An etymological analysis of the vocabulary of medieval culture will show, with surprising accuracy, the sources from which that culture was derived, and the channels through which it passed on its way to England. We find in the first place that practically all these words were borrowed from the French; that the French borrowed them from Latin and that, with the exception of some Arabic words, the ultimate source of almost all of them was Greek, They represent, indeed, the wrecks and fragments of Greek learning which had been absorbed into Roman civilization.
It is worth mentioning that many of the philosophical terms are a product of medieval scholasticism. In the 13th and 14th centuries the following words were used in English writings: absolute, essence, existence, matter and form, quality, quantity, general and special, object and subject, particular and universal, substance, intellect, etc. A large number of words were formed in Low Latin (and not borrowed from classical Latin) to express the subtle distinctions of the scholastic logicians, e. g. entity and identity, species, duration, etc, Scholastic words found their way into Anglo-French, and then into English.
By the end of the 14th century the English language had absorbed the greater part of the vocabulary of medieval learning and had been formed into a standard literary form of speech for the whole nation. But from the point of view of vocabulary, the 15th century marks a pause. England, exhausted and demoralized by its disastrous conflicts in France, and by the Wars of the Roses at home, had little energy to devote to the higher interests of civilization; literature languished and the vocabulary of this period shows but little advance over that of the previous age. Some medical and chemical terms were added to it; the poems of Lydgate at the beginning and the works printed by Caxton at the end of the century contain many new words; but we cannot find in them many signs of new conceptions or of any great additions to life and thought.
7. Enrichment of the Vocabulary in the Renaissance period
The 15th century made but few additions to the vocabulary of English thought and culture but the century that followed this period of intellectual barrenness was one of unexampled richness.
It was in this century that the effects of the revival of learning reached England and the study of classical Latin and Greek soon exercised a powerful influence on the language. Latin and Greek words began to appear in English, not borrowed through the medium of Low Latin or Medieval French, but taken direct from the classics. The result was an immense enrichment of the language. Anyone who will take the pains to look up in the Oxford English Dictionary the data of the earliest citations of words, will be surprised to find how many words now familiar were first introduced at this period. To discuss these new words in detail would be to discuss the cultural growth of England. In the medieval world the church had been the main channel through which the wisdom of ancient times had descended and the church had neglected those parts of old literature which could not be made to serve the interest of Christian doctrines. With the Renaissance came a shift in the estimate of values. Great importance was attached to the study of ancient culture and human life in all its aspects. The New Learning, relatively late in reaching England, when it did arrive, was welcomed with enthusiasm. In the world of learning a division of the broad general field of knowledge covered by the word philosophy came to be indicated by the new word physics (1589) or natural philosophy, as distinguished from ethics (1587) or moral philosophy. The use of the word physics in the modern sense is found later. The word physiology in its modern meaning appears in 1597. Algebra, derived through Low Latin from Arabic appears in 1551, mathematics in 1581. The influence of the New Learning naturally made itself felt in the terms of literature as well. There was a general revision of knowledge in this field of which some indication is offered by such words as blank verse, critic, drama and dramatic, elegy, epic, fiction, lyric, ode, poem, satire, sonnet, stanza. Under the influence of a revived knowledge of classical rhetoric appeared the newer terms: antithesis, metaphor, metonymy.
Latin words and Latinized forms of words were readily assimilated into the language of those trained in the Latin schools of the period. The popular assimilation of the borrowed terms, however, was a slow and laborious process. Many such terms, used at first only in the speech of the learned, slowly sank to the popular level and became essential elements in the common speech of later periods. The learned themselves did not escape error. To mistaken explanations of the origin of words is to be attributed, for instance, the spelling of the word island with an s inserted from mistaken association with the word isle, a word of French origin derived from the Latin insula. The word island comes from M. E. Hand, O. E. igland, ig, an island, and land, land.
We should mention the deposit of words left in the language by the various historical movements and events of the 16th century, for instance, the Protestant Reformation (the religious movement resulting in the establishment of Protestantism). It added many words to the vocabulary: evangelical, godly, in its modern sense (with the derivatives godliness and godless), pious, piety (an old word sometimes used for pity, its modern meaning being acquired from the Protestants), and sincere.
8. Borrowings of the 18th – 20th centuries
The vocabulary of politics continues to grow. The following words were added to it in the 18th century: minister, ambassador (in literature first used in 1709), ministry, Premier, Prime Minister, party (with the word used in its present meaning). Administration, budget, estimates also appear at this time. At the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th some of the vocabulary of the French Revolution entered the English language, for example, aristocrat, democrat, and the old word despot acquired its present meaning; despotism was enlarged from «the rule of a despot» to mean any arbitrary rule of unlimited power.
Among other words should be mentioned royalism, revolutionary, revolutionize, conscription. Section, in its geographical use, and the 19th century word sectional, are derived from the division of France into electoral sections under the Directorate.
Further we should mention the following words: bureaucracy, centralize, centralization, counter-revolution, decade (a period of ten days substituted for the week in the French Republican calendar of 1793. In English the word means «a period of ten years»), demagogic, demoralize, diplomatic, fraternization, fusillade, guillotine [Guillotine, the name of a physician at whose suggestion the instrument was employed in 1789. In English it is also the name of various cutting machines, e, g. a machine for cutting the edges of books, paper, etc., a machine for cutting sheet metal, an instrument to cutting the tonsils (surgical)]; indifferentism, interpellation, monarchism, nationalize, nationalization, propaganda, propagandism, propagandist, reaction repulsion exerted by a body in opposition to the pressure of another body (1644).
«We must also mention the 18th century contributions to the vocabulary of literature. Literature itself only acquired the sense of literary production in this century, and literary had till this time the meaning «alphabetical». Of new-formed words, or old words that acquired their present meanings between 1700 and 1800, may be mentioned copyright, editor, novelist, magazine, publisher, the verb to review and, last but not least, the press. With the Romantic Movement at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries, and the increased interest in the past, many old and half-forgotten words were revived; e. g. bard (1450), chivalry, chivalrous, minstrel (1297), etc. Sir Walter Scott was the greatest of the word-revivers». The 19th century has provided the English language with a multitude of different terms, among which scientific and technical terms are especially numerous. In many cases these terms (coined in the 19th and 20th centuries) are of international currency, e.g. telephone, telegraph, television, radio, etc.
«The most striking thing about our present-day civilization is probably the part which science has played in it. We have only to think of the progress which has been made in medicine and the sciences auxiliary to it, such as bacteriology, biochemistry and the like, to realize the difference that marks off our own day from that of only a few generations ago in everything that has. to do with the diagnosis, treatment, prevention and cure of disease. We have learned the names of new drugs like aspirin, iodine, insulin, morphine, strychnine... All these words have come into use during the nineteenth, and in some cases, the twentieth century. In almost every other field of science the same story could be told.
Many other words are associated with the automobile, e. g. carburettor, choke, gear, shift, bonnet (American hood), radiator, self-starter, steering wheel, throttle, etc. One may have a blowout or a flat, carry a spare, put the car in a garage, be fined for speeding or passing a traffic signal, etc.
An amusing example is the use of a technical expression “to step on it” (or step on the gas), i.e. make the car go faster by depressing the accelerator, in colloquial American speech in the sense of to hurry up, e.g. Dont be so long, step on it!
The same principle might be applied to illustrate the words introduced by the moving-picture and radio. The words cinema and moving-picture date from 1899, while the alternative motion-picture is somewhat later. Close up film, newsreel, scenario, screen are now common, and recently sound pictures and talkies have replaced the silent drama.
While radiogram goes back to 1905, it is only with the spread of popular interest in wireless transmission that the vocabulary has been expanded from this source, The word radio in the sense of a receiving set dates from about 1925. Everybody is familiar with such expressions as antenna, aerial, broadcast, hook-up (American), listen-in, loud speaker, etc.
The 20th century permits us to see the process of vocabulary growth going on under our eyes, sometimes it would seem, at an accelerated rate. At the turn of the century we get the word questionnaire and in 1904 the first hint of television. In 1906 the British launched a particular battleship named the Dreadnought, and the word “dreadnought” passed into popular use for any warship of the same class. A year later we got the word raincoat and about the same time thermos-bottle (in England thermos-flask). This is the period when many of the terms of aviation that have since become so familiar first came in — aircraft, airman, aeroplane (in America airplane), autogiro, biplane, dirigible, hydroplane, monoplane. About 1910 we began talking about the futurist and postimpressionist in art. At this time (after the world war) profiteer and in America prohibition arose with specialized meanings. Only yesterday witnessed the birth (in America) of air-conditioned, brain trust and technocracy, and tomorrow will witness others as the exigencies of the hour call them into being.
In the introduction and popularizing of new words, journalism has been a factor (especially in America) of steadily increasing importance. The newspaper and the more popular type of magazine not only play a large part in spreading new locutions among the people, but are themselves fertile producers of new words. The reporter necessarily writes under pressure and has not long to search for the right word. In the heat of the moment he is as likely as not to strike off a new expression or wrench the language to fit his idea. In his effort to be interesting and racy he adopts an informal and colloquial style, and many of the colloquialisms current in popular speech find their way into writing first in the magazine and the newspaper.
In this way we have come to back a horse or a candidate, to boost our community, comb the woods for a criminal, hop the Atlantic, oust a politician, and spike a rumor... Most of these expressions are still limited to the newspaper and colloquial speech, and are properly classed as journalistic.
We must recognize that in the nineteenth century a new force affecting language arose, and that among the many ways in which it affects the language not the least important are its tendency constantly to renew vocabulary and its ability to bring about the adoption of new words.
The imperialist war contributed many words to the English vocabulary. Most of them are slangy, for instance, blighty, a popular bit of British Army slang, derived from the Indian word wilayati (Arabic, through Persian to India where it means «foreign» and signifying England or home; it was often applied to a wound that was not very serious but was sufficient to get a man sent back to England); bus (an aeroplane), cold feet (disinclination to fight or to go to or remain at the front), cootie (a body-louse), egg (a bomb dropped by aircraft).
Some of the words that came into English between 1914 and 1918 as a direct consequence of the war then being waged between the imperialist powers were military terms representing new methods of warfare, such as anti-aircraft gun, air raid, battleplane, blackout, blimp (a small airship used to locate submarines) tank, whippet (a small tank), camouflage (the term caught popular fancy and was soon used for all kinds of disguise and misrepresentation). Old words were in some cases adapted to new uses, e. g. barrage (the word originally meant only an artificial barrier like a dam in a river); dud, generally a word for any counterfeit thing, was specifically applied to a shell that did not explode; ace acquired the meaning of a crack airman, especially one who had brought down five of the enemy's machines; sector was used in the sense of a specific portion of the fighting line. In a number of cases a word which had had but a limited circulation in the language now came into general use. Thus hand-grenade goes back to 1661, but attained new currency during the war. Other expressions already in the language but popularized by the war were dug-out, machine-gun, no-man's-land, periscope-, and even the popular designation of an American soldier, dough-boy, which was in colloquial use in the United States as early as 1867.
9. Basic characteristics of Modern English
1. simplicity of form.
Old English, like modern German, French, Russian and Greek, had many inflexions to show singular and plural, tense, person, etc., but over the centuries words have been simplified. Verbs now have very few inflexions, and adjectives do not change according to the noun.
2. Flexibility
As a result of the loss of inflexions, English has become, over the past five centuries, a very flexible language. Without inflexions, the same word can operate as many different parts of speech. Many nouns and verbs have the same form, for example swim, drink, walk, kiss, look, and smile. We can talk about water to drink and to water the flowers; time to go and to time a race; a paper to read and to paper a bedroom. Adjective can be used as verbs. We warm our hands in front of a fire; if clothes are dirtied, they need to be cleaned and dried. Prepositions too are flexible. A sixty-year old man is nearing retirement; we can talk about a round of golf, cards, or drinks.
3. Openness of vocabulary.
This involves the free admissions of words from other languages and the easy creation of compounds and derivatives. Most world languages have contributed some words to English at some time, and the process is now being reversed. Purists of the French, Russian and Japanese languages are resisting the arrival of English in their vocabulary.
English language studies can be viewed both synchronically and diachronically. The first approach is based on the description of the English language as a formal system at a particular period; the second is dealt with the changes in the formal system from period to period. But this is a somewhat narrow understanding of problem. A broader view considers the uses of the language in social context. They may belong to a lower (micro-) or higher (macro-) level of abstraction. The micro-level deals with the use of linguistic expression or forms including the communicative force of linguistic expression uttered in particular types of situation or the language variation connected with particular types of situation. On the contrary, the macro-level connected with the range of functions available to the language as a whole or to a variety within the language.