Ministry of higher and secondary

LATIN BORROWINGS IN THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD

The significance of Latin borrowings can be marked not only in the distant times but nowadays too. Surprisingly, but borrowings continue to appear in Modern English as well [9, 223].
There are quite a lot of them, for instance:

1. 
   in medicine; «aspirin» – coined in 1899 in Germany as a trademark name, either from from Gk. a- «without» + L. spiraea, the plant in which the natural acid in the medicine is found, or a contraction of acetylierte spirsaure, the name of the acid found in the leaves of the plant.
   
2. 
   in chemistry; «valence» – 1884, from L. valentia – «strength, capacity», from valentem (nom. valens), prp. of valere – «be strong».
   

In a sense the French words were Latin borrowings since French developed from Vulgar Latin - as did all the Romance languages. The borrowings that came directly from Latin tended to be more learned in character--e.g., allegory, index, magnify, mechanical,private, secular, zenith, conspiracy, contempt, gesture, immune, infinite, minor, necessity, popular, precinct, private, script, secular, solar, subjugate, temperature, testimony, vulgar, etc.
Many such words words introduced into English a substantial number of affixes: - suffixes: -able, -ible, -ent, -al, -ive; -prefixes: ab-, ad-, am-, ante-, con-, dis-, im-, in-, pro-, re-, sub-
It is estimated that in contemporary English about one in four words is of Latin origin. A number of Latin words and phrases preserved their Latin spelling (and, to a certain extent, pronunciation): agendum, antenna, bonafide “real, genuine” (a bonafide manuscript/ agreement ‘something undertaken in good faith’), erratum (pl. errata), innuendo 1. an indirect or subtle reference, especially one made maliciously or indicating criticism or disapproval, insinuation; 2 legal term
used in an action or libel/ declamation, used as an explanation in the construction put upon the words alleged to be defamatory where this meaning is not apparent”, factotum, habeas corpus, in flagrante delicto, perdiem, viva voce, etc.
Latin also lent a number of abbreviations to English:
a.m. – ante meridian i.e. – id est ‘that is’
p.m. – post-meridian
e.g. – exempli gratia
l.s.d. – Lat. libra, solidi, denarii ‘pounds, shillings, pennies’ cf. – confer < Lat. Conferro, -erre ‘to compare’
viz. – Lat. Videlicet ‘namely, that is to say’
The official style (used for instance in the courts of law), as well as scientific and technical English are characterised by an abundance of Latin borrowings, e.g. in flagrante delicto, Habeas corpus, jus canonicum, jus divinum, to recidivate, recidivism, etc [20, 112]. Direct borrowings from Latin (aureate terms) were a stylistic affectation of the 15^th century Scottish Chaucerians such as James I, Henryson, and Dunbar. Some of these words have been dropped from English (or never really made it in) while others have survived, e.g., diurnal (daily or daytime), tenebrous (dark), laureate, mediation, oriental, prolixity. It has been pointed out that as a result of Middle English borrowings from French and Latin, Modern English has synonyms on three levels: popular (English), literary (French), and learned (Latin), as in rise – mount – ascend ; ask – question – interrogate ; fire – flame – conflagration; holy – sacred – consecrated, time – age – epoch, fire – flame – conflagration, etc. The flow of Latin borrowings has been going on incessantly even in the present day scenario.
Summing up of all what has just been said we can conclude that Latin loan words leave a huge mark to the English vocabulary. Yet one cannot deny that excessive latinization of English has stunned the growth of native vocabulary.