Languages that shaped modern English
Hoofdvraag : What are the influences that other languages have had on modern English?
Everyone knows that modern English as it is today has not always been that way. Over the course of time the English language has changed a lot, almost as if it was a completely different language in the past. But now what exactly are the influences that other old and/or foreign languages have had on the English language? Do these influences truly matter or not? When did these influences begin to affect the way the English language evolved into modern English instead of something that may not have been modern English? And what historical occasion has caused the introduction of these influences on the English language?
Wat willen we weten : How did the English language get its loanwords and from which languages did they originate?
Loanwords are untranslated words adopted from other languages that share the same definition in both the language that has adopted the word and the language of origin. How did the English language get its loanwords; what occurrence has brought these words in contact with the English language and how were these words adopted? Do these loanwords still have the same meaning as they originally had or did they turn into slang? Are there other words in the English language that share the same definition as these loanwords, and if so, why do we choose to use the loanwords instead?
All languages that are spoken today stem from other languages, these languages used to be the primarily spoken or written language in places but they eventually faded away or evolved into other languages, these languages are called archaic languages.
What we want to know: From which archaic language(s) does English directly stem from and how can we tell?
The origins of lots of languages these days can be traced back to the same archaic languages because of this there will be linguistic similarities between these languages.
What we want to know: Which modern languages does English share similarities with and why does it?
The English language has existed for over a thousand years, this doesn’t mean however that it hasn’t changed in that time. Languages change in all kinds of ways: words can get different meanings or usages, new words can be created and the pronunciation of words or even letters can change. For drastic changes in the language linguists will name it differently because it has essentially become a different language, i.e. middle English, modern English.
What we want to know: When and why did the shifts from old to middle and middle to modern English occur?
Mogelijke bronnen:
Bibliotheek oosterland Bergschenhoek
Centrale bibliotheek Rotterdam
Bibliotheek waar Denzel woont
Bibliotheek universiteit van Leiden
Verscheidene websites op het internet
Logboek
Denzel:
[ 03-07-2016 @ 13:44 – 13:57 ] – Toelichting op de hoofdvraag, uitleg over wat we willen weten om de hoofdvraag te kunnen beantwoorden. Lezer inzicht geven over wat we met de hoofdvraag bedoelen. Punten die we willen onderzoeken opgeschreven.
[ 04-07-2016 @ 10:22 – 10:42 ] – Toelichting eerste deelvraag, wat willen we te weten komen om de deelvraag te beantwoorden? Uitleg over loanwords, wat zijn het? Lezer inzicht geven over wat we met de deelvraag bedoelen.
[ 04-07-2016 @ 11:51 – 12:04 ] – Bijhouden logboek v.d afgelopen dagen, waarschijnlijk later nog toelichtingen op hoofd-en-deelvraag aanpassen.
[ 24-01-2017 @ 13:19 – 14:48 ] – Deelvraag over loanwords and their origin gedeeltelijk gemaakt (grotendeels af, alleen nog toelichting over de woorden en misschien wat Nederlandse woorden opzoeken).
[ 25-01-2017 @ 17:20 – 20:08 ] – Deelvraag loanwords afgemaakt, lijst gemaakt met leenwoorden en de Latijnse synoniemen van de woorden, de afkomst en de tijd perioden.
[ 26-01-2017 @ 10:38 – 15:00 ] – Deelvraag over archaic languages gemaakt.
[ 26-01-2017 @ 17:20 – 17:35 ] – Plaatjes toegevoegd aan deelvraag over archaic languages.
[ 26-06-2017 @ 10:50 – 11:17 ] – Deelvraag over loanwords uitgebreid en begin gemaakt aan beantwoorden van de hoofdvraag.
— From which archaic languages does English directly stem from and how can we tell? —
The definition of an ‘’archaic language’’ is ‘’an old language containing words and phrases that were used regularly, but are now less common or hardly ever used. These words and phrases might have fallen out of use or changed their meanings in such a way that they’re no longer the most exactly fitting words to express an idea.”
But words are not only replaced or lost when they aren’t capable of expressing the people’s ideas anymore, another reason for the loss of certain words may be the change of dominant culture in a specific area.
As for England, this happened in the mid-5th century when the Anglo-Saxon became the dominant culture, during this period the people in England began to speak Anglo-Saxon over Roman Britain languages. The coming of Christianity in AD 597 introduced Latin literacy to England.
Soon came attempts by the English people, to render the English language using the letters of the Latin alphabet – these have survived throughout the ages and still remain part of the modern English language.
However Old English used some letters no longer found in modern English:
Derived from Irish Latin;
‘eth’ <Ð> <ð> (Uppercase, lowercase)
‘yogh’ <3>
‘thorn’ <Þ> <þ>
‘wynn’ <ƿynn>
‘ash’ <Æ> <æ>
By keeping in mind the definition of archaic languages we could say that English must derive from Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, which indirectly stems from Germanic languages and Latin.
(Small piece from the Beowulf manuscript, produced between 975 and 1025 [Anglo-Saxon])
“ofer hron rade” | “over the whale’s road”
The Germanic tribes settled down in Britain before the Anglo-Saxons did, thus if we look at the evolution of the English language we’re able to trace back both Germanic and Anglo-Saxon influences.
Before the settlement of the Germanic tribes and the Anglo-Saxons, the people in Britain spoke Roman Britain languages, which were languages that derived from Latin, since the people from the Roman Empire, which had colonised Britain in 43 AD, generally spoke Latin.
English is a Germanic language, which is built from the dialects of Anglo-Frisian languages. This is the name of a group of West Germanic languages that includes Anglisc and Frisian. The Frisian languages are a closely related group of Germanic languages spoken by around half a million Frisian people, who lived on the southern edges of the North Sea in the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark.
The Anglo-Frisian dialects were brought to Britain in the mid-5th to 7th centuries AD by Germanic invaders, who came from the northwest side of Germany, west Denmark and the Netherlands.
Anglo-Saxon or “Old English” originated from a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects spoken by the Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes.
The Anglo-Saxons became dominant in England and their language replaced the languages of Roman Britain, a combination of Celtic and Latin that was brought to Britain by the Roman invasion in 43 AD under command of Emperor Claudius.
Old English had four main dialects of which each belonged to an Anglo-Saxon kingdom; Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish and West Saxon.
Old English’s closest relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon. Old English grammar is somewhat similar to that of modern German: nouns, adjectives, pronouns and verbs have many inflectional endings and forms, and word order is much freer.
West Saxon formed the base for the literary standard of the later Old English period, although the dominant forms of Middle and Modern English developed mainly from Mercian.
The Germanic languages make use of many Latin words and phrases and thus the English language has many words of Latin origin in it.
The reason for the Germanic tribes to make use of these many Latin words and phrases is that they were a community which was often found to be trading goods, or knowledge about art, science and religion with the Romans, who happened to speak Latin.
The first Old English literary works date back to approximately the mid-7th century.
These old literary works were written using a runic system, which was replaced by a version of the Latin alphabet in the 9th-century.
In the 9th-century the speech of the Danelaw was greatly influenced by the Scandinavian rule and settlement.
The Danelaw (9th-century) is a historical name given to the part of England in which the laws of the Danes applied and dominated those of the Anglo-Saxons. (northern and eastern England.)
The Danelaw originated from the Viking expansion of the 9th-century AD.
The increase in population and productivity in Scandinavia resulted in Viking warriors seeking treasure and glory in the nearby British Isles.
After the Norman Conquest of 1066, English was replaced, for a time, as the language of the upper classes by Anglo-Norman, a relative of French, and Old English developed into the next historical form of English, known as Middle English.
The Norman conquest of England was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army of Norman, Breton and French soldiers under command of Duke William II of Normandy, later known as William the Conqueror.
William’s claim to the English throne derived from his familial relationship with the Anglo-Saxon King Edward the Confessor, whom died in January 1066 and was succeeded by his brother-in-law –
Harold Godwinson.
The Norwegian king Harald Hardrada invaded northern England in September 1066 and was victorious at the Battle of Fulford, but Harold defeated and killed him at the Battle of Stamford Bridge on 25 September.
The Old English languages slowly developed into Middle English after the Norman Conquest.
Middle English is a variety of English languages spoken after the Norman Conquest until the late 15th-century (according to the Oxford English Dictionary).
The development from Old English to Middle English started in around the 12th-century, in the High Middle Ages (11th – 13th centuries).
In the High Middle Ages the population of Europe rapidly increased, this resulted in great social and political change from the era prior to it, the Renaissance of the 12th-century.
At around 1250 AD the increase of population greatly benefited the European economy, the rate of increase was so enormous that some areas hadn’t seen such a great economy again until the 19th-century.
Writing customs during the Middle English times varied widely, but by the end of the Middle English period in around 1470, aided by the invention of printing using a press, a standard based on the London dialect (Chancery Standard) had become established.
Adopted slowly, the Chancery Standard was used in England by bureaucrats for most official purposes, excluding those of the Church and legalities, which used Latin and French.
During the Middle English period many of the Old English grammatical features were simplified or disappeared. This included the reduction (and eventual elimination) of most grammatical cases, and the simplification of noun, adjective and verb inflection.
Middle English also saw a mass adoption of Norman French vocabulary, as can be seen in the list of loanwords during the Middle English period, on page x [verwijst naar pagina in loanwords deelvraag].
These Norman French loanwords were mostly used in fields such as politics, law, art, and religion.
Everyday English vocabulary remained mostly Germanic, with the influences of Scandinavian language becoming apparent. (map of events during the Norman Conquest shown below)
Significant changes in pronunciation took place, especially in the case of long vowels, which in the later Middle English period began to undergo the Great Vowel Shift which took place in around 1350 to 1600.
Because of the Great Vowel Shift all Middle English long vowels changed their pronunciation.
Words like ‘’bite’’ were first pronounced like ‘bit’ while raising slightly on the letter ‘i’ such that it sounded more like “biit”, after the late Middle English period and in the beginning stages of Modern English the word would sound more like “bait” it was at the later stages of Modern English in which we are now that the word started sounding like “bite”.
Underneath this sentence you can see two tables in which words with their vowel pronunciations will be shown and the period in which the vowels were pronounced like that.
Little survived of the early Middle English literature, most likely because of the Norman domination and the prestige that came with writing in French rather than English.
Early Modern English (1100-1300) has a largely Anglo-Saxon vocabulary with many Scandinavian borrowings in the northern parts of England, but a greatly simplified inflectional system.
The grammatical relations that were expressed in Old English by the dative (to whom something is given) and instrumental cases (by means of, by use of.. using something to complete an action) are replaced in Early Middle English with prepositional constructions (in, from, throughout, with, etc).
The Old English genitive -es survives in the -‘s of the modern English possessive, but most of the other case endings disappeared in the Early Middle English period.
Gradually, the wealthy and the government Anglicised again. (Anglicisation is the process of converting something to more “English” norms.)
From around the early 14th century there was significant migration into London, particularly from the counties of the East Midlands, and a new prestige London dialect began to develop, based chiefly on the speech of the East Midlands, but also influenced by that of other regions.
The best known writer of Middle English, Geoffrey Chaucer, wrote in the second half of the 14th century in the emerging London dialect, although he also portrays some of his characters as speaking in northern dialects, as in the “Reeve’s Tale”, the third story told in The Canterbury Tales, a collection of stories written by Chaucer.
The Chancery Standard’s influence provides the core around which Modern English formed.
Early Modern English began in the 1540s after printing and wide distribution of the English Bible and Prayer Book, which made the new standard of English publicly recognizable, and lasted until about 1650.
To put everything in chronological order (summarised):
In the first century AD, in around the year 43 AD, the Roman Empire invaded and colonised Britain.
The language used before the Roman Britain languages remains unknown, due to there being no evidence or signs of transcripts or any writings of such a language.
With the end of the Roman rule, and the invasion of Germanic tribes in Britain in the mid-5th century, British Latin was displaced as a spoken language by Anglo-Saxon.
Anglo-Saxon was a language deriving from dialects of the Anglo-Frisian languages, the Germanic tribes who spoke these languages were Frisians who lived in the north west of Germany, west Denmark and the Netherlands.
Anglo-Frisian was a group of languages consisting of Anglisc and Frisian.
Anglo-Saxon was spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as Angles, Saxons and Jutes.
The first literary works of the Anglo-Saxon language were made in the mid-7th century.
Old English had four main dialects one of which became the basis for the literary standard of the later Old English period.
The increase of population and productivity in Scandinavia resulted in Viking warriors seeking treasure in England.
In the 9th-century Scandinavians invaded and settled in northern and eastern England (now called The Danelaw) and introduced the Latin alphabet, which then replaced the runic system they had been using.
The Scandinavians became the dominant culture in England and so the Anglo-Saxon adopted many words in their vocabulary.
After the Norman Conquest in the 11th-century, English was replaced as the language of the upper classes, by Anglo-Norman, a relative of French.
Anglo-Saxon began to slowly change into Middle English after the period of the Norman Conquest.
The evolution from Old English to Middle English began in the 12th-century.
In the High Middle Ages the population of Europe began to grow rapidly and as a result great social and political change came to exist prior to the era before, the renaissance of the 12th-century.
Printing was invented in the 1470s and this helped with the further development of a Middle English writing standard, widely used around England. Old English grammatical features were changed and a wide range of Norman French words was adopted into Middle English.
The Great Vowel Shift happened and the pronunciation of many of the vowels changed.
Little of early Middle English literature survived because of Norman domination.
Middle English extends its vocabulary by filling it with many Scandinavian loanwords.
England gradually “anglicised” again, there was significant migration into London and a new dialect formed based on the speech of the East Midlands.
Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in the 14th-century in the new London dialect.
The Chancery Standard’s influences provided the core for early Modern English.
And finally Middle English shifts into early Modern English after the printing and distribution the English Bible which made the new standard of English recognisable.
From this we can conclude that the archaic languages that English stems from are:
– Latin
– Roman Britain (British Latin)
– Anglo-Frisian (Aglisc and Frisian)
– Anglo-Saxon
– Norman French
Conclusion:
The archaic languages that English stems from are Latin, British Latin, Anglo-Frisian, Anglo-Saxon and Norman French.
We know this because of the historical events that have occurred and the probability that these communities have had linguistic influences on each other.
The many invasions and different groups settling in Britain have caused the adoption of many words, grammatical rules and even writing systems such as the Latin alphabet.
The enormous amounts of cultural contact between the sub-Roman English people and the Germanic tribes have caused the British Latin language to evolve to Anglo-Saxon, the great amount of cultural contact between the Anglo-Saxon speaking inhabitants of England and the Vikings have yet again caused the Anglo-Saxon language to evolve to Middle English, the language evolved on its own to Modern English afterwards.
(Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet, the symbols are all correct, as for the letters they are only speculative)
— How did the English language get its loanwords and from which languages did they originate? —
Loanwords is a name used for words that are adopted by people (who speak a certain language, the native language, i.e. English) from a language that differs from the native language (the source language , i.e. Latin, French, Dutch, German, etc.)
A loanword may also be called a borrowing. ’’Borrowing’’ refers to the process of lending an object or thing to a person, which in this case is a word, from a source language.
“Loanwords” and “borrowings” are of course metaphorically meant, for there is no lending process, words aren’t actually lend to someone and returned to their owner(s) afterwards.
Instead they are adopted into the native language and will remain as a word of the native language.
The words are simply used by a speech community that speaks a different language from the source language.
Borrowing is a result of cultural contact between two communities that speak different languages.
Borrowing of words can go in both directions between the source language and native language, but it is often one-sided, such that more words go from one side to the other.
In the case of asymmetrical borrowing, the source language community’s objects and ideas are desirable and useful to the borrowing language community.
For example, the Germanic tribes in the first few centuries A.D. adopted loanwords of Latin origin as they discovered new products by trading with the Romans, whom happened to speak Latin.
The other way around however, only few Germanic words were adopted into Latin, one of the reasons might be that the Romans were a lot wealthier and had more power than the Germanic tribes.
There have been many historical events which have led to the adoption of loanwords, such as a growth in economy so that different communities are capable of trading goods with each other, settlers who came to England and brought in an entirely new language, travelling, etc.
Results are that these trading communities have to communicate with one another, both speaking different languages, they will without a doubt adopt words from each other.
Or the increase of migration, which is the English languages’ main source of loanwords, the Anglo-Saxon.
It’s not easy to tell exactly when a language began, but as for English we can say that it started when the Germanic tribes who spoke Anglo-Frisian migrated into Britain, which is around the fifth century (450 A.D).
Before this time the people in Britain spoke “Roman Britain languages” such as British Latin.
Christianity became the dominant religion again and literature and language began to become more important to people, this resulted in drastic changes of languages and writings.
Not much knowledge exists of this period with any certainty, but we do know that Germanic invaders (the Angles, Saxons and Jutes) came and settled in Britain from the north-western side of the coastline of continental Europe in the fifth and sixth centuries.
The invaders all spoke a language that was Germanic (related to what emerged as Dutch, Frisian, German and the Scandinavian languages and to Gothic), but we’ll probably never know the differences between their speech and that of their continental neighbours.
However it is fairly certain that many of the settlers would have spoken in almost exactly the same way as some of their north European neighbours and that not all of the settlers would have spoken in the same way, which makes it fair to conclude that the settlers’ neighbours have had a great impact on their language and speech or the other way around, the settlers may have had a great impact on their neighbours.
A reason for the little knowledge we have about the linguistic situation in this period might be that we do not have much in the way of written records from any of the Germanic languages of north-western Europe until several centuries later.
When Anglo-Saxon writings began to appear in the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries there was a good deal of regional variation, but not much more than that found in later periods.
This was the language that Alfred the Great referred to as English in the ninth century.
The Celts were already resident in Britain when the Anglo-Saxons arrived, but there are few obvious traces of their language in English today.
Some scholars have suggested that the Celtic tongue might have had an influence on the grammatical development of English, particularly in certain parts of the country, but this is highly speculative.
The number of loanwords known for certain to have entered Old English from this source is very small.
Most likely, speakers of the borrowing language (native language) know the source language too, or at least enough of it to utilize the relevant word.
They adopt the new word when speaking their native language, because it often most exactly fits the idea they are trying to express.
At first those who understand the source language (partially or fully) use the loanwords with speakers of the native language whom also understand the source language and thus might know the meaning of the loanwords, after quite some time however, the community of users of the word may have grown up to the point where even people who know little to nothing about the source language make use of the word.
At this point we can call the word a loanword or borrowing.
Not every foreign word used in a different language becomes a loanword, once it falls out of use it’s no longer a loanword.
Generally, the longer a borrowed word has been in the language, and the more frequently it is used, the more it resembles the native words of the language.
The period in which English adopted large numbers of words from a particular language coincide with times of major cultural contact between English speakers and those speaking different languages.
From this fact you can conclude that the borrowing of words is often caused by the increase of cultural contact between speakers of different languages.
A loanword does not necessarily have to mean the same thing as the word does in the source language, the definition may slightly vary from it (but only slightly vary, i.e. the word ‘pound’ refers to a measurement of weight, as for ‘pondo’ in Latin means the actual thing, a weight that you can hold in your hands).
There are many more loanwords that have a definition which slightly varies from the given definition in the source language.
On the next page you will see a list of loanwords and the time period in which they’ve been adopted.
An example of Old English and the Modern English equivalent will be shown underneath this sentence.
Old English:
Sēo sunne getācnað ūrne hǣlend Crīst se ðe is rihtwīsnysse sunne swā swā se wītega cwæð:
Timentibus autem nomen domini orietur sol iustitiea et sanitas in pennis eius.
‘Ðam mannum þe him ondrǣdað Godes naman ðām ārīst rithwīsnysse sunne and hǣlð is on hire fiðerum.’
Modern English (translation):
The sun symbolises our saviour Christ, he who is the sun of righteousness, as the prophet says:
Timentibus autem nomen domini orietur sol iustitiea et sanitas in pennis eius.
‘To those men who fear God’s name shall arise the sun of righteousness and healing is in his wings.’
Format: Old English, ‘Modern English’, (Latin)
(Every first word is the Old English equivalent of the Modern English word which is the second word from the left, the words inside of brackets are the Latin translation from which they originate).
Germanic tribes that had probably traded with Romans often and thus came in contact with the Latin language began invading Britain in the earliest centuries A.D. and so began the Germanic period. (approx. 450-600 A.D.)
Germanic period (Early Anglo-Saxon):
ancor ‘anchor’ (ancora)
butere ‘butter’ (butyros)
cealc ‘chalk’ (creta)
ceas ‘cheese’ (caseum)
cetel ‘kettle’ (ahenum)
cycene ‘kitchen’ (culina)
cirice ‘church’ (ecclesia)
disc ‘dish’ (discus)
mil ‘mile’ (milia [passuum] ‘a thousand paces’)
piper ‘pepper’ (piper)
pund ‘pound’ (pondo ‘a weight’)
sacc ‘sack’ (saccus)
sicol ‘sickle’ (falx)
straet ‘street’ ([via] strata ‘straight way’ or stone-paved road)
weall ‘wall’ (vallum)
win ‘wine’ (oinos)
Old English Period (The period when the Anglo-Saxon was dominant in Britain.) (600-1100):
Latin:
apostol ‘apostle’ (apostolus)
casere ‘caesar, emperor’ (imperator)
ceaster ‘city’ (castra ‘camp’)
cest ‘chest’ (cista ‘box’)
circul ‘circle’ (circulus)
cometa ‘comet’ (cometa < Greek)
maegester ‘master’ (magister)
martir ‘martyr’ (martyr)
paper ‘paper’ (papyrus, from Gr.)
tigle ’tile’ (tegula)
Celtic:
brocc ‘badger’ (melis)
cumb ‘combe, valley’ (combe, vallis)
(Different format since it’s difficult to find a direct translation to Old English equivalents.)
Middle English Period (1100-1500):
Scandinavian(I):
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-century).
Behind the Middle English words, inside of the brackets are Latin synonyms of the word.
Some of these Latin words have multiple meanings since they can be used in various contexts.
– anger (ira, iracundia, furor)
– blight (uredine, uredo, robigo, rubigo)
– by-law (per legem)
– cake (libum, laganum)
– call (clamo, voco)
– clumsy (rusticitas, inhabilis)
– doze (dormito)
– egg (ovum)
– fellow (conservus)
– gear (apparatus)
– get (adepto, impetro, recipero)
– give (tribuo)
– hale (protraho, robustus)
– hit (pello, ictus)
– husband (virum, maritus)
– kick (calce ferio)
– kill (neco, interficio)
– kilt
– kindle (inardesco)
– law (lex, ius)
– low (minimum, humilis)
– lump (massam corrumpit)
– rag (pannum, praesegmen)
– raise (arrigo, sustollo)
– root (radix)
– scathe (suffio, subfio)
– scorch (praeuro, aduro)
– score (lucror)
– scowl
– scrape (rado, scabo)
– scrub (rado, liquet)
– seat (tribunal, sedes)
– skill (artem, peritia)
– skin (corium, curtis
– skirt (alam)
Middle English Period (1100-1500):
Scandinavian(II):
– sky (caelum, coelum)
– sly (callidum, vafer)
– take (adscio)
– they (illi)
– them (illis)
– their (eorum, illorum)
– thrall (famulus)
– thrust (ictum, transigo)
– ugly (turpis, deformis)
– want (volo, penuria)
– window (fenestra)
– wing (ala, penna)
Place name suffixes: -by, -thorpe, -gate.
Middle English Period (1100-1500):
French (adopted from Norman French after the Norman Conquest in 1066):
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.
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 (agilis)
– abdomen (abdomen)
– anatomy (anatomia)
– area (spatium, area)
– capsule (capsule)
– compensate (compensare)
– dexterity (dexteritas)
– discus (discus)
– disc/disk (discus, orbis)
– excavate (excavare)
– expensive (carus)
– fictitious (fictum)
– gradual (antiphonarium, per gradus)
– habitual (habitualis)
– insane (insanus)
– janitor (janitor)
– meditate (maxime, meditor)
– notorious (insignis, infamis)
– orbit (orbita)
– peninsula (paeninsula)
– physician (medicus)
– superintendent (magister)
– ultimate (ultimus)
– vindicate (vindicate, vindico)
Greek(I) (many of these via Latin):
– anonymous (anonymus)
– atmosphere (atmósfaira < Greek)
– autograph (autographus)
– catastrophe (catastropha)
– climax (praefinita, climax)
– comedy (comoedia)
– critic (criticus)
Early Modern English Period (1500-1650):
Greek(II):
– data (indicium)
– ecstasy (extasis, ecstasis, exstasis)
– history (historia)
– ostracize (relegaberis)
– parasite (parasitus)
– pneumonia (pneumonia)
– skeleton (sceletus)
– tonic (tonic)
– tragedy (tragoedia)
Arabic:
via Spanish—alcove, algebra, zenith, algorithm, almanac, azimuth, alchemy, admiral
via other Romance languages—amber, cipher, orange, saffron, sugar, zero, coffee.
Small list of words from Dutch origin:
– aardvark (aardvarken)
– bulwark (bolwerk)
– bumpkin (bommekijn)
– cockatoo (kaketoe)
– coleslaw (koolsla)
– cashier (cassier)
– cookie (koekje)
– dam (dam)
– dollar ((rijks)daalder)
– easel (ezel)
– foist (vuist)
– frolic (vrolijk)
– geek (gek)
– hartebeest (hartenbeest)
– iceberg (ijsberg)
– luck (gheluc, from Middle Dutch)
– maelstrom (maelstroom, 17th century Dutch)
– mannequin (manneken)
– onslaught (aanslag)
– roster (rooster)
– trigger (trekker)
– walrus (walrus)
– yacht (jacht)
– yankee (Jan Kees)
This list is only a fraction of loanwords which have become known to the language as ordinary words, every English speaking person (linguists aside of course) will probably think these words originated in Britain.
What most people seem to forget is that languages don’t start with a filled out dictionary of words, these words sometimes must be made up by the people themselves or at times must be obtained by borrowing them.
Every single language uses loanwords from a different language.
This is all very natural since mankind has been around for a very long time and hasn’t been standing still (literally and figuratively).
It’s human nature to explore and discover new things thanks to our curiosity.
The unknown is the greatest source of knowledge and thus thanks to mankind being adventurous enough to travel all around the globe, we now have all kinds of different languages all filled with their own dictionary of words using their own alphabets.
Many of which are loanwords that originated in other languages.
We can therefore say that languages have been built by travelling across the globe in order to find new things, whether it be a place to sleep or a market where you can get fresh food, you will most likely need to communicate with other people who could potentially speak a different language.
The evolution of languages is a natural process, and thanks to the evolution of languages and literature the rest of mankind’s fields of knowledge have grown exponentially over the years after that.
The English language has been influenced in many ways by different languages. For example by the use of loanwords, the changes in grammatical structures and pronunciation of vowels and the changes in the writing system.
Few important languages that helped shape Modern English are the following ones:
– Germanic languages and Celtic
– Latin
– Scandinavian
– French
– Greek
– Old English
A great deal of the English pronunciation was influenced by French, but it’s not the only thing the French language has brought to the English language. French also brought about the use of a different type of word order, besides the usual adjective + noun they used noun + adjective instead and for certain words this is also used in the English language. They also introduced the English language to a few expressions and phrases. However these expressions and phrases are not commonly used nowadays since there is no real need for it, there are enough expressions and phrases in the English language that fit the idea just as well and therefore they are used more often.
The biggest influence on the English language to date were the Germanic tribes and the Anglo-Saxon language. Statistically speaking, around 70% of in an English text derived from the Anglo-Saxon language. Not only words are adopted from the Anglo-Saxon language but also a great deal of our grammar in the current version of the English language is of Anglo-Saxon origin.
When looking deeper into statistic data it suggests that around 20-33% of all words in the English language are of Anglo-Saxon origin, whereas 29% of Latin origin, 29% of French origin, 6% of Greek origin and another 10% of an unknown source. The French influenced the English language with their military, technological and political terminology, they also contributed common words such as the names of foods and the way they were prepared as well as words related to nobility. The Latin language made the adoption of scientific, technical words and medical and academic terminology possible.
Greek also introduced the English language to scientific and medical terminology as well as theological terminology. Even the Dutch language has had an influence on the development of the English language, they introduced the English to a lot of new borrowings even Santa Claus derived from the Dutch “Sinterklaas”. The Spanish introduced the English to a set of words related to warfare such as guerrilla. Italian words adopted by the English are related to music and food for example; piano, pizza.
Indian words include; jungle, curry, bungalow. German words related to the first and second World Wars also found their way into the English dictionary, these words include; blitz, lebensraum, bratwurst, hamburger. Words of Arabic origin are mainly adopted through trading and mostly refer to the items they traded; borax, coffee, cotton, jasmine, lemon, sugar. Before the end of the nineteenth century there was also a difference in the numbering system, standard English followed the Germanic style of numbering for numbers greater than twenty, instead of the now commonly used “twenty-one” they referred to it as “one-and-twenty”, this numbering system is now still used in the Dutch language but no longer in the English language.
The French language shares a lot of similarities with the English language when it comes to the writing of words. The reason for this is that French was at one point in time the dominant language in England. English and French are both languages from a different subgroup of the Indo-European languages. English is a language of the Lower Germanic group and French is a language of the Romance group. The main influence are arguably the words deriving from Romance and Greek origin, and this is also the area where English and French share the most similarities. A large number of words in the two languages have the same Latin roots and are mutually comprehensible, although this applies more to academic/technical words than to everyday vocabulary.
The English language was strongly influenced by the introduction of French at the time of the Norman invasion of Britain in the 11th century. So as a result the two languages share many grammatical features and contain many cognates. This caused a considerable amount of influence from French on the English language, particularly in the way of upper-class words. Words like “beef” come from Norman French, since eating beef was frequently a privilege of the upper classes. A “beverage” was the preferred word for a liquid consumable among the elite, whereas “drink” was used among the lower classes. The biggest similarities in words between the English and the French languages exists within academic and technical terminology, a survey by Joseph M. Willams in “Origins of the English Language” of 10,000 words taken from taken from several thousands of business letters gave this set of statistics:
– French (41%)
– “Native” English (33%)
– Latin (15%)
– Old Norse (5%)
– Dutch (1%)
– Other (5%)
As can be seen, the results vary from the before given statistics of the amount of borrowings from different languages, this is because a great deal of academic and technical terminology is of French origin whereas commonly used words are more often of different origin. What this essentially means is that the French language is more commonly used in business / educational manners and therefore the remaining languages don’t come forth as much during this survey. However this doesn’t mean that the French language only contributed with academic and technical terminology, they also introduced the English language to different approaches on the names of foods and the way they are prepared.
— What are the influences that other languages have had on modern English? —
The English language has been influenced by many other languages that helped shape it, a few of these languages are the following: French, Celtic, Greek, Latin, Anglo-Saxon. I’ll be going over each language individually and state the main influences it has had on the English language. This will be done in chronological order and the point in time in which these influences were first exposed to the English speakers will be dated besides the event that triggered it.
To begin with we have the very first influence and also the core of the English language; Anglo-Saxon.