Borrowed |
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Borrowing is not a new concept, nor is it a dying phenomenon. More than seventy-five percent of modern English vocabulary has either been borrowed or formed from borrowed elements. Furthermore it is estimated that 800 neologisms are added to the working English vocabulary each year. Borrowing has not been at a constant level, however, and has come in waves throughout the history of English. Assessing the assimilation of foreign words and compounds in to the English Language in a chronological manner will show the extent to which the words that we employ are borrowed. Contrary to the statement in the title, however, it is not true to say that borrowing is ‘almost never’ the result of necessity, as this study aims to show. Borrowing has been typically associated with the Renaissance period, where there was a revival in the use of Latin and Greek phrases, and where the long enduring battle between the Inkhorns and the Purists raged strong. However, borrowing can be seen to take place throughout the history of the English Language. Prior to the sixteenth century AD, English was West Germanic, and greatly influenced by its powerful Roman neighbours, who spoke Latin. The earliest borrowings therefore came from Latin. In contrast to the more recent borrowings from Latin, these words did not provide synonyms for already existing words; they were used to describe new concepts. Thus words such as ‘wine’, ‘street’, ‘kitchen’ and ‘mint’ entered the English Language. They were borrowed out of necessity, into the lives of the English arrived new goods, new concepts from the Roman Empire, accompanied by corresponding words and phrases. The next influx of new vocabulary was far more specialised and systematic, but ultimately derived from the same source. The early Old English period saw the conversion of England from paganism to Christianity. With Christianity came a whole wealth of new words to describe the rites and rituals of this new belief system. Latin was again the source of this new ecclesiastical vocabulary. Thus, words such as ‘alter, candle and priest’ were borrowed from the Latin to describe concepts that had not previously existed. Ecclesiastical borrowing was therefore again a result of necessity, as the idea of Christian worship was entirely novel to the English. The ninth and tenth centuries saw the Scandinavian influence on English vocabulary, with the Viking invasion. In contrast to the influence of Latin prior to this, a great deal of the words borrowed from Scandinavia resembled English as they both have Indo-European roots. Furthermore, some of the words had a very similar meaning to existing English words, working along side the indigenous vocabulary. These have become known as Scandinavian-English doublets. Thus we have ‘lend’ and ‘loan’, ‘whole’ and ‘hale’, ‘hale’ only truly surviving to the modern day in the phrase ‘hale and hearty’. Thus, in this instance, it could be argued that this session of borrowing was not entirely out of necessity. In contrast, however, some words were taken from the Scandinavian out of necessity, terms such as ‘ill’, ‘flat’, ‘bull’, ‘guess’ were borrowed as English lacked an equivalent term. The Norman Conquest of 1066 marked the most important watershed in the development of the English Language thus far. The French dominated many spheres of daily life, bringing with them Norman French and a wealth of vocabulary that survives to the modern day. The use of French indicated education and prestige, as the nobility were French. Thus, in areas such as the law and government there was a huge influx of borrowed words. We have ‘court’, ‘duke’, ‘baron’ and ‘crown’, as well as in the realm of diplomacy, words such as ‘ peace’ and ‘enemy’. The finer things of life, in the main enjoyed by the nobility were described in words borrowed from French, thus we have ‘gown’, ‘robe’, ‘emerald’ and ‘feast’. Similarly, whilst the words to describe animals have indigenous histories, the words used to describe the meat that was eaten is from the Norman French. So ‘cow’ is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and ‘beef’ of Norman French, similarly, ‘pig’ is Anglo-Saxon, and ‘pork’ French. This is due to the fact that whilst the Anglo-Saxon peasantry worked with the animals, it was the Norman French nobility that enjoyed the fruits of their labours. The sixteenth century saw the rise of the Renaissance period. The argument as to the purity of the English Language became very heated. Borrowed terms had undergone a population explosion with the revival in the interest in Latin and Greek, especially in the realm of scholarship, with terms such as ‘appendix’, ‘disk’ and ‘exterior’ from Latin, and ‘catastrophe’ and ‘anonymous’ from Greek. Many satirical works were written, mocking the pretentiousness of scholarly use of Latin words. Borrowing became a signpost of social elevation. Where a word such as ‘immaturity’ already existed, scholars would create their own alternatives such as ‘immatureness’. Thus we have three or more words to describe the same thing, as in ‘end’, ‘finish’ ‘conclude’, ‘end’ being of Anglo-Saxon origin, ‘finish’ from the French ‘finir’ and ‘conclude’ from the Latin. Similarly with ‘ask’, ‘question’ and ‘interrogate’. The observer could be forgiven for suggesting that this number of terms was somew hat unnecessary. However English has a subtlety of nuance that other languages perhaps lack. Whilst these terms mean essentially the same thing, they have slightly different connotations. Whilst I might ‘ask’ the time, or ‘question’ the truth of a statement, I would not ‘interrogate’ it, and whilst the ‘end’ of the world may be nigh, the world’s ‘conclusion’ seems anomalous. Thus, whilst the cynic would rightly argue that these words might not have been borrowed out of necessity, it would be wrong to suggest that they are entirely interchangeable and mean exactly the same thing. Each ‘synonym’ has its own emphasis. Where the word comes from the Anglo-Saxon, it tends to be the most straightforward and simplistic of the possible terms, indicating its early existence. By contrast however, where the term is borrowed from another language, it tends to be more formal or technical. Thus we have ‘tell’ contrasting with ‘inform’, ‘spin’ with ‘rotate’ ‘pretty’ with ‘attractive’ and ‘wordy’ with ‘verbose’. Thus as K. Denning suggests, we have ‘whenever I ingest crustaceans I am nauseated’ contrasts with ‘whenever I eat shellfish I am sick in the stomach’. The difference in emphasis is evident. The expansion of the British empire and the travels of the merchant classes to ever further lands led to borrowing from languages far further afield. Thus we have words describing customs and weather phenomena from as far as China ‘kowtow’, ‘typhoon’. We have unusual animals and foods assimilated from other lands ‘moose’, ‘woodchuck’ and ‘banana’. This theme has continued to the present day with the more recent examples of ‘robot’ from the Czech, ‘sauna’ from the Finnish and forms of martial arts such as Tai Kwon Do and Karate from Asian languages. These cover objects and concepts previously unknown and thus in this sense the borrowing is very much result of necessity. In the realm of inventions, borrowing has been prolific. Rather than make up a word to describe the invention, the word is usually borrowed from the Latin or the Greek, thus we have ‘telephone’ and ‘telecommunications’, ‘video-recorder’ and ‘aeroplane’. Interestingly, the name of an invention is not confined to compounds from only one language. Thus we have ‘videophone’, with ‘video’ coming from the Latin meaning ‘I see’ and ‘phone’ coming from the Greek for ‘sound’. Thus, these types of words could never have existed naturally in their native language. However, borrowing has not been exclusively from other languages. Some new inventions have been immortalized by the company that either invented or made the product well known. Thus we have ‘hoover’ as opposed to ‘vacuum cleaner’, ‘biro’ as opposed to ‘fine-tipped pen’, and ‘aga’ as opposed to a fuel-burning oven. These are not as a result of necessity, but more as a result of ease of reference and the fact that the pr oduct was made famous by the company in question. Similarly in the realm of scientific progress, where diseases used to have descriptive names in the past, this has been replaced by the tendency to call a disease after the scientist that discovered it. Thus whilst we have ‘small pox’ and ‘yellow fever’, we also have ‘Hodgkinson’s disease’ and ‘Batten’s disease’. This can be termed as borrowing, but not so much out of necessity but out of custom. In addition to compounding borrowed words to create new words, phrases have also been lifted from other languages, and are often retained exactly as they would appear in their native language, with no alteration whatsoever. Thus we have ‘quid pro quo’, ‘vice-versa’ ‘ad hoc’. Generally the areas that have seen the greatest amount of phrases such as these tend to be more specific. The law sees many phrases such as ‘mens rea’ and ‘obiter dictum’ coming from the Latin. Clearly, this is not really out of necessity as they can be translated into English, but they do give a certain weight to the study of the law, and are a throwback from the days when all legalities were conducted in Latin. It is interesting to note that there are a few remaining words borrowed from Latin that continue change endings like Latin, if only into the plural nowadays. Thus we have ‘cactus’ and ‘cacti’, ‘nucleus’ and ‘nuclei’, ‘referendum’ and ‘referenda’.
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