A Diachronic Account of French Loanwords in English
French loanwords in English
A diaphronic account of
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Contents
Introduction 1. llistorical Background 1.l. 106ó-1204.. r.2. t204-1500 ........ 1.3. 15001.4. Conclusion........ 2. Examples of French loanwords 2.1. GovernmentandAdministration ...... 2.2.1-aw 2.3. Army 2.4. Church 2.5. ScienceandArt... 2.6. Fashion and Social Life ...... 2.7. Cuisine 2.8. French loanwords and their native equivale,nts 3. Modifications ...... 3.1. Spellingmodification 3.2. Semantic shift 3.3. Adaptation versus resistance Conclusion Bibliography SummaryinPolish
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.......13 ............14 ..........15 ........,16 ........17
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... ...
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Introduction
The speakers of English are not always aware of the fact that the language they speak is constifuted by almost as many words of foreign origrn as the native words.
English contains words from Greek, German, Dutch, Scandinavian languages and even Italian. But the cardinal sources of words of foreign descent in English arę Latin and French; the latter berng the main subject of this papęr. One who has ever had any
contact with both English and French might have been misled by the strong resemblance in their vocabulary to think that the two are ręlated. However, this is a false statement, as the words of French origin appeared in English only at some point
of the history. This phenomenon of adopting new words from other languages is refęrred to as borrowing and a single word that originates from a given language and
is adopted by another language is defined as a loanword or a borrowing. What is important is thę rolę of borrowing in the process of enriching English vocabulary. As
Terttu Nevalainen writes:
The role of borrowing as one of the
A diaphronic account of
---l
Contents
Introduction 1. llistorical Background 1.l. 106ó-1204.. r.2. t204-1500 ........ 1.3. 15001.4. Conclusion........ 2. Examples of French loanwords 2.1. GovernmentandAdministration ...... 2.2.1-aw 2.3. Army 2.4. Church 2.5. ScienceandArt... 2.6. Fashion and Social Life ...... 2.7. Cuisine 2.8. French loanwords and their native equivale,nts 3. Modifications ...... 3.1. Spellingmodification 3.2. Semantic shift 3.3. Adaptation versus resistance Conclusion Bibliography SummaryinPolish
..................4
.............6
..'...........6
........7
........10 .....10 ......12
.............12
.......13 ............14 ..........15 ........,16 ........17
..........18
... ...
............19
.............21
..............21
.................22
......Ż5
..........Ż6 .................27 ..........29
Introduction
The speakers of English are not always aware of the fact that the language they speak is constifuted by almost as many words of foreign origrn as the native words.
English contains words from Greek, German, Dutch, Scandinavian languages and even Italian. But the cardinal sources of words of foreign descent in English arę Latin and French; the latter berng the main subject of this papęr. One who has ever had any
contact with both English and French might have been misled by the strong resemblance in their vocabulary to think that the two are ręlated. However, this is a false statement, as the words of French origin appeared in English only at some point
of the history. This phenomenon of adopting new words from other languages is refęrred to as borrowing and a single word that originates from a given language and
is adopted by another language is defined as a loanword or a borrowing. What is important is thę rolę of borrowing in the process of enriching English vocabulary. As
Terttu Nevalainen writes:
The role of borrowing as one of the