On The Influence of Roman and Norman Conquest on the Evolution of English Loanwords
Abstract: English vocabulary has almost more than one million words which can be divided into two parts according to its origin, native words and loan words. English has shown a marked tendency to go outside her own linguistic resources and borrow from other languages to widen her vocabulary. From a historical perspective, Latin, one of the oldest languages in the world, has exerted an important influence on English’s vocabulary during different periods. The Roman Christianizing of Britain in 597 brought England into contact with Latin civilization and made significant additions to English vocabulary. And the continuous war between Britain and France especially the Norman Conquest from the beginning of the 11th century to the middle of the 14th century resulted in not only the revolution of society but also the changes of English and its vocabulary. This paper analyzes the development of the English loan words, the way in which loan words were introduced into English, and the influence of Roman and Norman Conquest on the English loan words, and the difference between the influence of the Conquest of Roman and Norman on English Loanwords, in the hope that it can raise our interests in studying English and finally help us discover the way to master the English vocabulary which is extraordinarily rich.
Key Words: loanwords; borrowing; Roman and Norman Conquest; influence
论罗马统治和诺曼底征服对借词发展的影响
摘 要：英语有超过一百万的词汇，依据来源可以被分为两大部分，一个是本族词，另一个是外来词。英语倾向于走出国门从其他语言借用各类词语来扩展自己的语库。拉丁语是世界上最古老的语言之一，它影响了世界上的很多语言。在历史上的不同时期，拉丁语都对英语产生了很重要的影响。在597年，罗马的基督教传入英国，这使得英国加强了同拉丁文化的联系，并且为英语带来了大量的拉丁词汇。在十一世纪初到十四世纪中期，英法之间不断的战争尤其是诺曼征服不仅影响了英国社会的发展而且影响了英语和英语词汇的变化。这篇论文分析了英语借词的发展、借词以何种途径被介绍到英语、罗马统治和诺曼征服这两个历史时期对英语借词的影响以及两次征服对英语借词影响的不同，以此提高我们学习英语的兴趣，最终找到掌握英语丰富英语词汇的好方法。
关键词：借词；借用；罗马统治和诺曼征服；影响
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
1. The Background of Borrowing in Languages 1
1.1 The Definition of Borrowing in Languages 1
1.2 The Characteristics of English Loanwords 2
2. The Influence of Roman Conquest (43 A. D.—410 A. D.) on English Loanwords 3
2.1 The Borrowing of Latin in the Period of Roman Conquest (43 A. D.—410 A. D.) 3
2.2 The Borrowings of Latin after the Period of Roman Ruling (450 A.D. —1150 A. D.) 5
3. The Influence of Norman Conquest (1066) on English Loanwords 7
3.1 The Borrowing of French before Norman Conquest 7
3.2 The Borrowing of French during Norman Conquest 8
3.3 The Borrowing of French after Norman Coquest 8
4. The Difference between the Influences of the Conquest of Roman and Norman on English Loanwords 10
4.1 The Reasons that Resulted in the Difference 10
4.2 The Difference between the Classes of Loanwords Caused by Two Conquests 13
5. Conclusion 14
Bibliography 17
