Лексикология английского языка

7. The Etymological Structure of English Vocabulary

The native element¹

The borrowed element

I. Indo-European element II. Germanic element III. English Proper element (no earlier than 5th c. A.D.)

I. Celtic (5th – 6th c. A.D.) II. Latin 1st group: 1st c. B.C. 2nd group: 7th c. A.D. 3rd group: the Renaissance period III. Scandinavian (8th – 11th c.A.D.): sister, husband; happy, low; take, die IV. French Norman borrowings: 11th – 13th c. A.D. Parisian borrowings (Renaissance) Greek (Renaissance) Italian (Renaissance and later) Spanish (Renaissance and later) German Indian Russian: steppe (степь), rouble And some other groups

¹By the native element we mean words which were not borrowed from other

languages but represent the original stock of this particular language.
Modern scholars estimate the percentage of borrowed words in the English vocabulary at 65–70 per cent. This anomaly is explained by the country`s eventful history and by its many international contacts.

The native element in English comprises a large number of high-frequency words like the articles, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, auxiliaries and words denoting everyday objects and ideas (e.g. house, child, water, go, come, eat, good, bad, etc.).

Furthermore, the grammatical structure is essentially Germanic having remained unaffected by foreign influence.

Let us sum up what has been said in a table.

It was mentioned that the tribal languages of the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes, by the time of their migration, contained only words of Indo-European and Germanic roots plus a certain number of the earliest Latin borrowings.

By the Indo-European element are meant words of roots common to all or most languages of the Indo-European group. English words of this group denote elementary concepts without which no human communication would be possible. The following groups can be identified.

1. 
   Family relations: father, mother, brother, son, daughter.
   
2.