7 + 12 Origin of English words (native, loanwords, neologisms, archaisms) and False friends

roman word castra:

place

What does the present-day English vocabulary consist of?

of half Germanic and half French/Latin origin

Who printed the first English books and when was it?

Caxton in 1474

Into what language family does English belong?

Indo-European family

And more specifically into?

Germanic languages

What also belongs to germanic languages?

german, swedish, dutch

Since when was English influenced and by who?

since 5th century, by Anglo-Saxons and Jutes

What was the 5th century English language called?

Old English

However, before the Anglo-Saxons, there were also tribes:

Celts and Romans

What are some Celtic living languages?

Welsh, Irish and Gaelic

celtic word bally:

farm

celtic word dare:

oak wood

celtic word loch:

lake

Roman names:

Chester, worcester, manchester

roman word villa:

house

roman word strata:

street

Anglo-Saxon word oke:

oak

Anglo-Saxon word berg:

fortified place

Anglo-Saxon word dun:

hill, down

After Anglo-Saxons, English was influenced by?

Vikings and Danes

What century was that?

8-11th century

However, scandinavian language is considered __________ as well.

germanic

What are some scandinavian names?

davidson, jackson, henderson

scandinavian word dal:

valley

In 11th century, 1066, what happened and why did it alter English, and how?

in 1066, Normans invaded Britain and brought French there, now French was used by upper class, English by lower class, English got a new name -> Middle English

During the Middle English era, what happened to the language?

It slowly dropped inflection and became analytic language.

At the end of 15th century, what was brought to Britain?

classical renaissance and the book print

What did it cause?

it caused many changes to the language and culture

Books were now accessible to who?

to more common people

English is in the 15th century known as ______ and from what languages did it loan words?

as Modern English, from French, Italian, Spanish, Latin and Greek

French loanwoards:

enemy, captain, bacon, perfect, diamond, dress, easy

Italian loanwords:

pizza, sonnet, balcony

Spanish loanwords:

alligator, banana, hurricane, potato

Latin and Greek loanwords:

anonymous, atmosphere, autograph

What are two types of languages?

synthetic and analytic

What are the examples of synthetic languages and what do they use?

Czech or German, they use a lot of inflections (jdu jdeš jdeme jdou)

Is the word order in synthetic languages important?

no, since the different forms of words carry the meaning

What belongs to the analytic language and is the word order important?

English, yes it is important as it uses little inflection

Etymologically, English consists of two stocks of vocabulary:

native stock and borrowed stock

which stock is larger?

the borrowed stock

what is the term native stock used for then?

for the native words from 5th century, Germanic tribes

What are some of the native words?

modal and auxiliary verbs (shall, will, would, should, can, must)

pronouns (I, he, my, your)

What are neologisms?

words that serve to name new inventions (cd, Internet, sw, hw)

Are neologisms frequently used?

no as they do not belong to the mainstream language

what are archaisms?

words that are old-fashioned and no longer used

for example:

thy, thee, methinks, ere (before)

How many entries does the English dictionary have and how much does a normal person use?

300 000 entries, but normal person uses around 30 000 words

what are false friends and what is another term for them?

paronyms, false friends are words that appear similar but in fact have different meaning between languages

explain the difference of actual/aktuální

Actual = real

Aktuální - current

šéf/chef

šéf = boss

chef = cooks professionally

gum/guma

gum = žvýkačka

guma = rubber

novel/novela

novel = román

novela = short story

preservative/prezervativ

preservative = konzervant

prezervativ = condom