3 POINTS ON FOREIGN CONTRIBUTION TO THE GREAT ENGLISH LANGUAGE

 English language has its base in Anglo- Saxon, but there are also in it substantial elements of Scandinavian, French and Latin, while at various periods of its history it has absorbed words from most of the languages of Europe and also from some of those spoken in the other four continents.

A number of these terms are still recognizably foreign, but many also have become so essential apart of our vocabulary that we never think of them as anything but English. The technical term for these words which have been adopted from foreign tongues is "LOAN WORDS" .

These came into the language by three chief means:

(A) They may have been brought by foreign invaders who settled here : Foremost in this list is Scandinavian words, then few early Latin terms and a large proportion of French words. Words introduced in this fashion usually pass into the spoken language first and then are adopted by the literary language.

(B) They may have been come through foreign contacts originating in war, exploration, trade, travel etc : This was the case with most of the Spanish words which form part of our vocabulary and also with the majority of terms from the East. Again it is the spoken language which benefits first.

(C) They may have been come through scholarship, learning and culture : In this case it is usual for them to appear first of all in the written tongue and then to pass into the spoken language. This was the method by which the greater percentage of the Latin words which were added during the Middle Ages and Renaissance were introduced; so were a number of Italian words, and those from Arabic which refer to medieval science and learning.