Foreign borrowing of words in the 16th century was not limited to learned words taken from Latin and Greek but from more than fifty languages (Baugh &Cable 2001), the most prominent being French, Italian and Spanish. The English vocabulary of this time showed words adopted from French such as alloy, bigot, bizarre, bombast, chocolate, comrade, detail, duel, entrance, equip, essay, explore, genteel, mustache, naturalize, probability, progress, retrenchment, shock, surpass, ticket, tomato, vogue, volunteer.
Italian words: algebra, balcony, caprice, design, granite, pizza, stanza, violin, volcano. Some of these Italian words were introduced through French or adopted to French forms, such as battalion, bankrupt, brigade, carat, charlatan, gala, gazette, grotesque, infantry, rebuff, etc. Though there were initial protests against these words, they were eventually adopted in England and often read in English books. Many of the Italian words for a time, preserved their Italian forms.
Spanish/Portuguese: alligator, apricot, armada, banana, barricade, bravado, brocade, cannibal, canoe, cocoa, embargo, hurricane, maize, mosquito, mulatto, Negro, potato, renegade (renegade) tobacco, yam, etc. With the new spirit of exploration and adventure characterized the Renaissance, a great deal of impact on the English vocabulary became quite evident.
The method through which these words entered the English vocabulary was generally through writing. Latin especially was through churchmen and scholars. Even words borrowed from Romance languages (French, Italian, and Spanish) in the 16th century often came through books and writers. It might be difficult to name individual writers who introduced each particular word. But it is believed that one notable English writer- Sir Thomas More introduced words like absurdity, acceptance, anticipate, combustible, compatible, comprehensive, congratulatory, contradictory, denunciation, dissipate, endurance, exit, exaggerate, exasperate, explain, fact, frivolous, impenitent, implacable, indifference, insinuate, monopoly, necessitate, obstruction, paradox, etc. Another scholar - Sir Thomas Elyot added the following words: accommodate, adumbrate, analogy, animate, beneficence, encyclopedia, excerpt, exhaust, experience, exterminate, frugality, infrequent, irritate, modesty
etc. Sir John Cheke first used adapt, alienate, assassinate and benefit.
John Milton introduced consolidate, disregard, while Sir Philip Sidney brought in emancipation, eradicate, erupt, excavate, exert, exhilarate, exist, extinguish, harass, meditate, etc. More and Elyot were sometimes referred to as “makers of English” because of their contributions in the 16th & 17th centuries by introducing or helping to establish many new words in English. No doubt most of the words that came into the English vocabulary during the Renaissance came from sources outside, England.
Yet, a good number were to come from native sources, either through development of words through old roots or through a revival of expressions that had gone out of use. At least this was the thought of someone like John Cheke. Cheke was so strongly opposed to borrowing from Latin or Greek that he sought English native equivalents from whatever source. In his translation of the gospel of St. Matthew, he attempted to change Greek words with English equivalents as much as possible. For instance he used mooned for lunatic, toller for publican, hundreder for centurion, foresayer for prophet, byword, for parable, freshmen for proselyte, crossed for crucified and gainrising for resurrection.
Poets on their own part tried to revive old words especially words they learned from Geoffrey Chaucer. This revival was sometimes referred to as “Chaucerism”, which was about a conscious use of old words to enlarge the vocabulary of poetry. One of the most prominent poets in this movement was Spencer. These poets revived old words like astound, blameful, displeasance, enroot, doom, forby (past, empight ,(fixed), natheless, whilere (a while before). Others were askew, filch, flout, freak. The origin of these words was uncertain. Some were coinages such as Spencer’s blatant, braggadocio, shrimp, cosset (lamb), delve (pit), squall (to cry) and wrizzle (wrinkled). Many of the words were simply adaptations and derivations of old words such as baneful, drear, hapless, sunshiny, or wolfish. The words English acquired in this way were not as much as half of those obtained from outside, but the fact remains that Spencer and his colleagues contributed a great deal to the enrichment of English vocabulary. Many of the words like belt, bevy, dapper, fortnight, glee, glance, surly, banishment, birthright, don, enshrine, drizzling, gaudy, gloomy, merriment, shady, wary, etc. which they also introduced, have since passed from the language of poetry into common use.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3
1. Write ten (10) words that were adopted from Romance Languages.
2. Describe the contribution of Spencer and the poets to the enrichment of English vocabulary.
4.0 CONCLUSION
You can see that the spelling and vocabulary of English language had pulled the language to two opposite directions, in terms of their rate of growth and development. On one hand, spelling had been quite unstable especially due to the fact that printing stabilized early, while pronunciation had changed many times over. On the other hand vocabulary had been quite rapid in its development which had indeed attracted heavy criticism from English language watchdogs. Words had been borrowed indiscriminately from Latin, Greek and the Romance languages which had threatened the existence of native English words.
5.0 SUMMARY
Spelling had been one problem area in the development of English because there was never a generally accepted system of spelling. And it was neither fixed nor phonetic. Early Norman scholars created more problems by trying to spell the French way. To compound the problem was the attempt by scholars to force spelling to correspond with speech sounds. At a point writers adopted their individual mode of spellings and tried to be consistent with them. Finally Richard Mulcaster (1582) introduced a reform which differed from previous efforts and brought in the method of spelling which simply allowed itself to be tested and proved by observation and practice. Popular approval was to be the final authority. Mulcaster’s spelling revolution eventually influenced modern English spelling like no other.
Unlike spelling, vocabulary had been very dynamic. The English vocabulary since the 16th century had been enriched much more from words borrowed from Latin, Greek, French, Italian, Spanish and about fifty other languages. However English scholars raised an alarm during the Renaissance at the rapid rate of foreign words or “inkhorn terms”
being introduced into English. Though some of these borrowed words naturally disappeared, most of them survived, along with English native words to give it the richness that it enjoys today.
6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT
1. What have been the causes of the problem of spelling right from the Norman Conquest?
2. Identify the major sources of foreign influence on English vocabulary.
7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READINGS
Baugh A.C, Cable .T. (2001). A History of the English Language, 5th Ed.
London: Routledge
Crystal (2002). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of English Language, 2nd Ed. Cambridge.