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A loanword (or a borrowing) is a word taken in by one language from another. The word loanword itself is a calque of the German Lehnwort. A calque or loan translation is a related process whereby it is the meaning or idiom that is borrowed rather the lexical item itself.Although loanwords are typically far less numerous than the "native" words of most languages ( creoles being an obvious exception), they are often widely known and used, since their borrowing served a certain purpose.
1 Loanwords in English
English has many loanwords, due to England coming in contacts with numerous invaders in the Middle Ages, and English becoming a trade language in the 18th century. The table below lists languages (with examples) from which English borrowed more than 1000 words:
- Classical Latin - agenda, disc, exit, street, vine
- Ancient Greek - anonymous, catastrophe, parabola, skeleton, tonic
- Norman - catch, guardian, judge, pork, wicket
- French - beauty, champion, chase, parliament
- Old Norse (Scandinavian) -are, call, leg, father, skin, sky, take, they, through, window
- GoidelicVisit and Contribute to the. Goidelic is one of two major divisions of modern-day Celtic languages (the other being Brythonic). It is also known as Gaelic, or Q-Celtic because of the way that words in Brythonic that begin with "B" or "P" begin with "C" or - claymoreThe word claymore has been used to describe two distinct types of swords used by Scottish warriors and soldiers. The first was a large, two-handed sword used in the medieval period. It was used in the constant clan warfare and border fights with the Engli, bardA bard is a poet and singer, with the particular meaning differing for various countries and epochs. In Celtic society, a bard was a professional poet, paid by a monarch to praise the sovereign's activities. If the monarch failed to pay the proper amount,, galore, sloganA slogan is a memorable phrase used in political or commercial context as a repetitive expression of an idea or purpose. A political slogan generally expresses a goal or aim (" Workers of the world, unite!"), whereas an advertising slogan is most often in
- Brythonic - coracleA coracle is a primitive type of boat. It is a light boat, oval in shape, and formed of canvas stretched on a framework of split and interwoven rods, and well-coated with tar and pitch to render it water-tight. According to early writers the framework was, crowdThe crwth is an archaic stringed musical instrument, associated particularly with Wales, although once played widely in Europe. Nomenclature Crwth is a Welsh word, pronounced to rhyme with tooth (SAMPA /kru:T/ or /krUT/). The traditional English name, lit (musical instrument), corgi, gunnies
1.1 Germanic loanwords
The Norse loanwords amount to about 2% of all significant vocabulary. However, the Norse words are used more often than the rest of the loanwords put together. Some Norse words form, with English ones, vocabulary couplets. In each case below, the Norse word is first. Often, if the Norse word starts with an /sk/ sound, the English one will start with /S/.
- Egg (on) - edge
- Scatter - shatter
- Skirt - shirt
- Dike - ditch
- Skin - hide
In addition, some words like think are of shared English-Norse origin. The modern word descends from one, or more likely, both forms.
The Norse loanwords are actually part of the grammatical skeleton of English. It is possible to spend a whole day without using a Latin, French, or Greek borrowing, but the only way to never use a Norse borrowing (or an Old English descendant) is not to speak.
