Bloomsbury News Blog

English School in London | Bloomsbury International

English Borrowed Words from Other Languages

Borrowed Words

borrowed words, Anglo SaxonOne of the great strengths of English as a global language has been its ability to borrow words from other languages. The Anglo-Saxon’s were the original speakers of English. Before the 11th century, the vocabulary of Old English consisted of an Anglo-Saxon base with borrowed words from the Scandinavian languages (Danish and Norse) and Latin. I have heard English described as “German with French spelling and Scandinavian pronunciation”, but the case is even more complex than that.

Latin gave English words like street, kitchen, kettle, cup, cheese, wine, angel, bishop, martyr, and candle. The Vikings added many Norse words: sky, egg, cake, skin, leg, window (wind eye), husband, fellow, skill, anger, flat, odd, ugly, get, give, take, raise, call, die, they, their, them. Celtic words also survived mainly in place and British river names (Devon, Dover, Kent, Trent, Severn, Avon, Thames).

Many pairs of English and Norse words exited together giving us two words with the same or slightly different meanings. Examples below:

Norse anger contrasts with Saxon wrath
Norse ill contrasts with Saxon sick
Norse skill contrasts with Saxon craft
Norse scatter contrasts with Saxon shatter
Norse skin contrasts with Saxon hide
Norse skip contrasts with Saxon shift
Norse bask contrasts with Saxon bathe


Borrowed Words from Norman French

In 1066, the Normans conquered Britain. Norman French became the language of the Norman aristocracy and added a large amount of vocabulary to English, for example ‘admiral’, ‘government’, and ‘parliament’. More pairs of similar words appeared.

Norman French close contrasts with Anglo-Saxon shut
Norman French reply contrasts with Anglo-Saxon answer
Norman French odour contrasts with Anglo-Saxon smell
Norman French annual contrasts with Anglo-Saxon yearly
Norman French demand contrasts with Anglo-Saxon ask
Norman French chamber contrasts with Anglo-Saxon room
Norman French power contrasts with Anglo-Saxon might
Norman French pardon contrasts with Anglo-Saxon forgive

Because the English underclass raised the animals and cooked them for the Norman upper class, the words for most domestic animals are English (‘ox’, ‘cow’, ‘calf’, ‘sheep’, ‘swine’, ‘deer’) while the words for the meats derived from them are French (‘beef’, ‘veal’, ‘mutton’, ‘pork’, ‘bacon’, ‘venison’).

By the end of the 14th Century English was no longer recognisable. It began to be called Middle English as opposed to Old English. The language kept on adopting new word.

map of englandCenturies later, during the British Empire the greatest influx of foreign words was seen; ‘kangaroo’ and ‘boomerang’ are native Australian Aborigine words, ‘juggernaut’ and ‘turban’ are from India, ‘barbecue’ and ‘cannibal’ are from Central America. ‘orange’ and ‘checkmate’ are from Arabic through Spanish, and ‘chocolate’ is from Nahuatl (the Aztec language). An innumerable amount of Modern French words and phrases have even been borrowed into English to describe certain concepts; ‘tour de force’, ‘cliché’, ‘hors d’œuvre’, ‘bourgeois’, ‘coup d’état’, ‘aperatif’ among countless others. The list of borrowed words is enormous.

Other languages that have contributed words to English include Greek, German, Hindi, Italian, Malay, Dutch, Farsi (from Iran and Afganistan), Sanskrit (from ancient India), Portuguese, Spanish, Tupi (from South America) and Ewe (from Africa).

The success of English has been partly to do with its acceptance of foreign terms making them English in the process. The vocabulary of English is the largest of any language. English has a large number of synonyms compared to other languages.

Comments are closed.