Skip to Main Content

Borrowed Words: A History of Loanwords in English

Online ISBN:
9780191771446
Print ISBN:
9780199574995
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Borrowed Words: A History of Loanwords in English

Philip Durkin
Philip Durkin
Oxford University Press
Find on
Published online:
16 April 2014
Published in print:
23 January 2014
Online ISBN:
9780191771446
Print ISBN:
9780199574995
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

This book traces the history of loanwords in English from earliest times to the present day. The first two chapters outline the research methodology and framework, and introduce several key datasets that are referred to throughout the book: the full wordlist of the Oxford English Dictionary; the 1,000 most frequent words in a corpus of contemporary English; and the English words that provide the closest fit with a large list of basic meanings. The next three chapters look at the historical and cultural background up to the Norman Conquest, the methodology of comparative linguistics and the identification of families of related languages, the ways in which loanwords from the remote past are identified, and, finally, why there are relatively few English loanwords from the Celtic languages of the British Isles. The following three groups of chapters form the heart of the historical discussion in the book, looking in detail at loanwords from Latin found in Old English; loanwords resulting from Scandinavian contact and settlement; and loanwords that reflect multilingual contacts between French, Latin, and English in later medieval England. The final part of the book looks in detail at loanwords from Latin and French from 1500 to the present, including the role of loanwords in the history of written English and in the formation of specialist technical and scientific vocabularies; the contribution from other major donor languages, both within Europe and beyond (including Arabic, Hebrew, languages of South Asia, Malay, Chinese, Maori, and Japanese); and, finally, it assesses the deep transformations in all layers of the vocabulary of English that have resulted from the integration of loanwords from different sources.

Contents
Close
This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

Close

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

View Article Abstract & Purchase Options

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Close