1. The French language is probably the third largest source of borrowings in English (after Latin and Scandinavian).
1.1. French borrowings can be divided into several major groups:
1.1.1. 1) religious terms: religion, clergy, paradise, prayer, saint, sacrifice, vice, virtue, preach
1.1.2. 2) administrative terms: state, government, parliament, nation, reign, country, power, authority
1.1.3. 3) legal terms: court, judge, justice, defendant, crime, penalty, prison, accuse, marry, marriage
1.1.4. 4) military terms: army, war, battle, offi cer, enemy
1.1.5. 5) educational terms: pupil, lesson, library, pen, pencil
1.1.6. 6) terms of art, architecture and literature: art, literature, architecture, poet, prose, story, to paint
1.1.7. 7) words denoting pleasures: pleasure, joy, delight, comfort, flower, leisure, sport, cards
1.1.8. 8)words denoting food and ways of cooking: beef, mutton, veal, pork, bacon, sausage, biscuit, cream, sugar, fruit, grape, orange, peach,pastry, tart, jelly, mustard, vinegar,soup, boil, fry, roast, stew, dinner,supper
2. Celts were the original inhabitants of the British Isles before the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes came to the Isles in the 5th century.
3. Borrowings from the Italian language can be divided into several groups:
3.1. 1) words from the sphere of art, (music, theatre, literature, architecture): aria, baritone, concert, opera, piano, violin, sonata, tempo, scenario, fresco, studio, novel, balcony, arcade, corridor, villa
3.2. 2) military terms: alarm, cartridge, captain, colonel, pistol, campaign, brave, ambush, attack
3.3. 3) names of food: ravioli, spaghetti, macaroni, pizza, chianti
3.4. 4) festive terms: confetti, costume, masquerade, carnival, carrousel, tarantella
3.5. 5) religious terms (Madonna, nuncio, cardinal)
3.6. 6) words denoting aspects of crime: charlatan, ruffi an, bandit, assassin, contraband, mafia
3.7. 7) banking terms: cash, debit, credit, deposit, bank, bankrupt
4. Early Spanish borrowings are connected with fi ghting for domination on the sea and in the world in general which took place in the 16th – 17th centuries: armada,galleon,grenade, escalade, etc. A great number of Hispanic words penetrated into the English language in the 16th – 19th centuries due to the American settling of the West and contacts between Americans and speakers of Mexican Spanish: cannibal, negro, mulatto, quadroon, alligator, mosquito, cockroach, turtle, vanilla, canyon, lasso, hurricane, etc.
5. As early as the Middle Ages there were close contacts between the British and Dutch traders, fishermen and seamen.
6. Eponyms (from Greek “eponymous” “named for”) are words that can be traced back to a proper name (whose bearer is noted for something) but function as common nouns and may no longer be capitalized. For example:
6.1. Atlas: a collection of maps. The mythical Atlas fought an unsuccessful war against Zeus, who condemned him to bear the heavens on his shoulders
6.2. Cardigan: a sweater or jacket that opens down the front. Named after the 7th Earl of Cardigan, who wore such a jacket when he led the heroic Charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War
6.3. Jeans: from the Italian city of Genoa, where the cloth was fi rst made, as in blue jeans
6.4. Morphine: a drug extracted from opium. Named after “Morpheus”, the Roman God of dreams, son of the god of sleep
6.5. Panic: noises which caused fear in the fl ocks by night were attributed in Ancient Greece to Pan, the God of misdeeds; a panic is irrational behavior in the herd
6.6. Nicotine: after Jacques Nicot, who introduced tobacco into France in 1560
6.7. Sandwich: after the eighteenth-century British nobleman, the Earl of Sandwich, who brought bread and meat together to provide sustenance for himself
7. Etymology is a branch of lexicology studying the origin of words.
8. Native words are subdivided into two groups: 1) words of the Common Indo-European word stock 2) words of the Common Germanic origin
9. There are three layers of Latin borrowings in English.
9.1. The first layer goes back to the time of the Roman Conquest of the British Isles, the 5th century AD. The Romans brought with them some names of objects that were new to the population of Britain: names of food (wine, butter, cheese, pepper, pear, plum, etc.), words,naming objects of material culture such as household articles (kitchen, kettle, cup, dish), measures (pound, inch), civil and military constructions (mill, street, camp, port).
9.1.1. The second layer of Latin borrowings is connected with Christianity which was introduced by the Latin clergy at the end of the 6th century AD. Latin was the language of the Catholic Church and contained a great number of words connected with religion: abbot, altar, angel,anthem, candle, canon, deacon,devil, martyr, mass, nun, pope,priest, psalm, rule, shrine, temple.
9.1.1.1. The third layer of Latin borrowings dates back to the 14th – 16th centuries AD, the Renaissance period. They were borrowed from written sources and preserved their Latin form: accent, idea, effect, fate, history, memory, to adopt, to celebrate,to describe, to collect, to decorate, absent, accurate, direct, equal, fatal,future, humane, literary, neutral, solar, etc.
10. As for Greek borrowings, the majority of them came into English through Latin. Many Greek words were borrowed in the epoch of the Renaissance.
10.1. They are mostly bookish words such as: athlete,lexicon, idiom, scene, catastrophe, catalogue, myth, rhyme, theatre, drama, tragedy, geography, psychology, philosophy.
10.1.1. The peculiarities of Greek borrowings are as follows:
10.1.1.1. 1) the sound [k] is rendered through the letter combination ch (Christ, character)
10.1.1.2. 2) the letter p is mute before s (psychic) and n (pneumonia)
10.1.1.3. 3) the sound [f] is rendered in writing through ph (alphabet, emphasis)
10.1.1.4. 4) the sound [r] – by letter combinations rh, rrh (diarrhea, rhetoric)
10.1.1.5. 5) in the middle of the word, instead of i, y is written (system, sympathy)
10.1.1.6. 6) the letter x is read as [z] (xenophobia, xenon, Xerox)