The Vocabulary of the Old English Language

The development of the Old English vocabulary happened with the help of the internal sources of the language and the interrelations between languages and linguistic groups.

The OE vocabulary consisted of native words inherited from PG or formed from native roots and affixes.

Native words are divided into a number of etymological layers. The three main layers are:

1) common Indo-European words (общеиндоевропейские)

2) common Germanic words (общегерманские)

3) specifically OE words (специфически английские)

Common Indo-European words included names of plants and animals, agricultural terms, names of parts of the human body, personal and demonstrative pronouns and most numerals. OE examples of this layer are: mōna (moon), trēow (tree), beard, broðor, mōdor, þæt (that), twā (two). Some words of this layer are not shared by all the groups of the IE family.

The common Germanic layer includes words which are shared by most Germanic languages. Semantically these words are connected with nature, with the sea and everyday life. The examples of this layer OE hand, sand, eorþe (earth), sin¯an (sing), ¯rēne (green), fox, macian (make).

The 3d etymological layer of native words does not occur in other Germanic or non-Germanic languages. They are called specifically OE. Some of them were formed from Germanic roots: OE wifman or wimman (woman) consists of 2 roots which occurred as separate words in other OG languages:

OHG wīb OIcel vif NE wife

OE man Gt manna NE man

2. Borrowings in the OE vocabulary

In the course of the first seven hundred years of the existence of English it was brought into contact with three other languages: the languages of the Celts, the Romans, and the Scandinavians.

Borrowed words constituted only a small portion of the OE vocabulary. The borrowings show the spheres of the contacts with other languages such as policy, economy, culture, etc.

There are very few Celtic loan-words in the OE vocabulary. Abundant borrowing from Celtic is to be found only in place-names.The OE kingdoms Kent, Bernicia and Deira derive their names from the names of Celtic tribes. The name York, the Downs and London are of Celtic sources. Proper names: Ouse, Exe, Esk and Usk go back to Celtic uisge (water) and Avon, Evan go back to Celtic amhuin (river). Thames, Stour and Dover also come from Celtic. Some Celtic elements can help to identify them: comb (deep valley), torr (high rock), llan (church), pill (creek) (Batcombe, Torcross, Llandaff, Huntspill. In many place – names the Celtic component combined with a Latin or a Germanic component made compound place names:

Celtic + Latin Celtic + Germanic

Man-chester York - shire

Win-chester Corn-wall

Devon-port [‘devn] Devon - shire

Lan-caster Canter- bury

The number of borrowings from Celtic in other semantic spheres is few: no more than a dozen. However it is possible to distinguish two groups:

1) words which the Anglo-Saxons learned through everyday contact with the natives, here are such common nounsas binn (bin), cradol (cradle), bratt (cloak), dun ( dun –серовато-коричневый), cross (cross).

2) words which were introduced by the Irish missionaries spreading Christianity (VIth c.): ancor (hermit [hə:mit] отшельник), drÿ (magician), cursian (curse), clugge (bell).

Through ages some of the Celtic borrowings have died out or have survived only in dialects.

If the influence of Celtic upon Old English was slight, it was because the relation of the Celt to the Teuton was that of a submerged race and because the Celt was not in a position to make any notable contribution to Anglo-Saxon civilization. It was quite otherwise with Latin influence. Latin was the language of a race with a higher civilization, a race from which the Teutons had much to learn. Contact with that civilization, at first commercial and military, later religious and intellectual, extended over many centuries and was constantly renewed. Latin borrowings entered English in three periods:

1) began long before the Anglo-Saxons came to England and is called continental. For several hundred years, while the Teutons who later became the English were still occupying their continental homes, they had various relations with the Romans through which they acquired a considerable number of Latin words. As for the semantic spheres the words pertain to trade: cēapian, cēap, cēapman, man¯ian, man¯un¯, etc. (to trade, deal, trader, to trade, trading); units of measurement and containers:pund (pound), ynce (inch), flasce (flask), mynet (coin), etc.; articles of tradeand agricultural products:win (L vinum), butere (L būtÿrum), plume (L prunus), cīese (L cāseus), pipor (L piper) (wine, butter, plum, cheese, pepper). Words pertaining to building:cealc, ti¯ele, coper (chalk, tile, copper); domestic life:cytel, disc, cuppe, pyle (kettle, dish, cup, pillow); military affairs:mīl (mile), weall (wall), pytt (pit),etc.

2)when Teutons came to England they saw the evidences of the long Roman rule in the island and learned from the Celts a few additional Latin words. Among them were some place-namesor components of place-namesused by the Celts: L castra in the variant caster, ceaster (camp) formed place-names such as Chester, Dorchester, Lancaster,etc.; L colonia (settlement for retired soldiers) is in Colchester and Lincoln; L vicus (village) is in Norwich, Woolwich; L portus is in Bridport, Devonport. Place-names made of Latin and Germanic are: Portsmouth, Greenport, Greenwich, etc.

3)began with the introduction of Christianity in the late 6^th c. (597) and lasted to the end of OE. It resulted in a really extensive adoption of Latin elements which fall into two groups: a) words pertaining to religion:L apostolus OE apostol(apostle); L episcopus, OE biscop (bishop); L candēla, OE candel(candle); L diabolus, OE dēofol( devil) + NE mass, minster, monk, alms, abbot, altar, angel, ark, creed, hymn, idol, martyr, nun, organ, palm, pope, prophet, psalm, psalter, relic, rule, temple,,etc. 2) words connected with learning:NE school, scholar,master, verse, compose (L schola, scholāris, magister, versus, dictare. The spread of education led to the wider use of Latin: teaching was conducted in Latin or consisted of learning Latin.

Variety of miscellaneous borrowings came from Latin, they indicated new ideas, here belong names oftreesand plants:elm, lily, plant, pine; names of illnessesand words pertaining to medical treatment:cancer, fever, paralysis, plaster; names of animals:camel, elephant, tiger; names of clothesand household articles:cap, mat, sack, sock; names of foods:beet, oyster,radish, etc.

The other aspect of influence was the appearance of so-called “translation-loans” – the creation of words on the pattern of Latin words (most names of the days of the week): OE Mōnan-dæ¯ (Monday) (“day of the moon”), L Lunae dies; OE Tīwes-dæ¯ (Tuesday) (“day ofTiw”), L Martius dīes. Other translation - loans are: NE gospel, Trinity,etc.

3. The ways of the replenishment of the vocabulary

The bulk of the OE vocabulary were native words. The vocabulary grew and it was mainly replenished from native sources, by means of word – formation. According to their morphological structure OE words fell into 3 main types:

1) simple words with a simple stem, containing a root- morpheme and no affixes: land, sin¯an (land, sing)

2) derived words consisting of one root-morpheme and one or more affixes: be-¯innan,

¯e-met-in¯ (begin, meeting)

3) compound words which stems were made up of more than one root-morpheme:

mann-cynn, weall-¯eat (mankind, wall gate)

OE employed two ways of word-formation: derivation and word-composition. derived words were built with the help of affixes: prefixes and suffixes. The words were distinguished with the help of sound interchanges and word stress. Sound interchanges in the roots were frequent and were used to distinguish words built from the same root. The source of root-vowel interchanges was vowel gradation which was a distinctive feature between verbs and nouns:

v sin¯an - n son¯ iinto a (sing,song)

v sprecan – n spræce e into æ: ( speak, speech)

Other sources were palatal mutation and breaking.

The role of word accentuation in OE word-building was the same as sound interchanges. The shifting of word stress helped to differentiate between some parts of speech being used with other means. The verb had unaccented prefixes while the corresponding nouns had stressed prefixes.

e.g. v ond-‘swarian - n ‘ond-swaru

Prefixation was a productive way of building new words in OE. Prefixes were used with verbs but were far less productive with other parts of speech.

e.g. ¯ān - go

ā-¯ān – go away

be- ¯ān – go round

¯e-¯ān – go, go away

OE prefixes were ā, be, for, fore, ¯e, ofer, un. The prefix modified the lexical meaning of the word: ¯e-boren - un¯eboren (born, unborn)

spēdi¯ - unspēdi¯ (rich,poor)

With some verbs the meaning of the prefix was so weak that there was no difference between the verb with the prefix and without it: ābīdan – bīdan ( await)

Suffixes not only modified the lexical meaning of the word but could refer it to another part of speech. Suffixes were mostly applied in forming nouns and adjectives.

Word- composition was a highly productive way of developing the vocabulary in OE.

Compound nouns contained various first components - stems of nouns, adjectives and verbs; their second components were nouns.

e.g. hēafod - mann – leader

stān - bryc¯ - stone bridge

adjective + noun:

wīd - sæ – wide sea – ocean

verb + noun (was very rare)

bæc - hūs – baking house

Compound adjectives were formed by joining a noun-stem to an adjective:

dōm - ¯eorn –eager for glory

adjective + adjective:

wīd –cūþ – widely known