Different chronological layers of native words

1. Подготовили студентки групы ППс 18-2-2 Колесникова Дарья Канах Лейла

Different chronological layers of
native words

2. Etymological survey of the Old English vocabulary

The OE vocabulary was almost purely Germanic; except for a small number
of borrowings, it consisted of native words inherited from PG or formed from
native roots and affixes.
Native OE words can be subdivided into a number of etymological layers
coming from different historical periods. The three main layers in the native
OE words are: a) common IE words, 2) common Germanic words, 3)
specifically OE words.

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1) Words belonging to the common IE layer constitute the oldest part of the
OE vocabulary. They were inherited by PG from the IE parent-language
and passed into the Germanic languages of various subgroups, including
English.
Among these words we find names of some natural phenomena, plants
and animals, agricultural terms, names of parts of the human body, terms of
kinship, etc.; verbs belonging to this layer denote the basic activities of
man; adjectives indicate the most essential qualities; this layer includes
personal and demonstrative pronouns and most numerals. OE examples of
this layer are: eolh ‘elk’, mere 'sea', mōna ‘moon’, trēow ‘tree’, sāwan
‘sow’, næ¥l ‘nail’, beard ‘beard’, brōðor ‘brother’, mōdor ‘mother’, sunu
‘son’, dōn ‘do’, bēon ‘be’, niwe ‘new’, long ‘long’, ic ‘I’, min ‘my’, pæt
‘that’, twā ‘two’, etc.

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2) The common Germanic layer includes words which are shared by most
Germanic languages, but do not occur outside the group. Being specifically
Germanic, these words constitute an important distinctive mark of the
Germanic languages at the lexical level. This layer is certainly smaller than the
layer of common IE words.
Common Germanic words originated in the common period of Germanic
history, i.e. in PG when the Teutonic tribes lived close together. Semantically thes
Some of the words did not occur in all the OG languages. Their areal distribution
reflects the contacts between the Germanic tribes at the beginning of their
migrations: West and North Germanic languages (represented here by OE,
OHG and O Icel) had many words in common, due to their rapprochement
after the East Teutons (the Goths) left the coast of the Baltic Sea. The languages
of the West Germanic subgroup had a number of words which must have
appeared after the loss of contacts with the East and North Teutons but before
the West Germanic tribes started on their migrations.e words are connected
with nature, with the sea and everyday life.

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3) The third etymological layer of native words can be defined as
specifically OE, that is words which do not occur in other Germanic or nonGermanic languages. These words are few, if we include here only the
words whose roots have not been found outside English; OE clipian 'call',
OE brid ‘bird’and several others. However, they are far more numerous if
we include in this layer OE compounds and derived words formed from
Germanic roots in England. For instance, OE wifman or wimman
‘woman’consists of two roots which occurred as separate words in other
OG languages, but formed a compound only in OE, e.g. OHG wib, O Icel
vif ‘wife’;OE man, Gt mann(a) ‘man’. Other well-known examples are OE
hlāford, originally made of hlāf ‘loaf’,cf. R xлeб and weard 'keeper' (cf. Gt
wards). This compound word was simplified and was ultimately shortened
to NE lord. OE hlæfdi¥e was a compound consisting of the same first
component hlāf ofthe root *di¥e which is related to parallels in other OG
languages: Gt digan, O Icel deigja 'knead' (lit. 'bread-kneading'), later
simplified to NE lady. Some compounds denoted posts and institutions in OE
kingdoms: OE scīr¥erefa 'chief of the shire" (NE sheriff), OE witena¥emōt
’meeting of the elders, assembly'.

6. The total number of Latin loan-words in OE exceeds five hundred, this third layer accounting for over four hundred words.

After the introduction of Christianity many monastic schools were set up in
Britain. The spread of education led to the wider use of Latin: teaching was
conducted in Latin, or consisted of learning Latin. The written forms of OE
developed in translations of Latin texts. These conditions are reflected in a
large number of borrowings connected with education, and also words of
a more academic, "bookish" character. Unlike the earlier borrowings
scholarly words were largely adopted through books; they were first used in
OE translations from Latin, e.g.: OE fers ‘verse’ < L versus; OE dihtan
‘compose’ < L dictare. Other modern descendants of this group are:
accent, grammar, meter, gloss, notary; decline.

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he Latin impact on the OE vocabulary was not restricted to borrowing of
words. There were also other aspects of influence. The most important of
them is the appearance of the so-called "translation-loans" – words and
phrases created on the pattern of Latin words as their literal translations.
The earliest instances of translation-loans are names of the days of the
week found not only in OE but also in other Germanic languages: OE
Mōnan-dæ¥ ‘Monday’ ('day of the moon') < L Lunae dies); Tiwes-dæ¥
‘Tuesday’('day of Tiw') < L Mortis dies (Tiw is the name of a Teutonic god
corresponding to Roman Mars). The procedure was to substitute the name
of the corresponding Germanic god for the god of the Romans. Other
translation-loans of the type were OE ¥ōdspell ‘gospel’ (literally‘good
tidings’) < L euangelium; OE þriness (lit. ‘three-ness’) ‘Trinity’.
In late OE, many new terms were coined from native elements according
to Latin models as translation-loans: OE eorþbi¥en¥a ‘inhabitant of the
earth' < L terricola; OE ¥oldsmiþ ‘goldsmith’(‘worker in gold’) < L aurifex;OE
tun¥olcræft ‘astronomy’, lit. ‘the knowledge of stars’ < L astronomos.

8. Thanks for your attention!