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WonderLanguage fact

English grew from Old English, a Germanic language, yet most of its dictionary is borrowed. A count of 75,000 entries found about 28 per cent from French, 28 per cent from Latin and 25 per cent Germanic, while the words used most often are still largely native.

Finkenstaedt and Wolff, 1973

Language

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Three waves did most of the borrowing. From the 9th century Viking settlers brought Old Norse words that now feel entirely English: sky, egg, knife, window (literally “wind eye”) and even they, them and their. After the Norman Conquest of 1066, French was the language of the court, the law and the nobility for roughly three centuries, and thousands of its words entered English. Renaissance scholars then borrowed directly from Latin and Greek. The layers often sit side by side: ask is Old English and enquire came through French; kingly, royal and regal come from English, French and Latin. Animals in the field kept English names (cow, pig, sheep), while their meat on the table took French ones (beef, pork, mutton). The figures come from a survey of the Shorter Oxford Dictionary by Finkenstaedt and Wolff, published in 1973.

Türkçe oku
İngilizce, Cermen dillerinden biri olan Eski İngilizceden gelişti; ama sözlüğündeki sözcüklerin çoğu ödünçtür. 75.000 sözcüklük bir sayıma göre sözcüklerin yaklaşık yüzde 28'i Fransızcadan, yüzde 28'i Latinceden, yüzde 25'i Cermen dillerinden gelir. Gündelik dilde en sık kullanılan sözcükler ise büyük ölçüde yerlidir.
Finkenstaedt ve Wolff, 1973

Ödünç almanın büyük bölümü üç dalgayla oldu. 9. yüzyıldan itibaren İngiltere'ye yerleşen Vikingler, bugün tamamen İngilizce sanılan Eski İskandinav dili sözcüklerini getirdi: sky (gök), egg (yumurta), knife (bıçak), kelimesi kelimesine “rüzgâr gözü” demek olan window (pencere), hatta they, them ve their (onlar) zamirleri. 1066'daki Norman Fethi'nden sonra yaklaşık üç yüzyıl boyunca saray, hukuk ve soylular Fransızca kullandı; binlerce Fransızca sözcük dile girdi. Rönesans'ta ise bilginler doğrudan Latince ve Yunancadan sözcük aldı. Katmanlar çoğu zaman yan yana durur: Sormak anlamındaki ask Eski İngilizcedir, enquire ise Fransızca yoluyla gelmiştir. Tarladaki hayvanlar İngilizce adlarını korudu (cow, pig, sheep), sofradaki etleri ise Fransızca adlar aldı (beef, pork, mutton). Türkçede de benzer çiftler vardır: yürek ile Arapçadan gelen kalp, savaş ile yine Arapça harp gibi. Oranlar, Thomas Finkenstaedt ile Dieter Wolff'un Shorter Oxford sözlüğünü tarayıp 1973'te yayımladığı araştırmadan alınmıştır.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Foreign-language influences in English
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