CLASSIFICATION OF

ENGLISH BORROWINGS
TABLE OF CONTENT
 1. Introduction
 2. Definitions
 3. Reasons for borrowings
 4. Types of borrowings
 5. General aspects
 6. List of borrowed words
 7. Conclusion
 Borrowing words from other languages is
characteristic of English throughout its
history. More than two thirds of the
English vocabulary are borrowings.
Mostly they are words of Romanic origin
(Latin, French, Italian, Spanish).
Borrowed words are different from native
ones by their phonetic structure, by their
morphological structure and also by their
grammatical forms.
1. TAKING A WORD OR PHRASE FROM ONE LANGUAGE
INTO ANOTHER, OR FROM ONE VARIETY OF A
LANGUAGE INTO ANOTHER
2.A BORROWED WORD OR A BORROWING IS A WORD, A
PHRASE OR AN IDEA TAKEN BY THE SPEAKERS OF ONE
LANGUAGE FROM A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE.
A BORROWING CAN ALSO BE CALLED A LOANWORD.
BORROWING IS A CONSEQUENCE OF CULTURAL
CONTACT BETWEEN TWO LANGUAGE COMMUNITIES.
BORROWING OF WORDS CAN GO IN BOTH DIRECTIONS
BETWEEN THE TWO LANGUAGES IN CONTACT, BUT
OFTEN THERE IS AN ASYMMETRY, THAT’S WHY MORE
WORDS GO FROM ONE SIDE TO THE OTHER.
 English history is very rich in different types of contacts with
other countries, that is why it is very rich in borrowings. The
Roman invasion, the adoption of Cristianity, Scandinavian and
Norman conquests of the British Isles, the development of British
colonialism and trade and cultural relations served to increase
immensely the English vocabulary. The majority of these
borrowings are fully assimilated in English in their
pronunciation, grammar, spelling and can be hardly distinguished
from native words. In any dictionaries about 70 % of the words
are borrowed. Borrowed words are immensely useful in
enriching the vocabulary and making the language flexible and
resourceful.
1 CLOSE CONTACT IN ESPECIALLY MULTILINGUAL
SITUATIONS, MAKING THE MIXING OF ELEMENTS FROM DIFFERENT
LANGUAGES MORE OR LESS COMMONPLACE.
2 THE DOMINATION OF SOME LANGUAGES BY OTHERS (FOR CULTURAL,
ECONOMIC, POLITICAL, RELIGIOUS, OR OTHER REASONS)
(3) A SENSE OF NEED, USERS OF ONE LANGUAGE DRAWING MATERIAL
FROM ANOTHER FOR SUCH PURPOSES AS EDUCATION AND
TECHNOLOGY.
(4) PRESTIGE ASSOCIATED WITH USING WORDS FROM ANOTHER
LANGUAGE.
(5) A MIX OF SOME OR ALL OF THESE. INDIVIDUALS MAY USE AN EXOTIC
EXPRESSION BECAUSE IT SEEMS TO THEM TO BE THE MOST SUITABLE
TERM AVAILABLE, THE ONLY POSSIBLE TERM (WITH NO EQUIVALENT IN
ANY OTHER LANGUAGE), OR THE MOST IMPRESSIVE TERM. MUCH OF
THE VOCABULARY OF FRENCH ENTERED ENGLISH IN THE MIDDLE AGES
BECAUSE FRENCH WAS THE LANGUAGE OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL
POWER AND THE CHANNEL THROUGH WHICH MAINLAND EUROPEAN
CULTURE REACHED BRITAIN. MUCH OF THE VOCABULARY OF LATIN
ENTERED ENGLISH DURING THE RENAISSANCE (DIRECTLY OR VIA
FRENCH) BECAUSE LATIN WAS THE EUROPEAN LANGUAGE OF RELIGION,
EDUCATION, AND LEARNING.
BORROWINGS ENTER THE LANGUAGE
IN TWO WAYS:
THROUGH ORAL SPEECH AND
THROUGH WRITTEN SPEECH(BY
INDIRECT CONTACT THROUGH BOOKS)
WORD BORROWINGS IN ENGLISH
Latin
Scandinavian

Greek
ANGLO-
SAXON BASE

Celtic

Other
languages
French
 TYPES OF BORROWINGS

 Borrowings can be divided in four categories

 1. Guest words: words which keep their original
pronunciation, spelling and meaning
 2. Foreign words: words which partially
assimilated and harder to be recognized as
borrowings
 3. Loan words become a virtual native and can
hardly be identified
 4. Calques are simply translated from one
language into another
CLASSIFICATION OF BORROWINGS
ACCORDING TO THE BORROWED ASPECT
1) Phonetic borrowings are most characteristic in all
languages, they are called loan words proper.
 Words are borrowed with their spelling, pronunciation and
meaning.
 Then they undergo assimilation, each sound in the borrowed
word is substituted by the corresponding sound of the
borrowing language.
 In some cases the spelling is changed.
 The structure of the word can also be changed.
 The position of the stress is very often influenced by the
phonetic system of the borrowing language.
 The paradigm of the word, and sometimes the meaning of
the borrowed word are also changed.
Such words as: labour, travel, table, chair, people are phonetic
borrowings from French; apparatchik, nomenklatura, sputnik
are phonetic borrowings from Russian; bank, soprano, duet
are phonetic borrowings from Italian etc.
 2)Semantic borrowings are such units when a new meaning of
the unit existing in the language is borrowed.
It can happen when we have two relative languages which have
common words with different meanings:
There are semantic borrowings between Scandinavian and
English, such as the meaning «to live» for the word «to dwell»
which in Old English had the meaning «to wander». Or the
meaning «дар» , «подарок» for the word «gift» which in Old
English had the meaning «выкуп за жену».
Semantic borrowing can appear when an English word was
borrowed into some other language, developed there a new
meaning and this new meaning was borrowed back into English:
«Brigade» was borrowed into Russian and formed the meaning
«a working collective«,»бригада». This meaning was borrowed
back into English as a Russian borrowing. The same is true of the
English word «pioneer».
 3)Morphemic borrowings are borrowings of
affixes which occur in the language when many
words with identical affixes are borrowed from
one language into another, so that the
morphemic structure of borrowed words
becomes familiar to the people speaking the
borrowing language.
We can find a lot of Romanic affixes in the
English word-building system, that is why there
are a lot of words - hybrids in English where
different morphemes have different origin -
«goddess», «beautiful» etc.
 CLASSIFICATION OF BORROWINGS
ACCORDING TO THE DEGREE OF
ASSIMILATION
The degree of assimilation of
borrowings depends on the following
factors: Accordingly,
a) from what group of languages the word borrowings are
was borrowed, if the word belongs to subdivided into:
the same group of languages to which
the borrowing language belongs it is
assimilated easier, 
b) in what way the word is borrowed: completely
orally or in the written form, words assimilated
borrowed orally are assimilated
quicker,
c) how often the borrowing is used in the  partly assimilated
language, the greater the frequency of
its usage, the quicker it is assimilated,
d) how long the word lives in the language,  non-assimilated
the longer it lives, the more assimilated
it is. (barbarisms).
 Completely assimilated borrowings are not felt as
foreign words in the language, as the French word
«sport» and the native word «start».
Completely assimilated verbs belong to regular
verbs: correct -corrected.
Completely assimilated nouns form their plural by
means of s-inflexion: gate- gates. In completely
assimilated French words the stress has been shifted
from the last syllable to the last but one.
Semantic assimilation of borrowed words depends
on the words existing in the borrowing language, as a
rule, a borrowed word does not bring all its meanings
into the borrowing language, if it is polysemantic: the
Russian borrowing «sputnik» is used in English only
in one of its meanings.
 Partly assimilated borrowings are subdivided into the following groups:
a) borrowings non-assimilated semantically, because they denote objects
and notions peculiar to the country from the language of which they were
borrowed, e.g. sari, sombrero, taiga, kvass etc.
b) borrowings non-assimilated grammatically, e.g. nouns borrowed from
Latin and Greek retain their plural forms (bacillus - bacilli, phenomenon -
phenomena, datum -data, genius - genii etc.
c) borrowings non-assimilated phonetically. Here belong words with the
initial sounds /v/ and /z/, e.g. voice, zero. In native words these voiced
consonants are used only in the intervocal position as allophones of sounds
/f/ and /s/ ( loss - lose, life - live ). Some Scandinavian borrowings have
consonants and combinations of consonants which were not palatalized,
e.g. /sk/ in the words: sky, skate, ski etc (in native words we have the
palatalized sounds denoted by the digraph «sh», e.g. shirt); sounds /k/ and
/g/ before front vowels are not palatalized e.g. girl, get, give, kid, kill, kettle.
In native words we have palatalization , e.g. German, child.
d) borrowings can be partly assimilated graphically, e.g. in Greek
borrowings «y» can be spelled in the middle of the word (symbol, synonym),
«ph» denotes the sound /f/ (phoneme, morpheme), «ch» denotes the sound
/k/(chemistry, chaos),«ps» denotes the sound /s/ (psychology).
 Non-assimilated borrowings (barbarisms) are
borrowings which are used by Englishmen
rather seldom and are non-assimilated, e.g.
addio (Italian), tete-a-tete (French), dolce vita
(Italian), duende (Spanish), an homme a
femme (French), gonzo (Italian) etc.
CLASSIFICATION OF BORROWINGS ACCORDING TO
THE LANGUAGE FROM WHICH THEY WERE
BORROWED

ROMANIC BORROWINGS
Latin borrowings.
Among words of Romanic origin borrowed from Latin during the period when the British Isles
were a part of the Roman Empire, there are such words as: street, port, wall etc. Many Latin
and Greek words came into English during the Adoption of Christianity in the 6-th century.
At this time the Latin alphabet was borrowed which ousted the Runic alphabet. These
borrowings are usually called classical borrowings. Here belong Latin words: alter, cross,
dean, and Greek words: church, angel, devil, anthem.
Latin and Greek borrowings appeared in English during the Middle English period due to the
Great Revival of Learning. These are mostly scientific words because Latin was the
language of science at the time. These words were not used as frequently as the words of
the Old English period, therefore some of them were partly assimilated grammatically, e.g.
formula - formulae. Here also belong such words as: memorandum, minimum, maximum,
veto etc.
Classical borrowings continue to appear in Modern English as well. Mostly they are words
formed with the help of Latin and Greek morphemes. There are quite a lot of them in
medicine (appendicitis, aspirin), in chemistry (acid, valency, alkali), in technique (engine,
antenna, biplane, airdrome), in politics (socialism, militarism), names of sciences (zoology,
physics) . In philology most of terms are of Greek origin (homonym, archaism,
lexicography).
By the end of the Old English period English underwent a strong influence of
Scandinavian due to the Scandinavian conquest of the British Isles.
Scandinavians belonged to the same group of peoples as Englishmen
and their languages had much in common. As the result of this conquest
there are about 700 borrowings from Scandinavian into English.
Scandinavians and Englishmen had the same way of life,their cultural level
was the same, they had much in common in their literature therefore
there were many words in these languages which were almost identical,
e.g.
ON OE Modern E
syster sweoster sister
fiscr fisc fish
felagi felawe fellow
However there were also many words in the two languages which were
different, and some of them were borrowed into English , such nouns as:
bull, cake, egg, kid, knife, skirt, window etc, such adjectives as: flat, ill,
happy, low, odd, ugly, wrong, such verbs as : call, die, guess, get, give,
SCANDINAVIAN
scream and many others.
Even some pronouns and connective words were borrowed which happens
BORROWINGS
very seldom, such as : same, both, till, fro, though, and pronominal forms
with «th»: they, them, their.
Scandinavian influenced the development of phrasal verbs which did not
exist in Old English, at the same time some prefixed verbs came out of
usage, e.g. ofniman, beniman. Phrasal verbs are now highly productive in
English /take off, give in etc.
ITALIAN 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, tobbaco, 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, 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.
HOLLAND BORROWINGS

Holland and England have constant interrelations for

many centuries and more than 2000 Holland borrowings
were borrowed into English. Most of them are nautical
terms and were mainly borrowed in the 14-th century,
such as: freight, skipper, pump, keel, dock, reef, deck,
leak and many others.
Besides two main groups of borrowings (Romanic and
Germanic) there are also borrowings from a lot of other
languages. We shall speak about Russian borrowings,
borrowings from the language which belongs to Slavoninc
languages.
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 and also
translation loans, such as: shock worker, collective farm,
five-year plan etc.
One more group of Russian borrowings is connected with
perestroika, such as: glasnost, nomenklatura, apparatchik
etc.
ARABIC BORROWINGS
ADMIRAL,ALBATROSS,ALCHEMY,
ALGEBRA,
CHEMISTRY,ALGORITHM,ATTAR,
AVERAGE,ALMANAC,CARAT,CHESS,
SHAHMAT,COFFEE,COTTON,HAREM,
JAR,JASMIN,JUMPER,LEMON,
ORANGE,MAGAZINE,SOFA,SAFARI,
TALISMAN,TARIFF
THE WORD CANDY CAME INTO
ENGLISH FROM THE FRENCH SUCRE
CANDI'CRYSTALLIZED SUGAR', WHICH
IS THOUGHT TO DERIVE FROM
ARABIC SUKKAR'SUGAR'
AND QANDĪ 'CANDIED' - IN TURN
BASED ON SANSKRIT KHAṆḌA 'PIECE'
IN FRENCH, 'BIS' AND 'CUIT' MEANS
'TWICE COOKED'. THIS IS BECAUSE
TRADITIONALLY BISCUITS WERE
COOKED IN TWO STAGES, FIRST
BAKED, AND THEN DRIED OUT IN A
SLOW OVEN.
FROM TIN-OPENERS TO SMARTPHONES, MOST OF US
COULDN'T LIVE WITHOUT OUR GADGETS. SCHOLARS
ARE STILL DEBATING ITS ORIGINS, BUT THERE ARE
STRONG ASSOCIATIONS WITH 19TH CENTURY
SAILORS WHO USED THE WORD, WHICH MAY
DERIVE FROM THE FRENCH GÂCHETTE 'CATCHPIECE
OF A MECHANISM' TO REFER TO ANY SMALL
MECHANICAL OBJECT WHICH THEY COULDN'T
REMEMBER THE NAME FOR - OR DIDN'T HAVE.
A SHEEP, A COW AND A PIG WENT TO
MARKET, A MEAT MARKET, AND THERE
THEY WERE TURNED INTO FOOD.
THANKS TO THE FRENCH LANGUAGE WE
CAN NOW DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN
THE LIVE ANIMALS AND THE READY-TO-
EAT VERSIONS; 'SHEEP' BECOMES
'MUTTON', 'COW' BECOMES 'BEEF' AND
'PIG' BECOMES 'PORK'.
A MUSCLE IS IN FACT A LITTLE MOUSE,
IF YOU TRACE THE WORD BACK TO ITS
LATIN ORIGIN 'MUSCULUS'. FLEXING A
MUSCLE WAS THOUGHT TO LOOK LIKE A
LITTLE MOUSE RUNNING BENEATH
YOUR SKIN.
ALCOHOL IS PROHIBITED IN SOME
ARAB COUNTRIES, BUT DID YOU
KNOW THE
WORD ALCOHOL ORIGINALLY
CAME FROM THE ARABIC 'AL-
KUHUL'?
THE WORD ROBOT WAS FIRST
INTRODUCED BY THE CZECH WRITER
KAREL ČAPEK IN HIS PLAY R.U.R.
(ROSSUM'S UNIVERSAL ROBOTS),
PUBLISHED IN 1920. THE PLAY BEGINS IN
A FACTORY THAT MAKES ARTIFICIAL
PEOPLE CALLED ROBOTS.
HELICOPTER WAS BORROWED
FROM THE FRENCH WORD
'HÉLICOPTÈRE'. HOWEVER THIS
FRENCH WORD WAS CONSTRUCTED
FROM THE GREEK WORDS 'HELIKOS'
AND 'PTERON', MEANING 'SPIRAL
WING'.
DO YOU KNOW
WHAT KARAOKE MEANS? IT MEANS
'EMPTY ORCHESTRA' IN JAPANESE
AND IS WRITTEN カラオケ .
THE WORD MAGAZINE WAS
DERIVED FROM THE ARABIC WORD
'MAKHAZIN' MEANING
'STOREHOUSE'. IN THE PICTURE,
'ENGLISH CLUB' WAS A MAGAZINE
FOR ENGLISH LEARNERS
PUBLISHED BY BBC ENGLISH.
THE MARTIAL ART KARATE IS FROM
JAPAN AND IS MADE UP OF THE
WORDS 'KARA' MEANING EMPTY
AND 'TE' MEANING HAND (= EMPTY
HAND).
THE WORD TENNIS COMES FROM
THE FRENCH WORD 'TENEZ' WHICH
CAN BE TRANSLATED AS 'RECEIVE!'
PLAYERS USED TO SHOUT THIS OUT
TO EACH OTHER JUST BEFORE THEY
SERVED, SOMETHING THAT WOULD
NOT BE TOLERATED IN TODAY'S
GAME!
THE FRENCH GAVE US THE
WORD SOUVENIR, FROM A VERB
MEANING 'TO REMEMBER, COME TO
MIND'. IT WAS FIRST RECORDED AS
MEANING 'SOMETHING TO HELP
YOU REMEMBER A HOLIDAY OR
SPECIAL EVENT' IN THE LATE 1700S.
BANK, TO DESCRIBE A FINANCIAL
INSTITUTION, APPEARED IN THE LATE
15TH CENTURY, PROBABLY FROM THE
ITALIAN 'BANCA'. IT IS RELATED TO THE
WORD 'BENCH': THE FIRST 'BANKS' WERE
IN FACT THE TABLES OR BENCHES ON
WHICH MONEYLENDERS DID BUSINESS.
THE WORD COFFEE COMES FROM
THE ARABIC WORD 'QAHWA'. 40% OF
THE WORLD'S COFFEE IS PRODUCED
BY COLOMBIA AND BRAZIL.
NOVEL COMES FROM THE ITALIAN
WORD 'NOVELLA' AND ORIGINALLY
MEANT 'NEW STORY'.
ORANGUTAN COMES FROM THE
MALAY 'ORANG UTAN' WHICH
LITERALLY MEANS 'PERSON OF THE
FOREST'. ORANGUTANS ARE THE
ONLY APES FROM ASIA.
VOLCANO COMES FROM THE
ITALIAN 'VULCANO', AND IS
CONNECTED TO THE NAME OF THE
ROMAN GOD OF FIRE, VULCAN.
THE
END