Indo-european vocabulary in the Old English language

Many words in different Indo-European languages originate from the common Proto-Indo-European root. Among such words we can very often find words denoting family relation (mother, brother, daughter, etc.), numerals, words denoting day and night and others. Here also belong the words which denote vitally important processes (to eat, to sleep, etc.).

It is only natural that the words ascending to the same Indo-European root for an inexperienced person are not easy to identify. Compare, for example, the New English word first and Lithuanian pirmas, or English sleep and Russian слабый. The outward similarity of those words may be not very evident but still their relation is an established fact. To judge about the belonging of these or those words to the Indo-European vocabulary, one has to trace the history of the words taking into account all the changes that took place in different periods of the language evolution. To find the scientific grounds of the genetic relation of words linguists use the comparative-historic method. This method which was worked out in the 19th century is a reliable insurance against various errors that may happen for the simple reason that words in different languages have external similarity.

Several examples of words belonging to the Indo-European vocabulary in the Old English language are discussed below.

The word fæder ‘father’ has the following parallels in Indo-European languages: Latin pater, Greek pater, Sanskrit pitar. We know now that the correspondence of the Germanic [f] to the Indo-European (non-Germanic) [p] has a regular character (J. Grimm’s law). So the phonetic identity and common meaning testify that the word fæder belongs to the Indo-European vocabulary.

To the same category we can refer the word modor. In Latin its correspondence is the word mater, in Greek meter, in Sanskrit mata (the stem of the oblique cases is matar-). We can notice that the Russian word мать is closer to the phonetic structure of the corresponding words in other Indo-European languages in the forms of the oblique cases too: матери, матерью, etc.

The Old English adjective ful ‘full’ and the verb derived from the latter fyllan ‘to fill’ has relation with the Latin adjective plenus, Greek pleos and also with the Russian полный (here, like in case with the word fæder, we can observe the effect of Grimm’s law).

The word steorra ‘star’ also belongs to the Indo-European vocabulary. In Latin its correspondence is stella, in Greek aster.

 

WORDS OF THE GERMANIC VOCABULARY AND SPECIFIC OLD ENGLISH WORDS

The Germanic vocabulary in Old English includes the words which have parallels in other Germanic languages but have no correspondences in other Indo-European (non-Germanic) languages. These words are fewer in number than the Indo-European words, as the researchers state. According to T. Rastorguyeva’s evaluation the ratio of the Germanic and Indo-European vocabulary in the Old English language is 1: 2. The Germanic vocabulary originated in the period when the Teutonic tribes dwelt on the Continent and spoke the same language. The words of the common Germanic vocabulary are easy to recognize. The following table illustrates some Old English words belonging to the Germanic vocabulary and their parallels in the Old-High-German, Gothic and Old Icelandic languages.

C ommon Germanic Vocabulary

 

Old English	Old High German	Gothic	Old Icelandic
earthe ‘earth’ fox ‘fox’ hand ‘hand’ sand ‘sand’ sceap ‘sheep’ scip ‘ship’ stan ‘stone’ word ‘word’	erda fuhs hant sant scaf scif stein wort	airtha  – handus – – skip stains waurd	jorth –   hond sandr – skip steinn orth

Words belonging to the specific Old English vocabulary, i.e. words having no etymological parallels either in Germanic or in other Indo-European languages, are not numerous. As examples we may consider the verb clipian ‘to call’ which went out of use in the Middle English period and the noun brid ‘nestling’ from which the modern word bird developed. Thus, the word wifman ‘woman’ (wimman being the later form of it) was formed of the Germanic roots wif ‘wife’ and mann. The word hlaford ‘lord’, which developed into the contemporary lord, includes the Indo-European root hlaf ‘bread’ and the Germanic root ascending to the verb weardan ‘to keep’. The word hlæfdige ‘lady’ has a similar origin. In its morphological structure we can distinguish the root hlaf mentioned above and acquiring the form hlæf as a result of umlaut and the Germanic verbal stem dig(an) ‘to mix bread’. Besides the linguistic interest, which the origin of the words lord and lady presents, it is very interesting to consider the oldest social background which may be discovered in studying the etymology of those words.

 

BORROWED WORDS

The main source of borrowed word for the Old English language was Latin. The ways of English and Latin often crossed in various historic circumstances. For the Old English period three moments were sufficient. Firstly, the tribes of Angles, Saxons and Jutes had different relations with the Romans who spoke Latin before their invasion into Britain in the 5th century. Secondly, after they had conquered Britain, Angles, Saxons and Jutes communicated with the Celtic population who, as you are sure to remember, had been influenced by the Roman culture and the Latin language. Thirdly, since the end of the 6th century Britain has been a Christian country, and Latin was language of church and theology in Western Europe.

The three moments mentioned above determine the three layers of Latin borrowings in the Old English language which differ in time and the character of the borrowed words.

The first layer belongs to the period when the Old English language did not yet actually exist. The Latin words that had taken root in the dialects of Angles, Saxons and Jutes later naturally passed in into the new language community which we call now Old English after the Germanic tribes had settled in Britain.

First of all those were names of objects of material culture and names of goods that the Germanic people bought from Romans on the Continent. From the Latin expression strata via ‘cobbled road’ the first element was borrowed, and the word stræt acquired the meaning ‘road’ (of any kind). We can notice that in New English the word street which developed from the Old English stræt has changed its meaning.

The Latin vallum ‘fortress wall’ gave birth to the Old English weall ‘wall’. The Latin coquina ‘kitchen’ was borrowed in the Old English form cycene (with the same meaning). The Latin molinum ‘mill’ was transformed in Old English as myln.

Names of many goods in Old English were of Latin origin, e.g.:

Latin              Old English

vinum              win ‘wine’

piper               pipor ‘pepper’

ceresia             cyrse ‘cherry’

sinapi              senep ‘mustard’

caseus             cyse ‘cheese’

caulis              cawl ‘cabbage’

Many words which denote things of household and everyday life also have come from Latin, e.g.;

Latin              Old English

discus              disc ‘dish’

 uppa                  cuppe ‘cup’

catillus            cytel ‘pot, kettle’

saccus             sæc ‘sack’

cista                ciste ‘chest, box’

It is interesting to consider how the Latin word uncia ‘1/12 part of the measure’ was transformed in the process of borrowing in Old English. In the Old English language that word appeared in the form ynce and had two meanings: ‘ounce’ and ‘inch’. But later the word developed in two variants with each of which a separate meaning was associated.

The second layer of Latin borrowed words in Old English is connected with the interception of some language elements by Angles, Saxons and Jutes from conquered Celts. As an example of such a borrowing we can consider the word cross from the Latin crux. A considerable number of toponyms adopted by the Germanic invaders from Celts included the element ceastre or cestre from the Latin castra ‘camp, military settlement’ and port from the Latin portus ‘port, harbour’. These toponyms survive in modern English, e.g.: Davenport, Gloucester, Lancaster, Manchester, Winchester, Worcester, etc.

The third layer of Latin borrowings which is connected with the introduction of Christianity in Britain is naturally limited semantically: it comprises the words having relation to religion, theology, the Holy Bible and the life of the church. The peculiarity of those words is that they are mainly of Greek origin, but it is important to keep in mind that all those words have entered the Old English lexicon through Latin, that is why they should be considered borrowings from the Latin language. Some examples of those words are given below:

 Greek                      Latin                                 O.E.

aggelos ‘messenger’ angelus ‘angel’         angel ‘angel’

diabolos ‘devil’        diabolus ‘devil’        deofol ‘devil’

episkopos ‘bishop’   episcopus ‘bishop’   biscop ‘bishop’

A special group of borrowings includes the so called loan translations, or calques. Calques are words and word-combinations that preserve the structure of the original but the elements of which were translated into the Old English language. In this respect it is interesting to consider the Old English names of the days of the week. The Latin names of the days of the week were devoted to the Sun, the Moon or the gods of the Græco-Roman Olympus. The word consisted of the name of the god in the Genitive case and the word dies ‘day’. In the Old English language the same pattern was used, with the exclusion that the names of Roman gods were replaced by the names of god of the Germanic mythology, as can be seen in the table below:

 

Names of the Days of the Week

	Latin		Old English
Monday	Lunæ dies	Day of Moon	Monan-dæg	Day of Moon
Tuesday	Martis dies	Day of Mars	Tiwes-dæg	Day of Tiu
Wednesday	Mercuri dies	Day of Mercury	Wodnes-dæg	Day of Woden
Thursday	Iovis dies	Day of Jupiter	Thunres-dæg	Day of Thuner
Friday	Veneris dies	Day of Venus	Frige-dæg	Day of Friya
Saturday	Saturni dies	Day of Saturn	Sætern-dæg	Day of Saturn
Sunday	Solis dies	Day of Sun	Sunnan-Dæg	Day of Sun

 

Words borrowed from other languages (besides Latin) were not many in the Old English language.

A limited number of words entered the Old English language from the Celtic language, e.g.: binn ‘manger’, bratt ‘cloak’, DUN ‘grayish-brown’.

The modern adverb down is also of Celtic origin. The Old English word dun ‘hill, dune’ was borrowed from the Celtic language. The expression of dune had the meaning ‘down the hill, downwards’. Later this expression developed into the contemporary adverb.

 

WORD-BUILDING

Derivative Words

In the Old English language two main means of word-building may be distinguished:

(1) affixation word-building, i.e. the formation of words from the roots existing in the language with help of suffixes and/or prefixes;

(2) formation of new words by merging two or more roots (stem-combination). Words produced by the first means are called derivative. Words formed by the second means are called compound.