Italian, German, Spanish and minor borrowings

Italian borrowings.

Cultural and trade relations between Italy and England brought many Italian words into English. The earliest Italian borrowing came into English in the 14-th century, it was the word «bank» /from the Italian «banko» - «bench»/. Italian moneylenders and moneychangers sat in the streets on benches. When they suffered losses they turned over their benches, it was called «banco rotta» from which the English word «bankrupt» originated. In the 17-th century some geological terms were borrowed: volcano, granite, bronze, lava. At the same time some political terms were borrowed: manifesto, bulletin.

But mostly Italian is famous by its influence in music and in all Indo-European languages musical terms were borrowed from Italian: alto, baritone, basso, tenor, falsetto, solo, duet, trio, quartet, quintet, opera, operetta, libretto, piano, violin.

Among the 20-th century Italian borrowings we can mention: gazette, incognito, altostrati, fiasco, fascist, dilettante, grotesque, graffitto etc.

Spanish borrowings.

Spanish borrowings came into English mainly through its American variant. There are the following semantic groups of them:

a) trade terms: cargo, embargo;

b) names of dances and musical instruments: tango, rumba, habanera, guitar;

c) names of vegetables and fruit: tomato, potato, tobacco, cocoa, banana, ananas, apricot etc.

German borrowings.

There are some 800 words borrowed from German into English. Some of them have classical roots, e.g. in some geological terms, such as: cobalt, bismuth, zink, quarts, gneiss, wolfram. There were also words denoting objects used in everyday life which were borrowed from German: iceberg, lobby, and rucksack, Kindergarten etc.

In the period of the Second World War the following words were borrowed: Volkssturm, Luftwaffe, SS-man, Bundeswehr, gestapo, gas chamber and many others. After the Second World War the following words were borrowed: Berufsverbot, Volkswagen etc.

Russian borrowings.

There were constant contacts between England and Russia and they borrowed words from one language into the other. Among early Russian borrowings there are mainly words connected with trade relations, such as: rouble, copeck, pood, sterlet, vodka, sable, and also words relating to nature, such as: taiga, tundra, steppe etc.

There is also a large group of Russian borrowings which came into English through Rushian literature of the 19-th century, such as: Narodnik, moujik, duma, zemstvo. volost, ukase etc, and also words which were formed in Russian with Latin roots, such as: nihilist, intelligenzia, Decembrist etc.

After the Great October Revolution many new words appeared in Russian connected with the new political system, new culture, and many of them were borrowed into English, such as: collectivization. udarnik, Komsomol etc.

Classical Greek was another source of learned words during the Early Modern English period, though the path of entry of Greek words into English is often indirect. The ancient Romans knew and admired the Hellenic heritage; the vocabulary of Latin included many learned Greek words. Similarly, French had adopted many Greek words, either through Latin, or directly. The Greek words we use today are therefore as likely to have come into English through Latin and French, as they are through direct borrowing. Greek words which came through Latin, and possibly through French, are words such as atheism, atmosphere, chaos, dogma, economy, ecstasy, drama, irony, pneumonia, scheme, syllable. Direct borrowings from Greek are asterisk, catastrophe, crypt, criterion, dialysis, lexicon, polyglot, rhythm, syllabus. In some cases such as epicenter, chromatic, the Greek first elements of the words: epi- "on, upon," chromat-, combine with the Latin elements centre < Old French centre, Latin centrum, -ic < Old French -ique, Latin -icus.

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