Analysing Language across Time English Language

Development of human society is the development of all its constituent cultures, and,
accordingly, all languages. The cultures are influenced by the particular historical development
and regardless of other cultures, and (very largely), in conjunction with them. Contacts take place
in all spheres - politics, economics, arts, everyday life - and lead to significant changes in
lifestyle, outlook, and, of course, in the language. Cultures mutually borrow the phenomena and
concepts; languages are their designations. That is how an enrichment of cultures and languages
of different nations happens.
The role of borrowings (loan-words) is not the same in different languages and depends on the
specific historical conditions of development of each language. In English, the percentage of
borrowing is much higher than in many other languages; so due to historical reasons, it happened
to be very permeable. English more than any other language had an opportunity to borrow
foreign words in a straight direct contact: first in the middle ages from foreign invaders on
British Islands, and later in conditions of trade expansion and colonization activity of British
themselves. It is known that the number of native words in the English dictionary is only about
30% (Mencken 2010). This fact gave many researchers reason to exaggerate the importance of
borrowing and assume English is not Germanic, and Romance-Germanic language, emphasize
the mixed nature of the English language as its most important feature, and sometimes even
reduce the whole of English lexicology to the problem of borrowing.
Some scientists (eg. Gunnel Tottie) even think that in the developed language the vocabulary is
borrowed so easily, that happen to be uncharacteristic for a specific language. In fact, borrowing
is one of the important ways to enrich the vocabulary, but is not the only one or the most
important (Tottie 2002).
The English language is full of words borrowed from Old French, Latin, Greek, Scandinavian
and other languages. Articles, prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs are all natively German.
Trade and Christianization brought such borrowings from Latin, as the wine, pepper, school,

devil, and priest. In the sixteenth century, the language has been enriched with Latin terminology
- concept, access, commission, complain, etc.
Scandinavian Viking raids from the end of the eighth century contributed to the fact that the
English language has got the Danish vocabulary. These are the words: they, take, cut, get, ugly,
husband, shirt, whole, wrong, leg (Bjorkman 2008).
The largest group of borrowings in the English language is from Old French. The year of 1066 is
known as the year of the conquest of England by the Normans. It was they who brought the
French language to the islands. It is believed that these borrowings in the English language make
a quarter of all the most used words. Here are examples of French borrowings in English:
entrance, goddess, admirable, flexible, difficult, disappointment, movement, solitude, loneliness,
court, government, battle, city and many others.
The English language contains about 820 words of German origin or scientific and technical
terms, created in Germany from classical roots.
So, there are a significant number of words in English vocabulary that were borrowed from
German. However, the actual German word units included in the English vocabulary are not so
many. The fact is that a very large number of words borrowed from the German language and
related to the field of science are the formations with Latin and Greek roots, so, in fact, they are
international words, even though they were borrowed from German sources.
The borrowings from German are usually the words expressing the concept of socio-political and
philosophical nature. Most of them were formed into English in the translated form; in the form
of tracing paper. Tracing a number of phrases and compound words of German language was
made easier because of the close relationship between German and English.
The first loanwords of the German language come from the 16th century. During this period,
words related to trade, military affairs, the names of some plants, the words describing the
people, and others were borrowed. For example: halt, lance-knight, kreuzer, junker.

Already in the 16th century an active development of ore deposits and metallurgy begins in
England. Germany was an advanced country of mining and metallurgical industry at that time.
Mining experts started to come to England from Germany. During the reign of Elizabeth Tudor
the two industrial companies were built and led by the Germans. It is very likely that as a result
of direct contact with German speaking people, there first was an oral borrowing of German
words. In written documents, these words appeared not earlier than in the 17th century. Such
terms of Mines as: zinc, bismut, cobalt and others came into English from German.
In the 17th century, the new borrowings from the sphere of trade and military affairs appeared.
Those loanwords included: groschen; drillinq; plunder; staff; fieldmarshal and others (Algeo
2009).
In the 18th century, the influence of the German language was weaker than in the previous
century. This is obviously due to a general political and economic decline in Germany after the
Thirteen Year War.
In the second half of 18th century there were borrowed a lot of words related to geology,
mineralogy and mining, such as: iceberq, wolfram, nickel, qletscher, bismuth, cobalt, gneiss,
quartz, zink. The serious influence of German is noticed in mineralogy.
Mineralogical and geological terms became particularly numerous in the 18th century; they made
more than a half of all German borrowings of that period. In addition to already metioned words,
there were also spathic, feldspar, sinter, wolfram, hornblende, speiss.
In the 18th-19th centuries the following words of German origin were borrowed: hetman, jaeger,
landsturm, etc.
In the 19th century, the sphere of borrowing was much wider. There were some borrowing from
the humanities, social life and politics. There were also borrowed many terms from the field of
chemistry and physics, philology, art. Many of these loans were tracing, or were international
words. Words related to lexicology, were, for example: ibdogermanic (Indogermanisch), Middle
English (Mittelenglisch), umlaut, ablaut, grade (Grad), breaking, folk etymology
(Folksetymologie), loanword (Lehnwort).

In the 19th century, the words, such as gangue, loess, spiegeleisen, kieselguhr, etc were
borrowed.
A few words of German origin are the names of foods and beverages, for example stein,
lagerbeer, sauerkrauft. These words are less numerous than the French borrowings in the same
sphere and are distinguished by a lesser degree of assimilation in comparison with the latter.
A small number of German borrowings are used in the everyday lexicon: carouse, waltz, junker,
lobby, kinchin, zigzag, and iceberg.
The modern German language presented such borrowing words as: rucksack, zappelin, as well as
some musical terms, for example kappellmeister, leitmotif, and zither.
To the military sphere we can address such words as lansquenet, sabre. The word "plunder" has
been enrolled in English in the 17th century by soldiers who served under the command of
Gustavus Adolphus.
The borrowing German words meaning foods and household items are: marzipan, kohl-rabi,
schnapps, kummel, kirsch, vermuth.
The borrowing German words from the field of music are: leitmotiv, kapellmeister, claviatur,
humovresgue.
There are also some German loanwords meaning animals: spits, poodle.
For German loanwords of the 20th century is common the relatedness directly or indirectly, to
the war. That time a lot of loanwords were related to Hitler regime. The most famous of them
are: Black Shirt (Schwarhemd), Brown Shirt (Braunhemd), der Euhrer, gauleiter, Gestapo,
Hitlerism, Nazi, Stormtroopers (Stumabteilung), the Third Reich (Third Reich), blitzkrieg,
bunker, Luftwaffe, Wehrmacht (Pfeffer 2010).
Conclusion:

As a conclusion there is a need to say that the modern language is a product of long historical
development, in the process of which the language is changed due to various reasons. Changes
affect all aspects (levels, tiers, aspects) of linguistic structure, but operate them differently. The
historical development of each level depends on the specific causes and conditions that promote
changes in the lexical structure of language, its phonetic (phonemic) organization, in its
grammatical structure.
The development of the language is characterized by the processes of growth and decay. Thus, an
analytical form, a complex system of verb formation are developed in the English language, but
the system of inducement splits and personal verb endings drop words from the vocabulary, new
borrowing or by tumors.
The number of borrowings in the English language is sufficiently high compared with other
languages. It was calculated that there are 70% of borrowings in the English language, and the
rest are native English words. The reason for such "absorbency" of foreign vocabulary of English
language lies in the historical development of the language. Numerous Alien conquests of the
British Isles, trade, cultural impact of the continental countries - all these contributed to the
emergence and consolidation of loans in English.
English in the early middle Ages took a lot of borrowing from the Scandinavian languages
(including such basic words as skin, ill, and even she). The most massive flow of borrowing is a
medieval, after the Norman Conquest, from Old French; as the result of it, almost half of English
vocabulary became of Romanesque origin.
German also had a significant impact on English. There are about 820 words of German origin in
English. Especially, there are a lot of German loanwords in the mining industry, chemistry and
physics, philology, art, trade and military affairs, in the names of animals and plants. Borrowings
in the English language don't cause it harm, but rather enrich its vocabulary and help the
development of word formation.