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Historical changes in the sphere of the English vocabulary: borrowings from the Latin Language

Latin words entered the English language at different stages of OE history.

Traditionally there considered to be three layers of Latin loans:

(2) the second layer: words concerning religion and the church, taken over after the introduction of Christianity, which began in 597; these words belong to the 7th century.

1st layer: a large proportion of Latin loans found in Old English are shared by English with German and other (West)Germanic languages. Quite a number of these – the so-called ‘continental borrowings’ – were taken over in the centuries before the migration of West Germanic tribes to Britain and reflect innovations in the life of the Germanic people which resulted from direct contacts with the Romans: includes words derived from the Roman-Germanic contacts on the continent: battle, wall (OE weall), street (OE stræt), mile (OE mīl), pound (OE pund), coin (OE mynet), wine (OE wīn), cup (OE cuppe), line (OE līne), butter (OE butere), church (OE cirice), bishop (OE biscop) etc.

2nd layer: consists of words which directly or indi­rectly belong to the sphere of religion and church. When Christianity was introduced in England which began in 597, the Latin language came to be used as language of the church. At this time a certain number of Latin words were taken over into English: biscop ‘bishop’ from Latin episcopus, Greek episkopos-, cleric church man’ from Latin clericus, Greek klerikos-, apostol ‘apostle’ from Latin apostolus, Greek aposto- los; deofol ‘devil’ from Latin diabolus, Greek diabolos-, msesse ‘mass’ from Latin missa, munuc ‘monk’ from Latin monachus, Greek mo- nachos-, magister ‘teacher’ from Latin magister; scrifan ‘prescribe’ from Latin scribere. Some Latin loan-words yielded derivatives: biscophad ‘bishopric’, biscepun 5 ‘becoming a bishop’, scrift ‘shrift’.

3rd layer: the influxприток of Latin loansзаимствований continued during Middle English times. Although French became by far the most important source on new words in this period, the number of loans that entered English directly from Latin was by no means small. In cases of minor formal differences between Latin and French it is often impossible to decide with certainty whether the word in question came into English as a result of direct borrowing or was introduced via its descendant language.

Under Latin influence some native English words acquired new meanings: thus, the substantive eastron, which originally denoted a heathenязыческий spring holiday, acquired the meaning ‘Easter’. Some new terms were created on the pattern of Latin words, e.g. 5 ddspell ‘gospel’ (literally ‘good news’), prenes ‘Trinity’.


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