Historical Grammar9

2016-01-13

Borrowings		Early Modern English
•    Portuguese: marmalade •    Italian: alarm, bark, florin, million, alarm •    Greek: bibie, climate, character, fantasy, tragedy •    Arabie: admirał, amber, cotton, elixir, mosque, saffron, syrup, zenith •    Persian: azure, check, rook, checkmate and chess

Greek borrowings

•    Liberał arts: rhetoric, grammar, logie, astronomy, astrology, geometry

•    Tragedy, climax, episode, prologue, dialogue, epilogue

•    Poetry, poesy, poem, poet, poetic

•    -itis - meningitis, bronchitis

•    -osis - symbiosis, neurosis, psychosis

Borrowings

•    Spanish and Portuguese: apricot, banana, cocoa, maize, potato, tobacco armada, cannibal, canoe, desperado, embargo, hammock, hurricane, mosquito, mulatto, negro, sombrero

•    Italian: algebra, balcony, carnival, design, granite, piazza, portico, stanza, violin, volcano

•    French: chocolate, tomato, bizarre, comrade, detail, equip, essay, explore, mustache, shock, talisman, ticket, vogue, and volunteer.

•    Dutch: cruise, keel, yacht, landscape, fokkinge, krappe, bugger

The Great Vowel Shift

Source: Van Gelderen, E. 2006.AHistoryofthe English Languoge. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, p. 162

English after 1800

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