The Celtic element in English

In the V-th century AD the Germanic tribes migrated to the British Isles and occupied most of its territory.

The Celts, the original inhabitants of the British Isles, retreated to the North and South West of the country (modern Scotland, Wales and Cornwall). They had little cultural contacts with the invaders, thus, the Celtic language had little impact on Old English. Few of these borrowings remained in Modern English (dew, bald, bard, down, druid, cradle, twig, hue); a couple of them are used in local dialects of Scotland, Wales and Cornwall.

By far the greatest influence of the Celtic upon English was upon the names of places. This is natural, since place names are commonly adopted in great numbers from the aboriginal inhabitants of a country. Celtic place names are therefore found in all parts of the country in the names of rivers (Avon, Exe, Esk, Don, Usk, Severn, Thames, Trent, Ouse and Wye, originating from the Celtic words meaning ‘river’ and ‘water’).

Celtic aber ‘mouth’ is found in Abredeen, Aberfeldie, Abergeldie, caer ‘castle’ in Caercolon, Caerleon, dun ‘a protected place’ is recognized in Dunbar, Dumbarton, Dundee. Town names include: London, Bray, Dover, Kent, Leeds, York and a lot of others, which are common in all parts of England, though much more largely in Scotland and Ireland (Emerson, O.

In later periods a few more loan words were introduced into English through Irish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic and Welsh – shamrock, Tory, clan, loch, slogan, budget, whisky, and crag.

Some Celtic words penetrated into English through other languages. Thus, the words beak, budget, bulge, cloak, clock, gravel, harness, javelin, job, lawn, mineral, mutton, tunnel came via French.

All in all, there are no more than two dozen Celtic words in English. That testifies to the fact, that English is primarily a Germanic language. (See Jackson 2004, p.38.).

Date: 2015-04-20; view: 2588