Etymological Layers of the Modern English Vocabulary

a group of lexemes which have

similar origins (originate from one and the same source language)

Word-borrowing may be motivated by the need for adequate denotation of new cognitive contents or concepts arising in the process of the material and spiritual development of society. It would be a mistake to assume that ‘borrowing’ only occurred where the ‘recipient’ language lacked a suitable expression (or word) or had no means of its own with which to fill a ‘gap’ or ‘vacant slot’ in the lexical system. Very often in fact, loans were made in spite of the availability of perfectly adequate lexical items of native origin which were either replaced by them or subject to semantic or stylistic re-interpretation or other changes in use.

period	events
900 B.C.	Celtic migration The Celts migrating to the British Isles were called Insular Celts. Their culture and language and style life had a huge impact to evolution of the British and later history. The influence of Celtic upon the English language is almost negligible. Not more than a score of words in Old English can be traced with reasonable probability to a Celtic source.
55 B.C. - 410 A.D.	the Roman invasion Latin was one of the principal donor languages in the expansion of the English vocabulary. A great many of the lexical items that can ultimately be traced back to Latin have entered English indirectly via French and various other Romance languages, which together with Latin probably contributed almost two thirds of the word-stock of Present-Day English.
449 - 1066	Anglo-Saxon invasion The sector of the English lexicon made up of native lexical material grew much smaller than that consisting of words of foreign origin. But the fundamental importance of the inherited Germanic vocabulary elements which are still in use lies in the fact that they have a place in the common core of the lexicon and are marked by a very high frequency of occurrence in discourse. The basic vocabulary of a language is generally said to constitute the sector of the lexicon which exhibits a high degree of stability and resistance to change and is least accessible to foreign influence.
The first Viking raid on England is reported to have occurred in 793 A.D. at the Lindisfarne monastery. In the subsequent 250 years the Danes continued their raids, but at the same time, gradually turned from pirates to fellow Christians and citizens, some settled down and became civilized.	the Scandinavian invasion The Danes did not merely changed the English vocabulary, they enriched it. The Viking invasions resulted in some revealing penetrations into the core vocabulary. These borrowing are simple, everyday words, confirming that the English and Danish population mixed rapidly and thoroughly. The influx of Norse words onto English was a gradual process and affected speech before it showed up in writing. The influence of Old Norse until the end of the Middle Ages was different from that of Latin and French. Lexical borrowing in this case resulted from temporary co-existence of two related languages and occurred exclusively via spoken communication. Measuring the impact of the Norse borrowings is complicated by the similarity between Old Norse and Old English, meaning that philologists cannot always be sure which language contributed which word. Many of the more common words of the two languages were identical, and if we had no Old English literature from the period before the Danish invasions, we should be unable to say that many words were not of Scandinavian origin.
	The Norman conquest From the point of view of language, the most notable effect of the Norman Conquest was to convert England, almost overnight, into a multilingual country. The upper classes spoke French. French was also essential to anyone with ambitious of rising in the social scale. The rest of the population continued doubtless learned to understand French if not speak it; likewise, many of the upper classes doubtless learned to understand, if not to speak, English. English, in its turn, becomes the language of the lower classes (peasants and slaves). The legal system is conducted in French. Churches, monasteries gradually filled with French-speaking functionaries, who used French for record-keeping. Authors write literature in French and Latin, not English. Penetration of French words into English did not start immediately after the Norman Conquest. It only started in the XII c., and reached its maximum in the XIII-XIV cc. The 300 years of the domination, French affected English more than any other foreign influence before.

Not more than a score of words in Old English can be traced with reasonable probability to a Celtic source. These are:

Ø dun ‘dark colored’, binn ‘basket, crib’, bard‘poet’,clan‘children or family’,slogan < Scots sluaghghairm ‘war cry’, whiskey < uisgebeatha ‘water of life’.

Ø The majority of the Celtic elements survived in geographical names. Most English river names are British: Avon < amhuin ‘river’, Exe, Usk, Esk < uisge ‘water’, Thames, Dover.

Ø London was originally Lon-dunum < dun, dum ‘hill’; Kent < Cantium, from a prehistoric Celtic *kanto-, meaning either ‘border’ or ‘white’; llan ‘church/the site of a small Celtic monastery’ in LLandudno, LLandaff; kil ‘church’ in Kilbride, Kilmacolm; -torr ‘high rock’ in Torcross, Torhill, Torr; bail‘house’ in Ballyshannon, Ballantrae; inis ‘island’ in Innisfail;

Ø Several dozen places names were generated by a complicated interaction among British, Latin & English: Manchester (mān ‘small, little’), Winchester, Gloucester, Worcester, Salisbury, Exeter, Lichfield.

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