Table of content

BORROWINGS IN MIDDLE ENGLISH

INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………......3

1.CHRONOLOGICAL DIVISION IN THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH.…5

1.1General characteristics of Middle English language……………………......5

2.BORROWINGS IN MIDDLE ENGLISH…………………………………..13

2.1The borrowing and its function in the English language…………………...13

2.2Ways of adaptation of borrowing in the English language………..……….16

CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………….20

LIST OF LITERATURE………………………………………………………..22

INTRODUCTION

The given theme of the current research is of current importance, because it deals with the following interesting notions: why there is a language, why people speak in different languages, though the speaker can meet various words from any language in his speech. These words are called borrowings, and the present work will observe how they came into our language. When speakers of different languages interact closely, it is typical for their languages to influence each other. Languages normally develop by gradually accumulating internal differences until one parent language splits into daughter languages. This is analogous to a sexual reproduction in biology. Change due to language contact, in this analogy, is skin to the recombination that happens when separate organisms exchange genetic material.” We don’t just borrow on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary”.

Borrowing words from other languages is characteristic of English throughout its history and more than two thirds of the English vocabulary are borrowings. Mostly they are words of Romanic origin (Latin, French, Italian and Spanish). Borrowed words are different from native ones by their phonetic structure, by their morphological structure and also by their grammatical forms. It is also characteristic of borrowings to be non-motivated semantically.

English history is very rich in different types of contacts with other countries, that is why it is very rich in borrowings. The Roman invasion, The adoption of Christianity, Scandinavian and Norman conquests of the British Isles, the development of British colonialism and trade and cultural relations served to increase immensely the English vocabulary. The majority of these borrowings is fully assimilated in English in their pronunciation, grammar and spelling and can be hardly distinguished from native words.

English continues to take in foreign words, but now the quantity of borrowings is not as abundant as it had been before. All the more so, English now has become a “giving” language; it has become Lingva Franca of the twentieth century.

The aim of the research is to study influence of borrowings in middle English.

Tasks:

-Investigation of the impact of historical events on the development of English vocabulary;

-The reason of appearance of borrowed words in English vocabulary;

-Role of borrowings in the development of English vocabulary;

-Borrowings from different contemporary languages;

In the given work the following methods of the research were used:

-Purposeful observation of the reasons appearing borrowings in the English;

Sources of research: in fact this survey is mainly based on the valuable works of foreign linguists as well. For writing this work a lot of articles, information from internet sites, and facts from the history of English language, additional papers and journals were used. To list of authors we can refer I.V.Arnold, I. Ginzburg, Longman, Webster.

Scientific novelty of the research is:

-the impact of historical events on the development of English vocabulary is studied

-studied role of borrowings in the development of English vocabulary

The structure: The present research consists of introduction, two chapters: theoretical and practical one, conclusion and bibliography, which were used for writing the work.

In the introduction there is a general characteristic of the work, which shows the actually of the work, setting the aim, tasks, written the methods of research.

In the first chapter, there are theoretical bases of the question about the chronological division in the history of English language.

The second chapter is about borrowings from the different languages.

In the conclusion, the main conclusion of the research is written, it summarizing the results of the studied theme, and gives ideas of how to use the studied material in the teaching and learning process.