8. Various Other Elements in the English Vocabulary

Quite a number of words were borrowed from other languages: Dutch, Italian, Spanish. England was in commercial contact with the Netherlands during the Middle ages. There lived and worked many skilful Dutch artisans in England (weavers, shipbuilders). Hence, the terminology of some professions owes much to Dutch and Flemish: cruise, dock, reef. Among borrowings there are also weaving terms: rock, spool.

Dutch art terms came to English as a result of the influence of Dutch art (landscape, easel).

The Italian language began to contribute to the English vocabulary in the16^thcentury. Many Italian words such as military terms entered through French. During the period of Renaissance Italian culture greatly influenced the cultural life of England. Many musical terms were borrowed at that time: piano, opera, sonata. Among borrowings we find artistic terms (studio, fresco), literary terms (stanza, canto), business terms (bank, traffic), words denoting realities of Italian life (gondola, macaroni).

Spanish brought some words as well. Many words belonging to various languages of the native population of America came through Spanish: banana, canyon, cargo, potato, Negro.

Some Portuguese words came through French, Spanish and Dutch: caste, fetish. There are not many words borrowed immediately from Portuguese: tank, cobra, port (wine), emu.

There are borrowings from the German language: cobalt, quartz, leitmotiv, kindergarten, rucksack.

Some other languages contributed to the English vocabulary as well. Arabian gave some terms: algebra, Moslem, mufti, sherbet.

With the beginning of England’s colonial expansion in the 16^th-17^th centuries many words penetrated into the English vocabulary from the languages of colonial countries: cashmere, jungle, rupee (Hindi), ginseng, serge (Chinese), hara-kiri, rickshaw (Japanese).

The Russian language also contributed to the English vocabulary: rouble, kopeck, taiga, sable, sarafan, tsar.

In the Ukrainian language there borrowings from the Polish language (в’язень, застава, ліжко, зичити), from the Check language (брама, праця, вагатися). There also exist Turkic words (кабан, кайдани) in the Ukrainian language.

Words borrowed from the English language are partially assimilated (футбол, хокей). Some borrowings in the Ukrainian language are restricted in word-formation. Such words as ноу-хау, от кутюр have no derivatives.

International words are used in both languages: organisation, telephone, judo, banana. Some international words can coincide only in one of the meanings. E.g.: the words stress, faculty, data. They are called pseudointernationalisms.

9. False Etymology

The historical development of borrowed words often brings about an indistinctness of the word’s etymological meaning. The words are then wrongly associated with their ultimate source whereas actually the word may have come through some intermediate language. The word debt comes not from the Latin word debit but from the French dette while doubt comes not from the Latin word dubitare but from the French word doute. But scientists wrongly attributed them directly to the Latin source and consequently introduced the missing b which never came to be pronounced.

In many cases words lose their etymological clarity. The word buttery (larder) which came from the Latin word botaria (Latin bota – barrel, bottle) was wrongly associated with the English word butter. Such instances of the so-called folk etymology are not very rare in the English language.

In some cases folk etymology leads to the appearance of compound words which are tautological. In the word greyhound the first element of which comes from the Scandinavian grey (собака) was associated with grey meaning colour.

Sometimes under the influence of folk etymology the spelling of the word is changed. The word hiccough was written hicket but it was associated with the word cough and a new spelling was introduced.