English Latin Russian
mother mater мать
brother frater брат
night nox ночь
be fieri быть
stand stare стоять
two duo два
three tres три
ten decem десять
Common Germanic stratum
There are also words inherited from Common Germanic. Common Germanic is supposed to exist before it began splitting into various subgroups around the 1st century B.C. – 1st A.D. these words can be found in various Germanic languages, but not in Indo-European languages other than Germanic.
English Germanic Swedish
man Mann man
earth Erde jord
harm Harm harm
green grün grőn
grey grau grā
The occurrence or non-occurrence of corresponding words in related languages is often a proof of their common origin. But, certainly, the word could be borrowed from the same source into different languages, especially if we speak about languages in modern times.
Foreign element in Modern English (borrowings)
As we know, borrowed words comprise more than half the vocabulary of the language. These borrowings entered the language from many sources, forming consequently various etymological strata. The principal ones here are as follows:
- the Latin element
- the Scandinavian element
- the French element
Latin element
The first Latin words entered the language of the forefathers of the English nation before they came to Britain. It happened during a direct intercourse and trade relations with the peoples of the Roman Empire. They mainly names of household items and products:
Apple, pear, plum, cheese, pepper, dish, kettle, etc.
Already on the Isles from the Romanized Celts they borrowed such words as:
Street, wall, mill, tile, port, caster (camp – in such words as Lancaster, Winchester).
Words of this kind denoted objects of Latin material culture. Latin words such as:
Alter, bishop, candle, church, devil, martyr, monk, nun, pope, psalm, etc.
were borrowed after the introduction of the Christian religion (7th century), which is reflected in their meaning.
The number of these words inherited from Old English is almost two hundred.
We mentioned these words as Latin borrowings in the sense that they entered English from Latin, but many of them were Greek borrowings into Latin, such as:
Bishop, church, devil
and many others.
Another major group of Latin borrowings entered English with the revival of learning (15th – 16th centuries). Latin was drawn upon for scientific nomenclature, as at the time the language was understood by scientists all over the world, it was considered the common name-language for science. These words were mainly borrowed through books, by people who knew Latin well and tried to preserve the Latin form of the world as much as possible. Hence such words as:
Antenna – antennae, index – indices, datum – data, stratum – strata, phenomenon – phenomena, axis – axes, formula – formulae, etc.
Very many of them have suffixes which clearly mark them as Latin borrowings of the time:
- verbs ending in –ate, - ute: aggravate, prosecute
- adjectives ending in –ant, -ent, -ior, -al: reluctant, evident, superior, cordial.
These word-building elements together with the stylistic sphere of the language where such words are used are generally sufficient for the word attribution.
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