Научная статья на тему 'BORROWINGS IN ENGLISH AS THE REFLECTION OF PARTICULAR WORLDVIEW'

BORROWINGS IN ENGLISH AS THE REFLECTION OF PARTICULAR WORLDVIEW Текст научной статьи по специальности «Языкознание и литературоведение»

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Ключевые слова
concept / evolution / linguistic / context / conclusion

Аннотация научной статьи по языкознанию и литературоведению, автор научной работы — Madina Turayevna Ashirova

English is now a global language with an estimate of approximately 1.5 billion people across the world. The English Language has loan words from languages across the world. This paper aims at discussing the evolution of English Vocabulary due to borrowing. The paper mainly looks at the evolution of English vocabulary due to loan words. This change will be looked in terms of both the meaning and form of the words. The study will be conducted under the linguistic concept of borrowing and change, studying the words in context of sound change, morphological change and stylistic developments in written English. We will also study the concept of loan words against the concept of semantic borrowing. The category of loanwords will also be extended to loan translations and its overall impact on the vocabulary.The study is conducted chronologically starting from early contact in continental Europe and Britain, Proto English in contact with Latin towards Old English, Borrowings from French and Latin towards middle English, loan words from other languages like Hebrew, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, High German and Yiddish, Russian, French, Arabic, Malay, languages of South Asia towards early modern English. The paper concludes with the long-term effects of loanwords on the form of English lexicon.

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Текст научной работы на тему «BORROWINGS IN ENGLISH AS THE REFLECTION OF PARTICULAR WORLDVIEW»

BORROWINGS IN ENGLISH AS THE REFLECTION OF PARTICULAR

WORLDVIEW

Madina Turayevna Ashirova

Chirchik State Pedagogical Institute of Tashkent region

ABSTRACT

English is now a global language with an estimate of approximately 1.5 billion people across the world. The English Language has loan words from languages across the world. This paper aims at discussing the evolution of English Vocabulary due to borrowing. The paper mainly looks at the evolution of English vocabulary due to loan words. This change will be looked in terms of both the meaning and form of the words. The study will be conducted under the linguistic concept of borrowing and change, studying the words in context of sound change, morphological change and stylistic developments in written English. We will also study the concept of loan words against the concept of semantic borrowing. The category of loanwords will also be extended to loan translations and its overall impact on the vocabulary.The study is conducted chronologically starting from early contact in continental Europe and Britain, Proto English in contact with Latin towards Old English, Borrowings from French and Latin towards middle English, loan words from other languages like Hebrew, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, High German and Yiddish, Russian, French, Arabic, Malay, languages of South Asia towards early modern English. The paper concludes with the long-term effects of loanwords on the form of English lexicon.

Keywords: concept, evolution, linguistic, context, conclusion.

INTRODUCTION

Borrowing is a Linguistic process in which one word of language is borrowed from one language to another. The words borrowed are called loan words. Lexical borrowing occurs when the lexis of donor language influences the lexis of receiving language with the effect on vocabulary by acquiring a new word form or word meaning or both.This paper mainly deals with loanwords. Philip Durkin defines loanwords in English as a result from borrowing of a word form with its meaning or a component of meaning from one language to another. Thus, English image 'artificial imitation or representation of something' reflects a Middle English borrowing of French image in the same meaning. The other types of lexical borrowing that we observe in English Language involve borrowing of meaning but not of the word form and can conveniently be referred to under the cover term semantic borrowing.

METHODOLOGY

In some cases, the structure of the word in the donor language is replicated by a new word in the borrowing language. E.g. English Almighty was probably formed on the model of Latin omnipotence; the components 'all' and 'mighty' of the English word match closely with components of Omni- 'all' and potens 'might, powerful' of the Latin word. This is typically called loan translation Semantic borrowing is mostly found in Old English. The terminology differs considerably in this area. It is also an area where it is difficult to be certain that borrowing has occurred. This paper doesn't focus on semantic borrowing except for comparisons with the borrowing of loanwords and for case of loanwords that show continuing borrowing of new meanings from the original donor. E.g. To present acquires some further meanings from French much later, e.g. 'to stage or put on' in the sixteenth century. Another category of loan blends where a borrowed word is remodelled using material from the borrowed language. For example, old English feferfuge 'feverfew' (the name of a plant traditionally used for medicinal purposes shows a borrowing of Latin febris in the same meaning.) Loanwords in English sometimes show suffixation of the borrowed word stems with a suffix that signals the word class that the loanword belongs to in English. For instance, in old English borrowed verbs need to be accommodated morphologically to one of the old English verb classes, hence Latin Plantre > Old English plantian 'to plant', showing the infinitive ending -ian of verbs of the second weak class. Code switching is another term used in this domain. Most scholars consider that code switching occurs when bilingual or multilingual speakers mix elements from more than one language within a single act of communication, whether within a sentence or in successive sentences.More controversial point I whether we should call code switches at the level of a single word code switches, or whether threes should be regarded as borrowings, simply occurring inthe language of bilingual or multilingual speakers; when singleword code switches and nonce borrowing are distinguished.Another theoretical distinction is that of borrowing and imposition, Imposition is used for the process by which speakers introduce new material into a language in the process of a shift from primary use of one language into the primary use of another. This is typically in a situation of language death, where a community ceases to use one language in favour of another. Literature ReviewWorks of Einar Haugen (1950) and Uriel Weiner are regarded as the classical theoretical works on loan influence. The basic theoretical nomenclature take Betz as its starting point. On the basis of importation-substitution distinction, Haugen (1950:214f.) distinguishes three basic groups of borrowings: "(1) Loanwords show morphemic importation without substitution. (2) Loan blends show

morphemic substitution as well as importation. (3) Laonshifts show morphemic substitution without importation" Haugen refined (1956) his model in a review of Gneuss's (1955) book on Old English loans, whose classification, in turn is the one byBetz.(1949) again.Weinreich (1953): 47ff) differentiated between two mechanisms of lexical interference, those initiated by simple words and those initiated by compound words and phrases.Weinreich (1953:47) defines simple words "from the point of view of the bilinguals who perform the transfer, rather than that of the descriptive linguist. Accordingly, the category 'simple' words also include compounds that are transferred in unanalysed form". After this general classification, Weinrich then resorts to Betz's (1949) terminology.

RESULTS

The most seminal work on history of loan words in English is still of Philip Durkin (2015) who has exhaustively explored the history of loanwords in English and how English has evolved all through these stages in History.English English is a West Germanic language believed to be first spoken by people living in early medieval England. The history of English Language is divided into four main periods namely Old English, Middle English, Early modern English and Later modern English.This classification is based on some major changes in grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary of English. This paper majorly concerns with the periods mentioned in Oxford EnglishDictionary.Old English is traced to the period up to 1150( just after the Norman conquest); middle English from c. 1150 to c. 1500(when printing press came to Britain) and modern English after c. 1500 onwards which further is subdivided into early modern English till 1700s and Later modern English from 1700 onwards.The transition from Old English Vocabulary to Middle English is characterised largely by a very gradual loss of grammatical gender which is also the period of borrowing fromFrench and Latin with major consequences for the vocabulary of English and from Scandinavian languages.Early modern English is majorly characterised by a series of far-reaching changes in the pronunciation of vowels known as Great Vowel Shift. The early stages are marked by greater codification of the standard variety of territories around the world. Old English Old English also known as Anglo-Saxon is the earliest historical form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers probably in the mid-5th century, and the first Old English literary works date from mid-7th century. After the Norman conquest of 1066, English was replaced as the language of upper classe by Anglo-Norman. This is considered as marking the end of the Old English era, as in this period the English language was heavily influenced by Anglo-

Norman, developing into Middle English. The closest relatives of old English are Old Frisian and Old Saxon.The grammar of Old English is like that of modern German as nouns, adjectives, pronouns and verbs have inflectional endings and forms and word order is much freer. The oldest English inscriptions were written using runic system, but from about 9th century this was replaced by version of Latin alphabet. Old English doesn't appear to have been significantly affected by the native British Celtic languages which were largely displaced by Old English. However old English contained a certain number of loanwords from Latin, which was the lingua franca of WesternEurope.Old English contained a certain number of loanwords from Latin, which was the scholarly and diplomatic lingua franca of Western Europe. It is sometimes possible to give approximate dates for the borrowing of individual Latin words based on which patterns of sound change they have undergone. Some Latin words had already been borrowed into the Germanic languages before the ancestral Angles and Saxons left continental Europe for Britain. More entered the language when the Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity and Latin-speaking priests became influential. It was also through Irish Christian missionaries that the Latin alphabet was introduced and adapted for the writing of Old English, replacing the earlier runic system. Nonetheless, the largest transfer of Latin-based (mainly Old French) words into English occurred after the Norman Conquest of 1066, and thus in the Middle English rather than the Old English period. Another source of loanwords was Old Norse, which met Old English via the Scandinavian rulers and settlers in the Danelaw from the late 9th century and during the rule of Cnut and other Danish kings in the early 11th century. Many place-names in eastern and norther England are of Scandinavian origin. Norse borrowings are relatively rare in Old English literature, being mostly terms relating to government and administration. The literary standard, however, was based on the West Saxon dialect, away from the main area of Scandinavian influence; the impact of Norse may have been greater in the eastern and northern dialects. Certainly, in Middle English texts, which are more often based on eastern dialects, a strong Norse influence becomes apparent. Modern English contains a great many, often every day, words that were borrowed from Old Norse, and the grammatical simplification that occurred after the Old English period is also often attributed to Norse influence. The influence of Old Norse certainly helped move English from a synthetic language along the continuum to a more analytic word order, and Old Norse most likely made a greater impact on the English language than any other language. The eagerness of Vikings in the Danelaw to communicate with their southern Anglo-Saxon neighbors produced a friction that led to the erosion of the complicated inflectional word-endings. Simeon Potter notes: "No less far-reaching was the influence of Scandinavian upon the in flexional endings of

English in hastening that wearing away and leveling of grammatical forms which gradually spread from north to south. It was, after all, a salutary influence. The gain was greater than the loss. There was a gain in directness, in clarity, and in strength."The strength of the Viking influence on Old English appears from the fact that the indispensable elements of the language -pronouns, modals, comparatives, pronominal adverbs (like "hence" and "together"), conjunctions and prepositions - show the most marked Danish influence; the best evidence of Scandinavian influence appears in the extensive word borrowings for, as Jespersen indicates, no texts exist in either Scandinavia or in Northern England from this time to give certain evidence of an influence on syntax. The change to Old English from Old Norse was substantive, pervasive, and of a democratic character. Old Norse and Old English resembled each other closely like cousins and with some words in common, they roughly understood each other; in time the inflections melted away and the analytic pattern emerged. It is most "important to recognize that in many words the English and Scandinavian language differed chiefly in their inflectional elements. The body of the word was so nearly the same in the two languages that only the endings would put obstacles in the way of mutual understanding. In the mixed population which existed in the Danelaw these endings must have led to much confusion,tending gradually to become obscured and finally lost." This blending of peoples and languages resulted in "simplifying English grammar".

DISCUSSION

The transition from Late Old English to Early Middle English occurred in the latter part of the 11th century. Most loanwords were taken from Latin, usually through French transmission. This gave rise to various synonyms including kingly (inherited from Old English), royal (from French, which inherited it from Vulgar Latin), and regal (from French, which borrowed it from classical Latin). Later French appropriations were derived from standard, rather than Norman French.Examples of resultant cognate pairs include the words warden (from Norman), and guardian (from later French; both share a common Germanic ancestor). Modern English

Modern English also knows as New English spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England, Which Began in the late 14th century till approximately 1550. English was adopted in regions around the world, such as North America, the Indian subcontinent, Africa, Australia andNewZealand through colonization by the British Empire. With rapid process of globalization, interconnections among countries in areas of economics, politics, culture, science, and technology get strengthened. As a result of this, English,

as the world language, has borrowed a large number of words from foreign languages like French, German, Italian, Russian, Chinese Japanese, Greek, Spanish, Arabian, etc. According to surveys, the percentage of modern English words derived from each language is 29% from French, 29% from Latin, 26% from German, and 6% from Greek, the rest accounting for 6%.

Chinese Origin Words with Chinese origin have entered the English language, most of which were loan words from Chinese itself. However, Chinese words have also entered indirectly via other languages, especially Korean and Japanese. The latter part of 20th century witnessed greater influx of loan words with Chinese origin into English via modern international communication, especially after the 1970s when the People's Republic of China opened its door to the outside world. Theyinclude Fengshui, wirefu, Sifu, lose face, one country two systems, tuhao, dama, buzheteng, no zuo no die, Lao-tzu, Tai-chi, Tao, taikonaut, Cultural Revolution, planned commodity economy, iron rice bowl, township enterprises, little emperor, one child policy, vegetable basket project, Lianghui, etc.Since China has profound and rich food culture, Chinese dishes entered the West. Quite a few English loan words from Chinese appeared on the menu of the western restaurants: Mushu Pork, Dim Sum, Ramen, Wonton, ginkgo, ginseng, lychee, Chaomein, etc. Internet loan words of Chinese appear in numbers, too: human flesh search, play hide and seek, to get soy sauce, wechat, weibo, knock off, alibaba, etc. Introduction to data - Examining loanwords in the high-frequency vocabulary of modern EnglishThe proportions of English vocabulary borrowed from various languages taken for reference for this study must be approached with caution. It is to be remarked that such figures can only refer to a period in the history of English language and to the variety or register these belong to. The data selected for this study is taken from Philip Durkin's study of borrowed words who has prepared the word list exhaustively assessing and classifying etymologies. The usual starting point of the word list is the OED, comprising a wordlist of 600,000 lexemes arranged under 275,000 headword entries. Durkin suggests that OED should not be taken as a catalogue of every word 0or expression that ever is or has been used in English. It investigates how loanwords are one area among many in which the vocabulary of English can be hugely variable from one individual to another, and how a common core of shared vocabulary shades off into hugely varied individual repertoires of lexical items depending on location, profession, interests and individual experience. CONCLUSION

The selection criteria of OED for including lexemes pay careful attention to questions of frequency of use, and its wordlist can be taken as a good reflection of those words that have had most impact on the lexicon of English since the twelfth century. It

is a well-known fact that no dictionary could ever enlist all English words, since thevocabulary is almost infinitely extendible by regular processes of word formation as well as by borrowing from other languages.Fig.1. Presents the total of loanwords from the most prolific donor languages as reflected by the two large contiguous alphabetical ranges of OED3 that have so far been published, as of November 2012 comprising all the letters M, N, O, P, Q, R and A from A to A L Z. Approximately 92, 500 dictionary entries fall into these alphabetical ranges, constituting the bulk of OED3 material so far published. Among the 92,500 main entries that make up the alphabetical ranges M, N, O, P, Q, R, and A to A L Z in OED3, approximately 30% are identified as loanwords from other languages. Fig. 1. shows how dramatically the totals of loanwords from different languages differ. Fig.2. Henceforth consists of a series of charts, each to different scale, enabling the totals to be seen more clearly. In each successive chart, the language that was on the right-hand edge of the preceding chart appears first at the left-hand edge. These charts take the totals beyond the top twenty-five donors, to include Welsh and Cornish, as long-standing Celtic neighbors of English in the British Isles.

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