Analysis of borrowings from the Scandinavian and French languages

Introduction 3
1 General information on borrowings 4
2 Borrowings from Scandinavian languages 5
3 Borrowings from French 7
4 Native speakers’ attitude towards borrowings 10
Conclusion 12
Bibliography 13

English is a language, which has been an object of a number of influences from other languages. Being a global language it has acquired borrowings from not only European but also some Asian languages such as Indian and Chinese. However, the most important of all appear to be Scandinavian, Latin and French influences upon the English language. These three linguistic systems have changed all levels of English throughout time and history.
It is extremely important to know the historical development of the language one speaks as well as the origin of its systemic units. To make it less complicated for understanding one should learn the foreign influences and, consequently, loanwords into the English language. There is a number of scientific works based on this issue written by researchers from all around the world. However, the problem of borrowed words into English has long been a topic of dispute among the native speakers. The majority is against borrowings and claim that they can cause the extinction of the original language [3], however, the amount of loanwords in English is tremendous, so they are impossible to abandon. Moreover, borrowing words is a natural linguistic process that affects most languages of the world.
This paper will consider the subject of Scandinavian and French borrowings into the English language. It consists of an Introduction, conclusion, references and a theoretical part with three sections. In the first section, the Scandinavian influence will be examined. The second section will contain an overview of the French borrowings in the English language. The third section will convey the general attitude of the native speakers of English to the phenomenon of borrowings into their mother tongue.

To sum up, the loanwords of Scandinavian and French languages are extremely frequent in English. In fact, they are used so often and have such complicated etymology, that some of them can hardly be recognized.
Comparing these two sources of loanwords, Scandinavian language, being more related to English, affected not only the vocabulary, but also a sufficient part of grammar, whereas French mostly influenced the lexical facilities of the English language.
Chronologically Old Norse influenced Old English, whilst French borrowings have been appearing until now.
Apart from Scandinavian and French English has borrowed words from Latin and Germanic Languages, as well as other European and Asian languages. One of the reasons is the speakers’ bilingualism, hence the integration of words. Another reason is the lack of lexical means when it comes to describing certain realia, especially ones related to other cultures and specific fields.
As for the attitude of the native speakers towards the phenomenon of borrowings into the English language, it appears to be mostly negative. Despite enriching the language vocabulary and enabling variation of means of lexical expression, borrowing gives English more harm than enhancement. It means that the language itself does not develop but only uses words, expressions and even grammar structures borrowed from other languages.
All things considered, the present-day English cannot do without loanwords, especially those, which have long been integrated into its linguistic system. It would lead to a great loss of linguistic properties that English has acquired throughout history. However, further borrowings can and should be restricted to an essential minimum, if not avoided at all, so that English does not lose its linguistic identity in the course of globalization.