Analysing Language across Time English Language

Development of human society is the development of all its constituent cultures, and,

accordingly, all languages. The cultures are influenced by the particular historical development

and regardless of other cultures, and (very largely), in conjunction with them. Contacts take

place in all spheres - politics, economics, arts, everyday life - and lead to significant changes in

lifestyle, outlook, and, of course, in the language. Cultures mutually borrow the phenomena and

concepts; languages are their designations. That is how an enrichment of cultures and languages

of different nations happens.

The role of borrowings (loan-words) is not the same in different languages and depends on the

specific historical conditions of development of each language. In English, the percentage of

borrowing is much higher than in many other languages; so due to historical reasons, it happened

to be very permeable. English more than any other language had an opportunity to borrow

foreign words in a straight direct contact: first in the middle ages from foreign invaders on

British Islands, and later in conditions of trade expansion and colonization activity of British

themselves. It is known that the number of native words in the English dictionary is only about

30% (Mencken 2010). This fact gave many researchers reason to exaggerate the importance of

borrowing and assume English is not Germanic, and Romance-Germanic language, emphasize

the mixed nature of the English language as its most important feature, and sometimes even

reduce the whole of English lexicology to the problem of borrowing.

Some scientists (eg. Gunnel Tottie) even think that in the developed language the vocabulary is

borrowed so easily, that happen to be uncharacteristic for a specific language. In fact, borrowing

is one of the important ways to enrich the vocabulary, but is not the only one or the most

important (Tottie 2002).

The English language is full of words borrowed from Old French, Latin, Greek, Scandinavian

and other languages. Articles, prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs are all natively

German. Trade and Christianization brought such borrowings from Latin, as the wine, pepper,

school, devil, and priest. In the sixteenth century, the language has been enriched with Latin

terminology - concept, access, commission, complain, etc.

Scandinavian Viking raids from the end of the eighth century contributed to the fact that the

English language has got the Danish vocabulary. These are the words: they, take, cut, get, ugly,

husband, shirt, whole, wrong, leg (Bjorkman 2008).

The largest group of borrowings in the English language is from Old French. The year of 1066 is

known as the year of the conquest of England by the Normans. It was they who brought the

French language to the islands. It is believed that these borrowings in the English language make

a quarter of all the most used words. Here are examples of French borrowings in English:

entrance, goddess, admirable, flexible, difficult, disappointment, movement, solitude, loneliness,

court, government, battle, city and many others.

The English language contains about 820 words of German origin or scientific and technical

terms, created in Germany from classical roots.

So, there are a significant number of words in English vocabulary that were borrowed from

German. However, the actual German word units included in the English vocabulary are not so

many. The fact is that a very large number of words borrowed from the German language and

related to the field of science are the formations with Latin and Greek roots, so, in fact, they are

international words, even though they were borrowed from German sources.

The borrowings from German are usually the words expressing the concept of socio-political and

philosophical nature. Most of them were formed into English in the translated form; in the form

of tracing paper. Tracing a number of phrases and compound words of German language was

made easier because of the close relationship between German and English.

The first loanwords of the German language come from the 16th century. During this period,

words related to trade, military affairs, the names of some plants, the words describing the

people, and others were borrowed. For example: halt, lance-knight, kreuzer, junker.

Already in the 16th century an active development of ore deposits and metallurgy begins in

England. Germany was an advanced country of mining and metallurgical industry at that time.

Mining experts started to come to England from Germany. During the reign of Elizabeth Tudor

the two industrial companies were built and led by the Germans. It is very likely that as a result

of direct contact with German speaking people, there first was an oral borrowing of German

words. In written documents, these words appeared not earlier than in the 17th century. Such

terms of Mines as: zinc, bismut, cobalt and others came into English from German.

In the 17th century, the new borrowings from the sphere of trade and military affairs appeared.

Those loanwords included: groschen; drillinq; plunder; staff; fieldmarshal and others (Algeo

2009).

In the 18th century, the influence of the German language was weaker than in the previous

century. This is obviously due to a general political and economic decline in Germany after the

Thirteen Year War.

In the second half of 18th century there were borrowed a lot of words related to geology,

mineralogy and mining, such as: iceberq, wolfram, nickel, qletscher, bismuth, cobalt, gneiss,

quartz, zink. The serious influence of German is noticed in mineralogy.

Mineralogical and geological terms became particularly numerous in the 18th century; they made

more than a half of all German borrowings of that period. In addition to already metioned words,

there were also spathic, feldspar, sinter, wolfram, hornblende, speiss.

In the 18th-19th centuries the following words of German origin were borrowed: hetman, jaeger,

landsturm, etc.

In the 19th century, the sphere of borrowing was much wider. There were some borrowing from

the humanities, social life and politics. There were also borrowed many terms from the field of

chemistry and physics, philology, art. Many of these loans were tracing, or were international

words. Words related to lexicology, were, for example: ibdogermanic (Indogermanisch), Middle

English (Mittelenglisch), umlaut, ablaut, grade (Grad), breaking, folk etymology

(Folksetymologie), loanword (Lehnwort).

In the 19th century, the words, such as gangue, loess, spiegeleisen, kieselguhr, etc were

borrowed.

A few words of German origin are the names of foods and beverages, for example stein,

lagerbeer, sauerkrauft. These words are less numerous than the French borrowings in the same

sphere and are distinguished by a lesser degree of assimilation in comparison with the latter.

A small number of German borrowings are used in the everyday lexicon: carouse, waltz, junker,

lobby, kinchin, zigzag, and iceberg.

The modern German language presented such borrowing words as: rucksack, zappelin, as well as

some musical terms, for example kappellmeister, leitmotif, and zither.

To the military sphere we can address such words as lansquenet, sabre. The word "plunder" has

been enrolled in English in the 17th century by soldiers who served under the command of

Gustavus Adolphus.

The borrowing German words meaning foods and household items are: marzipan, kohl-rabi,

schnapps, kummel, kirsch, vermuth.

The borrowing German words from the field of music are: leitmotiv, kapellmeister, claviatur,

humovresgue.

There are also some German loanwords meaning animals: spits, poodle.

For German loanwords of the 20th century is common the relatedness directly or indirectly, to

the war. That time a lot of loanwords were related to Hitler regime. The most famous of them

are: Black Shirt (Schwarhemd), Brown Shirt (Braunhemd), der Euhrer, gauleiter, Gestapo,

Hitlerism, Nazi, Stormtroopers (Stumabteilung), the Third Reich (Third Reich), blitzkrieg,

bunker, Luftwaffe, Wehrmacht (Pfeffer 2010).

Conclusion:

As a conclusion there is a need to say that the modern language is a product of long historical

development, in the process of which the language is changed due to various reasons. Changes

affect all aspects (levels, tiers, aspects) of linguistic structure, but operate them differently. The

historical development of each level depends on the specific causes and conditions that promote

changes in the lexical structure of language, its phonetic (phonemic) organization, in its

grammatical structure.

The development of the language is characterized by the processes of growth and decay. Thus,

an analytical form, a complex system of verb formation are developed in the English language,

but the system of inducement splits and personal verb endings drop words from the vocabulary,

new borrowing or by tumors.

The number of borrowings in the English language is sufficiently high compared with other

languages. It was calculated that there are 70% of borrowings in the English language, and the

rest are native English words. The reason for such "absorbency" of foreign vocabulary of English

language lies in the historical development of the language. Numerous Alien conquests of the

British Isles, trade, cultural impact of the continental countries - all these contributed to the

emergence and consolidation of loans in English.

English in the early middle Ages took a lot of borrowing from the Scandinavian languages

(including such basic words as skin, ill, and even she). The most massive flow of borrowing is a

medieval, after the Norman Conquest, from Old French; as the result of it, almost half of English

vocabulary became of Romanesque origin.

German also had a significant impact on English. There are about 820 words of German origin in

English. Especially, there are a lot of German loanwords in the mining industry, chemistry and

physics, philology, art, trade and military affairs, in the names of animals and plants. Borrowings

in the English language don't cause it harm, but rather enrich its vocabulary and help the

development of word formation.