Etymology of the words
Even a brief etymological survey of the English vocabulary shows that it contains an immense number of words of foreign origin 70-80 %. On the other hand, the native element which makes up about 30% of the vocabulary, possesses a very high frequency of usage, so that in actual speech native words are predominant.
Words of the native stock are characterised by the following features:
Plurality of meaning;
Great word-building power;
Combinative power in phraseology;
The native elements are mostly monosyllabic
The native words are diachronically subdivided into the words of Endo-European Origin and Common Germanic Origin
Words of Endo-European Origin have cognates in the vocabularies of different Endo-European languages. They fall into the following lexico-semantic groups:
terms of kinship: brother, daughter, mother, father;
German: der Bruder, die Tochter, die Mutter, der Vater.
those denoting animals and birds: goose.
German: der Gans.
Here also belonged the numerals from 1 to 100. In our text they are: three, four, eighteen. (Deutsch: ein, zwei, drei)
Other native words are: was, girl, see, know, man, take, it, be, have, make, good, most numerals and pronouns. (German cognates: war, das Mädchen, sehen, wissen, der Menschensohn, nemmen , zu sein, haben, machen, gut)
Words of common Germanic stock are the words having their parallels in the Germanic languages. Among them are: 1) nouns – learning; 2) verbs – live; 3) adjectives – little; 4) adverbs – away, beyond, over; 5) pronouns - she, any, among, he.
German cognates: das Studium; leben; klein; weg, jenseits, über; sie, alle, unter, er.
The words of Endo-European origin and the words of Common Germanic origin form the Etymological background of the English vocabulary.
There is a great number of words of Greek origin. We can recognize them by the following prefixes and suffixes: ph-, ch-, pn-, -ism, -ous, -ize, psy-. Here belong such words as disappointed, distinguished, discovery, discover, itself, herself, luminous, disappointment, philosopher, loss. Some of these words are partially assimilated like live (life-live), lose, loss (loss-lose), philosopher (digraph “ph” doesn`t characterise native English words).
Among Latin borrowings are plain, justified, interpret,abundant. The last one (abundant) is completely assimilated. Generally speaking the Latin borrowings sometimes can hardly be distinguished from native words. We can also recognize them by such prefixes like: dis-, inter-, intra-, non-, v-, ex-.
Words of French origin are also found in the text as the largest influx of words of all foreign languages was from French beginning from the 11th century, with the famous Battle of Hastings in 1066 and later through the Renaissance Period. Among them are beauty, plain, gentle, face, belle (word relating to literature and music;was borrowed from French into English after 1650), countenance, tremor, point, most of which are completely assimilated.
Scandinavian belonged to the same group of people as Englishmen and their languages had much in common. As the result of this conquest there about 700 borrowings from Scandinavian into English. However there were also many words in the two languages which were different, and some of them were borrowed into English, such noun as: happiness. Even some pronouns and connective words were borrowed (which happens very seldom), such as: same, both, and pronominal forms with “th”: they, them,there.
Hybrid words
The contact of English with various foreign languages has led to the adoption of numberless derivative morphemes, suffixes and prefixes. By the nature of things, there appeared numerous hybrid words.
Hybrid types of composites are different in character. Distinction will be made between:
Foreign words combined with a native affix: delight-ful, faith-ful, grace-ful.
Foreign affixes added to native words: incap-able.
Etymological doublets
The changes of borrowings which underwent some transformation depending on the day of their penetration into English are the main reason of the so-called etymological doublets. They were appeared from the same original form, but gradually different in form and sense. Many doublets appeared due to the borrowings from different languages; the phonemic shape is different and yet there is a certain resemblance which reflects their common origin. Their meanings are also different, but easily associated.
Others appeared from the same language twice, but in different periods: Corps Norman French, Corps Parisian French. Really, many words of French origin were borrowed twice or more. Most frequently, the first borrowing occurred shortly after the Normans took over England following the Battle of Hastings, while the second borrowing may have come into English during the sixteenth to nineteenth century, when France was at the height of its power and international influence. For example,
pocket (from Norman) – pouch (modern);
give (OE)- devise (F) and bequeath (OE);
peacefully(F)- and quietly (L);
whole (in the old sense of “healthy” or “free from desease” and hale. The latter has survived in its original meaning and is preserved in the phrase hale and hearty. Both come from OE hah the one by the normal development of OE, the other from a northern dialect in which this modification did not take place.
Words of identical origin that occur in several languages belonging to different groups of languages as a result of simultaneous or successive borrowings from one source are called international words. This term is used to denote words borrowed from one language into several others at one time or at a short intervals or one after another. For example, such words like money (economical term), biographer, intelligent, nature, limitation, cigars, surprise, year, world.