Lexical Borrowing Throughout the History of English

Abstract

Throughout its development, English has undergone chan­ges at all language levels. However, the most dramatic change in the history of English involves changes in vocabulary which have resulted from the contact with different languages or a gre­at influx of loanwords, mainly from Latin, Scandinavian, and French. These loanwords have greatly increased the vocabulary of English, which is why the aim of the paper is to give their overview, as well as to reflect on less frequent loanwords from other languages. As the process of borrowing marked all the pe­riods of the development of English, the author has organised the paper chronologically, describing them in the order in which they have been transferred into the English language.