The Church and the Middle Ages, http://www.csis.pace.edu/grendel/projs2c/middle.htmlWalker C.B., Chadwick J., Reading the Past: Ancient Writing from Cuneiform to the Alphabet, 1990, p. 161