Roots of the English lexicon
Whan that Aprill with his shoures sooteThe droghte of March hath perced to the rooteAnd bathed every veyne in swich licourof which vertu engendred is the flour,Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breethInspired hath in every holt and heethThe tendre croppes, and the yonge sonneHath in the ram his half course yronne,That slepen al the nyght with open eye,so priketh hem Nature in hir corages,Than longen folk to goon on pilgrymages,And palmeres for the seken straunge strondesTo ferne halwes couth in sondry londes,And specially, from every shires endeof Engelond, to Canterbury they wende,That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke "Nearly fifty per cent of the vocabulary in this English classic is of French Origin. Of the above one hundered twenty eight words, 42 are full words,meaning nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, and of that number 20 are French. (they are represented in italics)."-Dr. Mick Short, Lancaster University. On the first 18 lines of Chaucer's General Prologue What many people do not realize is that much of the contemporary English vocabulary comes from non-Engl
Likewise, we find educational association in lessons, mayster, gramere, construe, cause, and construccion; social in noble and gentil; ornamental in brouch; and trade in profytable, parteners, travayle. (50) He goes on to site a list of familiar examples from whcich i will share ten: Government, trinity, cloak, sacrifice, habit, anatomy, cathedral, luitenant, danger and music. " (make up) Words like kettle, egg, weak, bark, sky, wimg, skin, skill, give, get and anger testify to this statement's accuracy. According to Ruth Waterhouse, in her book entitled Literature, Language and change, the influx of Scandanavian words into English was "unlike any other that has affected our vocabulary before or since. Short points out in his analysis of Chaucer's General Prologue, vocabulary we assume is everyday english, consists of many borrowed words. (make up) For example, obvious political meaning is evident in nacion, rem, aliens, cytes, people, confederat, and party. The Danish word for "town" was by, a form Waterhouse says "survives in the fossilized word "by-law. (33) In addittion to religious terminology, words arose in the context of history, philosophy and natural science by the tenth century (34) Examples include Anti-Christ, apostle, cell, cloister, creed, demon, idol, sabbath, history, term, title, cucumber, ginger, cedar, cypress, fig, cancer, paralysis, camel, tiger and scorpion. Sometime around the collapse of the Roman Empire in 410 A. Applewaith, Braithwaite, Langthwaite and satterthwaite are examples that trancended into modern English. Many borrowed verbs, nouns and adjectives during this period refered to "rather specialized areas of human activity" rather than to every day things like we saw above with the Scandanavian vocabulary. In the following paragraphs I will demonstrate the significance of Roman, Scandanavian and French influence in England during this period. (43) In the years that followed, english took on a new transformation. -1042) Scandanavian invaders made considerable advancements to the English language.
Common topics in this essay:
England Latin,
Literature Language,
French William,
Whan Zephirus,
John McLaughjlin,
Chaucer's Prologue,
Christianization England,
Latin Rome34,
Engelond Canterbury,
French Origin,
fifteenth century,
book entitled,
english vocabulary,
chaucer's prologue,
|
Acceptance Essays
