The Classical element in English

For centuries, formal education in Europe has been closely associated with the teaching and learning of Latin. Through a long period of time Latin was the classical and cultural language of Western Europe, and it has an enormous impact on all Western European languages. From IV century BC to V century AD it was the language of the Roman Republic and Empire and from III century to XX century – the international vehicle of the Roman Catholic Church and the learned language of Western Christendom (McArthur 1992, p.586). Particularly since the Renaissance, Latin has always been the scholarly and literally seed-corn for the vernacular European languages. English has proved to be the most receptive among the Germanic languages to direct as well as indirect Latin influence, largely as a consequence of the Norman Conquest.

A large part of the lexicon of Latin has entered English in two major ways: mainly religious vocabulary from the time of Old English until the Reformation, and mainly scientific, scholarly and legal vocabulary from the Middle Ages onwards.

The OE period of Latin borrowings is called the ‘plant’ period, since most of these terms indicate special spheres in which the Roman invaders excelled and which they brought with them to the British Isles. Many of them have survived into Modern English and their origin can be easily traced, e.g. plante, plant (Lat, planta), pipper, pepper (Lat. piper), win, wine (Lat. vinum), plum (Lat. ), beat (Lat. ), buttere butter (Lat. butyrum), cese, cheese (Lat. ).

Another sphere of connection of the two languages deals with Christianization of the British people, this time may be called the period of ‘church’ borrowings. Among them were: candel, ‘candle’, sealm ‘psalm’, munyk ‘monk’, mynster ‘monastry’, maesse ‘mass’, sealm ‘psalm’, maegester ‘master, alter ‘altar’. During this period a number of OE words have acquired a new ‘Christian’ meaning: heaven, hell, God, gospel, holy, Easter, ghost, sin.

In the Middle English period Latin words were borrowed through French – the language, which had a dominant influence on the growth of the Middle English vocabulary. Many borrowings also occurred directly from Latin, and it is sometimes very difficult to identify the origin and the source of the borrowing.

Sometimes the same word reached English at different times, and from different sources, having undergone various degrees of filtering, and thus can exist in English in two or more related forms, as with canal and channel, regard and reward, pour and pauper, catch and chase, cave and cage, amiable and amicable (examples taken from B. Bryson, p.66). Such words are termed etymological doublets – two of more words of the same language that come from the same root.

The simultaneous borrowing of French and Latin words caused a highly distinctive feature of modern English vocabulary – triplets - sets of three items, all expressing the same notion but differing slightly in meaning or style, e.g. hotel, hostel and hospital; strait, straight, and strict; kingly, royal, regal and others. B. Bryson mentions one quadruplet –jaunty, gentle, and genteel, all from the – Latin gentilis. But the record holder is almost certainly the Latin discus, which has given us disk, disc, dish, desk, dais, and discus [B. Bryson, p.67].

There are cases then etymological doublets are the result of borrowing different grammatical forms of same word, e.g. the comparative degree of Latin ‘super’ was ‘superior’ which was borrowed into English with the meaning ‘high in some quality or rank’. The superlative degree (Lat. ‘supermus’) in English ‘supreme’ with the meaning ‘outstanding, prominent’. So, ‘superior’ and ‘supreme’ are etymological doublets.

In Early Modern English period the effect of the Renaissance begin to be seriously felt in England. We see the beginning of a huge influx of Latin and Greek words, many of them learned words imported by scholars well versed in those languages. Latin continued to be the primary language of scholarship, and most of the borrowed words belong to such fields as religion, science, law and literature. In literature some writers used Latin words deliberately to produce literary or elevated styles. Religious terms of this period include: collect, mediator, and redeemer. Legal terms include: client, conviction, and subpoena. Those connected with scholastic activities are: library, scribe, simile. Scientific words include: equal, dissolve, essence, medicine, etc. The law, for example, has taken many terms from Latin, such as: ad litem (‘in a lawsuit’), bona fide (‘with good faith’), ad hock (‘not planned, but arranged or done only when necessary’), prima facie (‘at first impression’), subpoena (‘under penalty’ – i.e. to attendcourt’) and some others. Medicine, on the other hand, has the tendency to borrow words from Greek: an inflammatory disease ends in –itis (peritonitis, bronchitis), a surgical removal ends in -ectomy (hysterectomy, vasectomy), the medical care of particular groups –iatrics (paediatrics, geriatrics).

A number of terms were borrowed from Greek via Latin and the influence on English was largely lexical and conceptual with some orthographic and other effects. As it was noticed by McArthur (See Mc Arthur 1999, p.453), for speakers of English, Greek has been traditionally perceived as remote, esoteric and yet worth some respect: compare the idiom It’s Greek to me (I can’t understand it) and the saying The Greeks had a word for it (expressing a traditional view of the richness of the language). Greek words, word-forming patterns and word elements were adopted and adapted into Latin and passed through it into many Indo-European languages. The significant influx was in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, e.g. rhetorical, catalogue, analytical, stratagem and others.

Sometimes, a Latin or Greek adjective was adopted, but the native one kept as well, so we can choose between motherly and maternal, earthly and terrestrial, timely and temporal.

Borrowings from classical languages continued into the Modern English period and at that time English borrowed words and morphemes from Latin and changed them into new words, which did not exist in classical Latin. Such words are termed Neo-Latin and they were used literary or for the purpose of expressing scientific ideas to form the basis for much modern scientific terminology. This time was the period when terminology or what we actually mean as a kind of terminological ‘lingua franca’ used as a means of international communication was coined. If we consider the system of linguistic terms in contrast, we can easily demonstrate what we can describe as ‘international dimension’:

Date: 2015-04-20; view: 1853