Standardization Of The English Language
The Standardisation of the English Language
Standard English as it's known today, is made up of many words "borrowed" from other languages. The most obvious cases of borrowing are in vocabulary. English has borrowed a large part of its vocabulary from French and Latin. Most of these borrowed words are somewhat more scholarly, as in the word human (Latin humanus), because the commonly used words of any language are less likely to be replaced or lost. However, some of the words borrowed into English are common such as the French word very, which replaced the native English word sore in such phrases as sore afraid, meaning "very frightened". The borrowing of such common words reflects the close contact that existed between the English and the French in the period after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066.
By looking at the dates in which particular words were admitted in to Standard English and the derivation of the words, we are able to draw conclusions. For example, a lot of words to do with maritime English are borrowed from the Dutch language. Dutch words such as:
Keel means the bottom of a ship; Stern means the rear of a ship, Sloop, yacht and yawl are all types of small sailing vessels. These words were all in common use in the 17th century. We can conclude then that these words came when then the Dutch and English were having a war of trade in the 17th century.
Some English words have had to make their way into the English language via a long route. For example the word lilac. Lilac comes from the Sanskrit word for dark blue' nila- as does the name of the River Nile. This passed into Persian as nil, the adjective nilak, becoming lilak. English acquired the word from Spanish via French and Arabic. But, even thought the word is very different, the meaning is still similar. Some words have such long backgrounds that where they originally came from cannot be traced.
A huge influence on the vocabulary of...
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