Italian also contributed a considerable number of words to English, e. G. Piano, violin, opera, alarm, colo­nel.

•k * *

There are certain structural features which enable us to identify some words as borrowings and even to de­termine the source language. We have already estab­lished that the initial sk usually indicates Scandinavian origin. You can also recognize words of Latin and French origin by certain suffixes, prefixes or endings. The two tables below will help you in this.

The historical survey above is far from complete. Its aim is just to give a very general idea of the ways in which English vocabulary developed and of the major events through which it acquired its vast modern re­sources.

Phenomenon, philosophy, method, music, etc. were bor­rowed into English from Latin and had earlier come into Latin from Greek.

N otes. 1. The tables represent only the most typical and frequent structural elements of Latin and French borrow­ings.

2. Though all the affixes represented in the tables are Latin or French borrowings, some of the examples given in the third column are later formations derived from native roots and borrowed affixes (e. g. eatable, lovable).

3. By remnant suffixes are meant the ones that are only partially preserved in the structure of the word (e. g. Lat. -ct < Lat. -ctus).

It seems advisable to sum up what has been said in a table.

1 By the native element we mean words which were not bor­rowed from other languages but represent the original stock of this particular language.

T he table requires some explanation. Firstly, it should be pointed out that not only does the second col­umn contain more groups, but it also implies a greater quantity of words. Modern scholars estimate the per­centage of borrowed words in the English vocabulary at 65—70 per cent which is an exceptionally high figure: one would certainly expect the native element to pre­vail. This anomaly is explained by the country's event­ful history and by its many international contacts.

On a straight vocabulary count, considering the high percentage of borrowed words, one would have to clas­sify English as a language of international origin or, at least, a Romance one (as French and Latin words obvi­ously prevail). But here another factor comes into play, the relative frequency of occurrence of words, and it is under this heading that the native Anglo-Saxon heri­tage comes into its own. The native element in English comprises a large number of high-frequency words like the articles, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, auxiliaries and, also, words denoting everyday objects and ideas (e. g. house, child, water, go, come, eat, good, bad, etc.).

Furthermore, the grammatical structure is essen­tially Germanic having remained unaffected by foreign influence.

It is probably of some interest to mention that at var­ious times purists have tried to purge the English lan­guage of foreign words, replacing them with Anglo-Saxon ones. One slogan created by these linguistic na­tionalists was: "Avoid Latin derivatives; use brief, terse Anglo-Saxon monosyllables". The irony is that the only Anglo-Saxon word in the entire slogan is "An­glo-Saxon". [31]

Now let us turn to the first column of the table re­presenting the native element, the original stock of the English vocabulary. The column consists of three groups, only the third being dated: the words of this group appeared in the English vocabulary in the 5th c. or later, that is, after the Germanic tribes migrated to the British Isles. As to the Indo-European and German­ic groups, they are so old that they cannot be dated. It was mentioned in the historical survey opening this chapter that the tribal languages of the Angles, the

Saxons, the Jutes, by the time of their migration, con­tained only words of Indo-European and Germanic roots plus a certain number of the earliest Latin bor­rowings.

By the Indo-European element are meant words of roots common to all or most languages of the Indo-Eu­ropean group. English words of this group denote ele­mentary concepts without which no human communi­cation would be possible. The following groups can be identified.¹