Table of contents Introduction 1.Native words. a) Common IE layer b) Common Germanic layer c) Specifically OE words 2.

Borrowings a) Celtic Borrowings b) Latin Borrowings c) Early Scandinavian borrowings 3. Word-building means in OE. a)Affixation b) Composition Conclusion Literature

Introduction The full extent of the Old English vocabulary is not known to present-day scholars. There is no doubt that there existed more words in it. Surely, some Old English words were lost altogether with the texts that perished; some might not have been used in written texts as they belonged to some spheres of human life which were not of great interest (some colloquial words, for instance). Modern estimates of the total vocabulary (recorded and preserved in written monuments) range from 30 000 words (some even say 100 000 -Smirnitsky, Pei).It is mainly homogeneous. Loan words are fairly insignificant, and are grouped around some specific spheres of life. 1. Native words The OE vocabulary was almost purely Germanic; except for a small number of borrowings, it consisted of native words inherited from PG or formed from native roots and affixes. Native OE words can be subdivided into a number of etymological layers from different historical periods. The three main layers in the native OE words are: - common IE words; - common Germanic words; - specifically OE words. Words belonging to the common IE layer constitute the oldest part of the OE vocabulary. They go back to the days of the IE parent-language before its extension over the wide territories of Europe and Asia and before the appearance of the Germanic group. They were inherited by PG and passed into the Germanic languages of various subgroups, including English. Among these words we find names of some natural phenomena, plants and animals, agricultural terms, names of parts of the human body, terms of kinship, etc.; verbs belonging to this layer denote the basic activities of man; adjectives indicate the most essential qualities; this layer includes personal and demonstrative pronouns and most numerals. Verbs belonging to this layer denote the basic activities of man; adjectives indicate the most essential qualities. Here is the examples of the OE common IE layer: faeder (father), modor (mother), brodor (brother), sweostor (sister); etan (to eat), sitan (to sit), slepan (to sleep), beran (to bear), cndwan (to know), witan (to know); ceald (cold), cwene (woman), dor (door), sta:n (stone), waiter (water), fot (foot), heorte (heart). Some words of this oldest layer are not shared by all the groups of the IE family but are found only in certain areas. In the early days of their separate history the

Germanic tribes were more closely connected with their eastern neighbours, the Baltic and Slavonic tribes, while later they came into closer contact with the Italic and Celtic groups. These facts are borne out by the following lexical parallels: OE beard (NE beard) is found in the Germanic group (OHG bart) and has parallels in Latvian barda and in R . The common Germanic layer includes words which are shared by most Germanic languages, but do not occur outside the group. Being specifically Germanic, these words constitute an important distinctive mark of the Germanic languages at the lexical level. But some of the words did not occur in all the OG languages. This layer is certainly smaller than the layer of common IE words. Semantically these words are connected with nature, with the sea and everyday life. Here belong such words, for instance, as eorthe (earth - Goth, air da, OHG erda, OSax ertha, Olceljord, Mn Germ. Erde), grene (green - OHG gruoni, OSax groni, OFr grene, OScand groeney Mn Germ grun) heall (hall - OHG, OSax holla, Oicel holl, Mn Germ. Halle), hors (horse - OHG hros, OSax hros, OFr hars, hros, OScand hros, Mn Germ Ross). Specifically OE words, that is words which do not occur in other Germanic or non-Germanic languages. These words are few, if we include here only the words whose roots have not been found outside English: OE clipian 'call', OE brid (NE bird) and several others. However, they are far more numerous if we include in this layer OE compounds and derived words formed from Germanic roots in England. For instance, OE wifman or wimman (NE woman) consists of two roots which occurred as separate words in other OG languages, but formed a compound only in OE. 2. Borrowings. Although borrowed words constituted only a small portion of the OE vocabulary all in all about six hundred words, they are of great interest for linguistic and historical study. The borrowings reflect the contacts of English with other tongues resulting from diverse political, economic, social and cultural events in the early periods of British history. OE borrowings come mainly from two sources: Celtic and Latin. But also we can meet some words of Early Scandinavian borrowings. Celtic borrowings. There are very few Celtic loan-words in the OE vocabulary, for there must have been little intermixture between the Germanic settlers and the Celtic in Britain. Borrowing from Celtic is to be found only in place-names. The OE kingdoms

Kent, Deira and Bernicia derive their names from the names of Celtic tribes. The name of York, the Downs and perhaps London have been traced to Celtic sources. Various Celtic designations of river and water were understood by the Germanic invaders as proper names: Ouse, Esk, Exe, Avon go back to Celtic atnhuln river; Thames, Stour, Dover also come from Celtic. Many place-names with Celtic elements are hybrids; the Celtic component, combined with a Latin or a Germanic component, makes a compound place-name, e.g.: Celtic plus Latin: Man-chester, Win-chester, Lan-caster; Celtic plus Germanic: York-shire, Corn-wall, Devonshire, Canter-bury. Outside of place-names Celtic borrowings in OE were very few: no more than a dozen. Examples of common nouns are: OE binn (NE bin crib'), cradot (NE cradle), bratt 'cloak', dun (NE dun Mark coloured'), dun 'hill', crass (NE cross), probably through Celtic from the Latin crux, A few words must have entered OE from Celtic due to the activities of Irish missionaries in spreading Christianity, e,g. OE ancor 'hermit', drp 'magician', cursian (NE curse). In later ages some of the Celtic borrowings have died out or have survived only in dialects, e.g. loch dial, 'lake', coomb dial, 'vallev'. Latin borrowings. The role of the Latin language in Medieval Britain is clearly manifest; it was determined by such historical events as the Roman occupation of Britain, the influence of the Roman civilisation and the introduction of Christianity. It is no wonder that the Latin language exerted considerable influence on different aspects of English: the OE alphabet, the growth of writing and literature. The impact of Latin on the OE vocabulary enables us to see the spheres of Roman influence on the life in Britain. Latin words entered the English language at different stages of OE history. Chronologically they can be divided into two layers. The earliest layer comprises words which the West Germanic tribes brought from the continent when they came to settle in Britain. Contact with the Roman civilisation began a long time before the Anglo-Saxon invasion. The adoption of Latin words continued in Britain after the invasion, since Britain had been under Roman occupation for almost 400 years. Though the Romans left Britain before the settlement of the West Teutons, Latin words could be transmitted to them by the Romanised Celts. Early OE borrowings from Latin indicate the new things and concepts which the Teutons had learnt from the Romans; as seen from the examples below they pertain to war, trade, agriculture, building and home life. Early Latin borrowings were taken into Germanic languages in pre-British period,

during contacts of the Germanic tribes through wars and trade; these words are found in many Germanic languages (we take Present-day German for comparison), and are so assimilated now that only a specialist can trace their origin. They are: castel ( castle - Lat. castellum), cealc (chalk - Lat.calcium), ciese (cheese - Lat. caseus, Mn Germ Kase), cires (cherry - Lat. cerasus, Mn Germ Kirsche), copor (copper, Lat. cuprum, Mn Germ Kupfer), cycene (Lat. coquina, Mn Germ Kuchen), cytel (kettle - Lat. catillus, Mn Germ Kessel), disc ( dish Lat. discus, Mn Germ Tisch), mile (mile - Lat. milla passum, Mn Germ Meile), myln (mill - Lat. molinum, Mn Germ Muhle). The second layer of Latin borrowings in the OE vocabulary is connected with the introduction of Christianity in the late 6th c. and lasted to the end of OE. Numerous Latin words which found their way into the English language during these priod clearly fall into two main groups: words pertaining to religion words connected with learning The rest are miscellaneous words denoting various objects and concepts which the English learned from Latin books and from closer acquaintance with Roman culture. The total number of Latin loan-words in OE exceeds five hundred, this third layer accounting for over four hundred words. A significant portion of religious terms are not specifically Latin, for they were borrowed into it from Greek, so we may find similar words in other languages: OE NE Latin Greek apostol apostle apostolus apostolos biscop bishop episcopus episcopos deofol devil diabolus diabolos antefn anthem antiphona antiphona After the introduction of Christianity many monastic schools were set up in Britain. The spread of education led to the wider use of Latin: teaching was conducted in Latin, or consisted of learning Latin. The written forms of OE developed in translations of Latin texts. These conditions are reflected in a large number of borrowings connected with education, and also words of a more academic, "bookish" character. Here the examples of such borrowings: OE corna "crown" from Lat. Corona, OE magister "master" from Lat. Magister. Translation-loans. The Latin impact on the OE vocabulary was not restricted to borrowing of words. There were also other aspects of influence. The most important of them is the appearance of the so-called translation-loans words and

phrases created on the pattern of Latin words as their literal translations. The earliest instances of translation-loans are names of the days of the week found not only in OE but also in other Old Germanic languages. OE Mnan-d (Monday) day of the moon, Lunae dies. Early Scandinavian borrowings. While most of the loanwords from Latin are of a technical nature, or express new concepts (like Christianity), the Scandinavian loanwords that survive into Modern English are mostly everyday words. These must have been borrowed as a result of the Scandinavian settlements in the North and East of the country. However, identification of these is quite difficult (they are from NorthGermanic languages which are closely related). Old English is largely known through the work of tenth and eleventh century scribes, working in the South and West of the country. These scribes would be unlikely to use loanwords that were in use in the Scandinavian settlement area, thus of the 900 attested North Germanic loans into English, only 150 appear in Old English sources. The rest only manifest themselves in the 12th and 13th centuries in Middle English texts even though they must have been around earlier. The words that do appear -- mostly in late texts -- are mostly concerned with the administrative and social systems of the Danelaw, for example: hsbonda "householder", wpentc "wapentake" a subdivision of a shire, hsting "court, tribunal", tlaga "outlaw". 3. Word-building in Old English Apart from taking words from other languages, there were internal ways of enriching the vocabulary - word-building techniques. These were morphological - creating new words by adding new morphemes syntactic - building new words from syntactic groups developing new meanings of the existing words. Morphological word-building is the way of adding morphemes to make new words, know as affixation. Here we distinguish two major group of affixes prefixes and suffixes, infixes being non-characteristic for the English language. Affixation Suffix is a morpheme that is added to the root-morpheme and which modifies its lexical meaning. Additionally, they may (and in the majority of cases do) refer the word to another part of speech. In this treatment they will be classified according to the principle of what part of speech is formed by means of this or that suffix. Hence, In Old English there were: Noun-suffixes

-ere was used to form masculine nouns from stems of nouns and verbs, denoted the profession or the doer of the action (it is related to Gothic areis): fiscere (fisherman), wntere (writer), bocere (bookman), fugelere (fowler, bird-catcher), drowere (sufferer), The corresponding feminine suffix was -estre: baecestre (woman baker), spinnestre (spinner), -end was used to form masculine nouns from verb stems (originally the suffix of Participle II): freond (friend), demend (judge), ing - masculine; was used to derive patronymics; may also form emotionally coloured diminutives: cyning (king), aedeling (son of a nobleman), -ling- variant of -ing; forms prevalently emotionally marked nouns from adjectives: deorling (darling), lytling (baby). -en formed feminine nouns from noun stems: gyden (goddess),fyxen (female fox, vixen), maegden (mayden) -nis, -nes formed feminine abstract nouns from adjectives: godnis(goodness), beorhtnes (brightness), hereness (praise), swetnis (sweetness), unstilness (disturbance), nyttnes (usefulness) A group of derivational morphemes used in Old English may be called semi- or half-suffixes: they originated from nouns and still preserve to some extent their original meaning (compare the status of -man in policeman, spokesman, sportsman etc.) -dom (the noun dom meant 'doom') freodom (freedom), wisdom wisdom) -lac (the noun that meant 'gift, game') formed abstract nouns: reoflac (robbery), wedlac (wedlock) -scipe/scype (the verb scieppan meant 'to shape, create') formed abstract and collective nouns from noun stems: hlafordscipe (lordship), freondscipe (friendship), folcscipe (people), -had (the original noun had meant 'title, rank') formed abstract nouns from noun stems: cildhad (childhood), maegdhad (maidenhood, virginity),weoruldhod (secular life) While noun-forming suffixes might retain the stem within its former category simply adding some meaning to it, adjective-forming suffixes invariably change the part of speech appurtenance of the stem. They are very rarely if ever added to adjective-stems but form adjectives that represent some quality in relation to some notion which is expressed in a noun or a verb:

-ede (is related to Participle II suffix -d): hocede (hooked) -en gylden (golden), wyllen (woolen) -feald: manigfeald (manyfold) -full: sorhfull (sorrowful), carfull (careful), sinnfull (sinful) -ig: halig (holy), mistig (misty), busig (busy) -ihte: dyrnihte (thorny), stsenihte (stony) -isc: englisc (English), Bryttisc (British), folcisc (popular),mennisc (human) -leas:, slaepleas (sleepless) lic (friendly), luflic (full of love) -sum: sibbsum (peaceful), hiersum (obedient) Adverb-forming suffix -e was usually added to adjective stems; this was a productive way of word-building: wid- wide (wide - widely), lang-lange (long - for a long time. Verbs were formed by adding the suffix -an/ian, -ettan to noun, adjective and adverb stems, sometimes this process was accompanied by adding prefixes: wyrse (worse) - wyrsian (worsen), yfel (bad) -yfelian (worsen). Prefixes The use of prefixes in Old English was a productive way of forming new words, and their number exceeds that of prefixes in modern times. They were especially frequent with the verbs: gon go, be- gon - go round, fore- gon precede, ofergon traverse, je- gon - go, go away. Composition The essence of composition as syntactic word-building is in making a new word from two or more stems. The number of compound words in Old English is significant, some of them were periphrastic nominations for some common notions and form special stylistic devices in epic poems (kennings) The most common patterns are: N +N ac-treo (oak tree), stan-bryg (stone-bridge), boc-craeft (literature), folclagu (public law), hatelhunta (whalehunter), cradocild (a child in cradle, infant), saeman (seaman), wintertid (winter time), Adj+N cwicseolfor (quicksilver),god-daed (good deed), wid- weg (wide road), N + V lustfullian (rejoice) V+N baec-hus (bakery) N+Adj/PII win-saed (drunk, satiated with wine), ealdor-lang (age-long), sumor-lang (summer-long) Adj + Adj heard-saelig (unfortunate)

PII + N bogjen-mod (having an angry mind) Among the compound words there are a lot of poetic metaphoric circumlocutions called kennings. Some notions, such as battle, warrior, had a great number of such periphrastic nomination (synonymic group of warrior, for instance had 37 such nomination only in "Beowulf). Some examples of such words are: garr-berend (spear-carrier), gar-wiga (spear warrior), sweord-freca (sword-hero),guth-beorn (battle warrior), majo-rinc (relative warrior), juth-wine (war friend), here-rinc (army hero), dom-jeorn (eager for fame), byrn-wija (armour-clad warrior) and many others. Other notions that had synonymous kennings are: human body: ban-cofa (bone chamber), ban-hus (house of bones); Semantic word-building is actually a metaphoric extension of meaning of a word to name something other, similar to original word in some respects. Here belong: muth (mouth, part of human face) > (Humbra) mud (mouth, part of the river, here Humber) wendan (to turn) -> wendan (to translate) weorc (work ) > weorc (fortress) etc. Conclusion Old English vocabulary is purely Germanic, obtaining only the small quantity borrowings. Native vocabulary of OE we can devide into common Indo-European words, common Germanic words and specifically OE words. Indo-European layer is considered the oldest part of OE vocabulary. Germanic words are common for the majority of Germanic languages sub-branch. Specifically OE words do not occur in other Germanic or non-Germanic languages. Enriching of Old English vocabulary was based on such processes: borrowing and word-building. The main sources of borrowings were Celtic and Latin languages. Also we can meet some Early Scandinavian loan words borrowed as a result of the Scandinavian settlements in the North and East of the country. Word-building in OE was based on affixation, composition and developing a new meaning for the existing words.