Old English
|
New English
|
Latin
|
Russian
|
modor
|
mother
|
maater
|
мать
|
niht
|
night
|
nox
|
ночь
|
neowe
|
new
|
nox
|
новый
|
beran
|
bear
|
ferre
|
брать
|
etan
|
eat
|
edo
|
еда
|
twa
|
two
|
duo
|
два
|
Old English
|
New English
|
Latin
|
Greek
|
fæder
|
father
|
pater
|
pater
|
Certainly we can’t claim all these words to be exactly of the same meaning due to the time passed. But anyway they have obviously mutual roots.
Stratum II
Mutual Germanic derivation
This layer is relatively more recent. These words were derived during the later historical period when separation between Indo-European language groups became more and more denotable. Such words can be found mostly in Germanic language groups.
Old Enslish
|
New English
|
German
|
Danish
|
еоrðe
|
earth
|
Erde
|
jord
|
land
|
land
|
Land
|
land
|
grene
|
green
|
grün
|
grøn
|
findan
|
find
|
finden
|
find
|
finʒer
|
finger
|
Finger
|
finger
|
hus
|
house
|
Haus
|
hus
|
skip
|
ship
|
Schiff
|
skib
|
Stratum III
The third stratum was made up of words that existed only in English, for instance, the word clypian (to call), the root preserved in the now somewhat obsolete word yclept (named).
The word woman belongs to this stratum too. It derived from the words wif and man:
w ifman wimman woman
To be perfectly honest this layer is the poorest one.
Means of enriching vocabulary
In the curse of time the language was changing. New words appeared while old ones were forgotten. Generally speaking, there are two ways of enriching the vocabulary. The first one is fulfilled with the internal means. In this case words are inherent in the language. They were formed during interchanges within the nation itself.
But taking into account active relationships between different peoples in those times the most popular means of enriching the Old English vocabulary were called the external means. In this case new words appeared during contacts between different tribes, countries, regions, etc. Let’s start with the internal means anyway.
Internal means
Internal means includes word derivation and word composition. Word derivation consists of primarily affixation and vowel interchanging.
There were a lot of different affixes in those times. I will present you few ones which are still preserved in the language. Here are the Old English words and in brackets you can see the modern relevant ones.
noun suffixes of concrete nouns:
Suffix
|
Old example
|
Modern version
|
Meaning
|
-ere
|
fisc+ere
|
fisher
|
to denote a doer of an action
|
-estre
|
spinn+ester
|
spinster
|
to denote a female doer of an action
|
-inʒ
|
cyn+ inʒ
|
king
|
to denote person’s derivation
|
-man
|
sæ+man
|
seaman
|
to denote a doer of an action
|
These suffixes helped to derive noun from noun
Suffix
|
Old English example
|
Modern version
|
-dom
|
freo+dom
|
freedom
|
-nis
|
ʒod+nis
|
goodness
|
-scipe
|
freond+scipe
|
friendship
|
-had
|
child+had
|
childhood
|
-u
|
lonʒ+u = lenʒu
|
length
|
-linʒ
|
deore+linʒ
|
darling
|
These suffixes helped to derive abstract nouns from nouns or adjectives
Suffixes
|
Old English example
|
Modern version
|
-iʒ
|
bys+iʒ
|
busy
|
-isc
|
Engl+isc
|
English
|
-ful
|
car+ful
|
careful
|
-leas
|
slæp+ leas
|
sleepless
|
-lic
|
freond+lic
|
friendly
|
These suffixes were used to derive adjectives from nouns.
Suffix
|
Old English example
|
Modern version
|
-inʒ/-unʒ
|
leornian+unʒ = leornunʒ
|
learning
|
This suffix was used to derive a noun from a verb.
Prefixes
|
Old English example
|
Modern version
|
for-
|
for+ʒiefan
|
forgive
|
mis-
|
mis+dæd
|
misdeed
|
un-
|
un+сuð
|
uncouth
|
Apparently that almost all the affixes have remained the same meaning till nowadays.
nouns:
|
verbs:
|
sonʒ (song)
|
singan(to sing)
|
dom (doom)
|
deman(to deem)
|
In this case relevant nouns and verbs had different vowels in their roots.
In this situation words were composed together to form a new one. Here are some simple examples:
nouns: gold+smið (goldsmith), Engla+land (land of the Angles, England)
ajectives: ic+ceald (ice-cold)
External means
In this case new words appeared during contacts between peoples.
Latin borrowings: pound, inch, pepper, cheese, wine, apple, street, devil, apostle, monk, master, school, lion, tiger, plant, astronomy.
Celtic borrowings: Avon, Esk.
Summing up it should be stated that the Old English was a language of a developing nation. It had its own features and direction of progress.
Middle English
The vocabulary was very instable in this period. It was constantly changing.
Internal Means
Though almost all the affixes of the Old period were preserved they were not widely used in order to form new vocabulary. Generally speaking, we can observe mostly word composition. In the Middle Period appeared various adverbs like these:
Anywhere ( any+wher(e))
Beforehand (before+hand)
Meanwhile (meen/meien+whil(e))
Already (all+re(a)dy)
External Means
Scandinavian borrowings.
Old English
|
Scandinavian
|
New English
|
laʒu
|
lagu
|
law
|
ceallian
|
kalla
|
call
|
tacan
|
taka
|
take
|
hūs-bonda
|
hūs-bondi
|
husband
|
skye
|
sky
|
sky
|
fellawe
|
félagi
|
fellow
|
windowe
|
vindauga
|
window
|
Anyway it should be mentioned that there were different conditions of various borrowings:
Sometimes the English language borrowed a word having the same synonym. Those words were simply added to the vocabulary: law- act, canon, ordinance, principle, statute; fellow- boy, guy, lad, and chap.
The English word was ousted by the borrowing: taken instead of niman, callen instead of clypian.
Both variants were preserved but became different in meaning: heaven and sky, starve and die.
Sometimes the native word and the borrowed word can be etymological doublets. That means that they have the same ancient roots.
Native
|
Through Scandinavian
|
Shirt
|
Skirt
|
Shatter
|
Scatter .
|
Raise
|
Rear
|
French borrowings.
Government and legislature
Government, noble, baron, prince, duke, court, justice, judge, crime, prison, condemn, sentence, parliament.
Army, battle, peace, victory, general, colonel.
Religion, prey, saint.
Painter, tailor.
Pleasure and entertainment
Music, art, feast, pleasure, leisure, supper, dinner, pork, beef, mutton.
Air, place, river, large, age, boil, branch, chair, table, choice, cry, cost.
Aunt, uncle, nephew, cousin.
The place of the French borrowings within the English language was different:
A word might have been borrowed from the French to denote notions unknown to the English up to the time: government, parliament, general, colonel.
The English synonyms were ousted by the French borrowings.
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