Celtic Borrowings
Celtic borrowings are of primary historical importance for English. When the Anglo-Saxons came to the British Isles in the 5th century A.D. they met with the Celts or Britains – the native inhabitants of the British Isles whom they pushed away to the North and the West. The whole number of Celtic words in English whether borrowed directly or indirectly is 165 according to Walter Skeat’s counts: banner (булка домашнего хлеба), bard, glad, clad, cradle, loch/lock (lake).
Celtic elements are mostly found in place names, e.g. aber (the mouth of the river) – Aberdeen; avon (a river) – Stratford-on-Avon; inch (an island) – Inchcape.
Greek Borrowings
Greek borrowings were usually adopted through Latin and French. Many Latin Christian terms were of Greek origin: abbot, bishop, school, Christ, monk; chair, police, policy, chronicle came to English from Greek through Latin and French.
The direct borrowing of the Greek words into English started only in the period of the Renaissance: literature owes the following terms – tragedy, comedy, drama… Greek elements, affixes and roots are widely used in English to create new terms: telephone, photography, telegramme etc.
Italian Borrowings
Italian borrowings are mostly musical terms: allegro, aria, finale, piano, opera, solo, sonata, soprano, trill, violin, macaroni, spaghetti, influenza, umbrella, manifest etc.
Spanish Borrowings
The Spanish element in English like the Italian is mainly modern, e.g. cigar, embargo, junta, mosquito etc. The following words were introduced through Spanish to Europe from America: coco, chilly, chocolate, tomato, potato, tobacco, canoeing, yucca etc.
Russian Borrowings
Russian borrowings may be subdivided into 2 principle groups:
Borrowings that took place before 1917 such as: izba, ruble, kopeck, tsar, borzoi, Cossack etc.
And borrowings after 1917. The so-called sovietisms: Bolshevik, soviet, Komsomol, udarnik; later – sputnik, lunnik; recent – perestroika, glasnost, Gorbotchov etc.
Dostları ilə paylaş: |
