Content area
Full Text
The English language has a great number of words. Many of the words in English are based on Greek and Latin roots. A great deal of the terminology of science and medicine and indeed much of the vocabulary of higher education is based on Latin and Greek roots. These roots are dependable and unchanging and serve as the key to understanding the vocabulary of English and many of the modern European Languages. These words were borrowed in different periods and for different purposes. Most of these loan-words form the main bulk of the words for science, medicine, art, technology, etc. According to the periods of borrowing loan-words have undergone several changes that were common for English language itself during the centuries. These changes have influenced the loan-words and changed their semantic, structural or more or less morphological meaning, even their phonetic appearance. Later, loanwords were assimilated with the native English words and were acknowledged as pure English ones without taking into account their etymology. Etymologically OE vocabulary is extremely homogeneous, especially if compared with present-day English. Contacts with other languages in the Pre-OE or OE periods have left traces, which provide interesting insights into the external history of the language as they reflect cultural, religious and political changes. The largest number of loans, whether direct or indirect (semantic loans, loan translations) in OE is due to the influence of Latin. Independently it could have acted as an intermediary for the adoption of some loans from Greek. Greek words have entered the English Language from a different direction. They came via French, while others were borrowed directly; especially those in the fields of science and technology, and are seen in such compound words as telephone, photography, microscope, etc.
Keywords: Word borrowing, English language history, Latin loan words, Greek loan words.
(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)
INTRODUCTION
Three languages have contributed such extensive shares to the English word-stock as to deserve particular attention. These are Greek, Latin and French. By comparison together they account for so overwhelming proportion of the borrowed elements in the English vocabulary that the rest of it seems insignificant. It is difficult and sometimes even impossible to determine the direct source of borrowing, as Greek words are Latinized in form before...