2. Stylistically-marked words

Stylistically-marked words can be subdivided into two groups: formal and informal.

Formal words are appropriate in formal situations. The words of formal style fall into 3 groups:

1. Learned words

These words are associated with printed page. They are also called “bookish”. Modern prose is rich in them. They can be subdivided into:

• scientific prose words – dry, matter-of-fact flavour words;

• “officialese” – official bureaucratic words;

• literary words – lofty words used in descriptive passages of fiction;

• modes of poetic diction – high-flown words used in poetry.

2. Archaisms

These words are old and are not used in modern English. They are subdivided into:

• obsolete words – very rare, cannot be understood without specialexplanation;

• archaisms proper – can be understood because they were used in theXIXth century;

• historical words – denote objects or phenomena which have

disappeared.

3. Professional Terminology

They are words and phrases used by professional groups of people.

Informal words are appropriate in the immediate circle: family,

relatives, or friends. The words of informal style fall into 3 groups:

1. Colloquial words

Colloquial words can be subdivided into:

• literary colloquial – words used by everybody;

• familiar colloquial – words used mostly by the young and semi-educated;

low colloquial – rough and coarse words used by the illiterate.

• 2. Slang

• There is no exact definition of slangy words; slang is everything that is not included into the textbooks.

• 3. Dialect words

• There are certain regional forms of the English language in which dialect words appear. The British dialects are Northern, Midland, Eastern, Western, Southern; the American dialects are Northern, Midland, Southern. For the United Kingdom received pronunciation (RP) is considered to be the standard, for the USA it is Uniform American English (Californian English).

3. ETYMOLOGY AS A BRANCH OF LEXICOLOGY. EARLY INVASIONS. WORDS OF NATIVE ORIGIN. BORROWINGS (LOANWORDS).

Etymology is the study of the origins of words. Through old texts and comparison with other languages, etymologists reconstruct the history of words: when they entered a language, from what source, and how their form and meaning have changed.

The word “etymology” itself comes from the Greek word “etymos” (~ “true”). The term was originally applied to the search of supposedly “original” or “true” meanings of words.

The English language has a mixed character. In order to study the etymology of the English words it is important to know the early history of Great Britain.

General etymological survey of the english vocabulary

The English word-stock may be subdivided into two main sets. The elements of one are native, the elements of the other are borrowed.

A native word is a word which belongs to the original English stock, besides, this word is found in Old English. Native words are words brought by Anglo-Saxons from the continent and have cognates from other European languages but cannot be traced to any particular language.

The importance of native words in the English vocabulary is often overlooked because of a multitude of foreign words in Modern English

Native words in the English vocabulary are very often simple in their structure, but serve as a basis for word-formation.

The peculiar feature of native words in the language is their stability. They live for centuries. But in the course of time a certain number of Old English words have fallen out of the vocabulary.

A loan word, borrowed word or borrowing is a word taken over from another language and modified in phonetic shape, spelling, paradigm or meaning according to the standards of the English language.

70% of the English vocabulary consists of borrowings due to specific conditions of the English language development. The role played by borrowings is conditioned by direct and indirect linguistic contacts, the English language system absorbed and remodeled the majority of borrowings to its own standards but in spite of the changes they have undergone we can recognize them and trace their origin.

The English language happened to come in long and close contact with several other languages, mainly Latin, French and Old Norse (Scandinavian). The great influx of borrowings from these sources can be accounted for by a number of historical causes. Due to the great influence of the Roman civilization Latin was for a long time used in England as the language of learning and religion. Old Norse was the language of the conquerors who were on the same level of social and cultural development and who merged rather easily with the local population in the 9^th, 10^th and the first half of 11^th century. French, (to be more exact its Norman dialect) was the language of the other conquerors who brought with them a lot of new notions of a higher social system-developed feudalism, it was the language of upper classes, of official documents and school instruction from the middle of the 11^th century to the end of the 14^th century. The borrowings from French refer to various fields of social-political, scientific and cultural life. Also a large portion of borrowings is scientific and technical terms.

Yet more than half of the vocabulary of English is of Latin origin, implanted either directly during the four centuries or indirectly by eclectic borrowings in later epochs from Mn French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. Through the centuries it has borrowed so profusely from all other languages on earth and has assimilated words so successfully that today only professional scholars are aware of the national origins of many words in daily use. Here are some examples:

From Italian: balcony, brigade, colonel, piano, umbrella.

From Persian: check, chess, divan, lemon, lilac, shawl.

From Greek: acrobat, Bible, catastrophe, idiot, tactics.

From Spanish: alligator, canyon, sherry, rodeo.

Arabic : admiral, alcohol, algebra, camel, coffee, harem, lemon, massage;

Turkish : Altai, ataman;

Portuguese : breeze, caramel, cobra;

Norwegian : bag, kidnap, slalom;

Italian : bronze, dome, mascara, concert, opera, piano;

Dutch : boom, boss, cookie, easel, landscape;

Russian : babushka, balalayka, samovar, sputnik, duma, banya.