Lecture the word and its meaning

THE ORIGIN OF ENGLISH WORDS. BORROWINGS.

1. 
   The etymological structure of English Vocabulary.
   
2. 
   Borrowed words and their assimilation.
   
3. 
   International words, translation loans, etymological doublets.
   

1. 
   The etymological structure of English Vocabulary.
   

According to their origin all the units of the English vocabulary can be divided into two big groups: native and borrowed. The native lexical units were not borrowed from other languages but represent the original stock of the language. The native words include the following classes:

1. 
   The Indo-European element: words of roots common to all or most languages of the Indo-European family. These words denote elementary notions without which no communication would be possible. Professor V.D.Arakin singled out the following groups within this class:
   

1) family relations: father, mother, brother, son, daughter;
2) parts of human body: foot, nose, heart;
3) animals: swine, goose, cow;

4. 
   plants: tree, birch;
   
5. 
   times of day: day, night;
   
6. 
   heavenly bodies: sun, star, moon;
   
7. 
   adjectives: red, new, glad
   
8. 
   numerals: from 1 to 100;
   
9. 
   personal pronouns (except they);
   
10. 
    verbs: be, eat, sit, stand.
    

2. 
   The Germanic element: words common to all or most Germanic languages. They include the following semantic groups:
   
   1. 
      parts of the human body: head, hand, arm, finger;
      
   2. 
      animals: fox, bear;
      
   3. 
      plants: oak, grass;
      
   4. 
      natural phenomena: rain, frost;
      
   5. 
      seasons of the year: winter, spring, summer;
      
   6. 
      landscape features: sea, land;
      
   7. 
      houses and furniture: house, room, bench;
      
   8. 
      ships: ship, boat;
      
   9. 
      adjectives: colours (green, grey, blue, white), small, high, old, good;
      
   10. 
       verbs: see, hear, speak, tell, say, make, give, drink.
       
3. 
   The English Proper element: words which appeared in the English vocabulary in the 5^th century or later, that is after the Germanic tribes migratwed to the British Isles. These are specifically English words: lord, lady, boy, girl, bird, woman, daisy, always, etc.
   

Native words constitute no more than 35% of the English vocabulary but they are extremely important for everyday communication and are used very often. Out of 5oo most frequently used words there are about 4oo native lexical units.

The borrowed words could be divided into groups depending on the source of borrowing, i.e. the language they were taken from by the English. The source of borrowing may not coincide with the origin of borrowing, i.e. the language to which a word may be traced. A classical example is the word paper, which was taken from French (Fr. papier). But its origin is Latin or Greek (Lat. papyrus , Gr. papyros).

The following classification is based on the source of borrowing and is closely connected with the history of the English people.

1. 
   Celtic borrowings (not very numerous): bin, bard, cradle, druid, Avon (“clear water”), Kent, London (Llyn ‘river’+ dyn ‘fortified hill’, i.e. fortress on the hill near the river);
   
2. 
   Latin borrowings further subdivided into three groups according to the time of borrowing: a) first contacts and colonization of Britain (1 century B.C.-5 century A.D.): cheese, butter, wine, wall, port, etc.; b) introduction of Christianity (7 century): priest, bishop, candle, school, etc.; c) Renaissance: major, minor, intelligent, permanent, status, fact, etc.(mostly scientific and artistic terms);
   
3. 
   Greek borrowings (Renaissance period mostly): atom, epoch, cycle, ethics, episode, epilogue, rhythm, metaphor, democracy, etc.;
   
4. 
   Scandinavian (7-11 centuries): sister, husband, window, die, want, kill, ugly, they, till, though, ski, skate, sky, skin, etc.;
   
5. 
   French: a) Norman borrowings (11-13 centuries):titles (prince, duke, count, baron), army (officer, general, division), justice (judge, jury), words connected with upper classes(palace, mansion, painter, tailor, etc); b) Parisian borrowings (Renaissance): bourgeois, regime, routine, police, machine, ballet, scene, technique; c)modern borrowings(diplomatic terms and social life): communiqué, attaché, dossier, champagne, menu, corsage, blouse, coquette, etc.
   
6. 
   Italian (Music, art, military, commercial):piano, opera, balcony, corridor, studio, sonnet, medals, alarm, colonel, million, cartridge;
   
7. 
   Spanish(colonies, foreign trade): sombrero, tomato, potato, toreador, tobacco, Negro, banana, etc.;
   
8. 
   German (war and chemistry): blitz, Gestapo, cobalt, zink, nickel, etc.;
   
9. 
   Dutch (navigation and art): freight, skipper, deck, dock, sketch, landscape, easel, etc.;
   
10. 
    Indian: curry;
    
11. 
    Russian: troika, vodka, balalaika, samovar, sarafan, Soviet, Kremlin, czar(tsar), sputrnik, intelligentsia, etc.
    

2. 
   Borrowed words and their assimilation.
   

All the borrowed words got mixed with the native stock in the process of historic development, so sometimes it is difficult to tell borrowed words from native, e.g. table, wall, sister, painter. But a lot of words have preserved some peculiarities in pronunciation, spelling, morphology, which help to determine the origin of these words.

According to the degree of assimilation borrowed words are divided into:

1. 
   completely assimilated;
   
2.