Language Borrowing

The famous novel Ivanhoe, by Sir Walker Scott is set in England. A couple of generations after 1066. French spoken by the new masters was beginning to flood the English Language. Two Saxon peasants were complaining about the way English names of things were getting switched to fancy French names. For example swine becomes pork.

Speakers of English are borrowing words from French called loanwords. Although copying would be a more appropriate name. People who use English have borrowed dozens of other languages all through history. The French languages own predecessor is Latin.

Following words were borrowed from Latin at a very early date; anchor, angel, butter, candle, cap, cheese, circle, copper, cup, dish, kettle, master, mint, noon, offer, pear, rule, school, seal, sock and tile. (And more).

These words have been assimilated into the language, its now hard to realise they were once aliens.

A few of the thousand of words borrowed from the French just after the Norman conquest in 1066: adorn, boil, boot, coat, collar, cover, crown, curfew, dinner, feast, fry, govern, jail, just, peace, peasant, pleas, prison, raisin, state, stew, story, treasurer, treaty.

English continued to borrow from the French. A few that are more recent and are a lot more easier to identity are; baguette, beige, cafe, camouflage, chauffeur, chiffon, consommé, croissant, déjà vu, entrepreneur, garage, limousine, maitre d, rendezvous, resume.

Historically developed from Latin	Later borrowing from Latin
Chef ‘head’	Capital ‘capital’
Chien ‘dog’	Canin ‘canine’
Livre ‘free’	Liberte ‘liberty’
Maison ‘house’	Mansion ‘mansion’
Mere ‘mother’	Matricide ‘matricide’
Noel ‘christmas’	Natal ‘native’
Nombre ‘number’	Numeral ‘numeral’

Early borrowing from French	Later borrowing from Latin
Crown	Coronation
Heir	Inherit
Navy	Navigate
Peace	Pacify
Royal	Regal
Rule	regulate

Early borrowing from Latin	Relatively recent borrowing
Bishop	Episcopal
Cheese	Casein
Dish	Disk
Mint	Monetary
Wine	viniculture

A few examples of borrowing twice from French:

Aid	Aide
False	Faux
Feast	Fete
Suspicion	Soupcon
View	Déjà vu

Sometimes we find a word that’s been shuttled busily back and forth between two languages. Germanic word that became our ward was borrowed into French a long time ago as garder and then this word was borrowed back as guard. Recently it’s been borrowed again as garde.

English is loaning to French on such a scale that the French coined the derisive term franglais.

A language can borrow not only content words but also function words such as pronouns, prepositions and ways of phrasing things.

All languages borrow from others and any lotion of ‘pure language’ is a myth.