Loan words 101
By,
Meaghan Riemer

 Associate this stage with the Renaissance think Shakespeare, and Milton, Marlowe and
Jonson
 The period extends from 15th century to the
18th century
 Don’t forget that Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492
 If you thought there were a lot of loan words for Middle English, then you never considered those in Early Modern English

 English does not make the cut compared to fluidity of Latin, Italian,
Greek, French and the like

 By language
 By use - in other words law, home, art, drama, science, money, products, trade
 Beyond the old categories of middle
English new ones emerged

 Two thirds of all the loan words of the period are borrowed/taken from Latin
 Entry to the great ancient Greeks
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor are needed to see this picture.

 Dissonance- taken from the Latin word dissonantia
 Some quotes in Early Modern English-
159798 Bp. Hall “The Translation of one of Persius his Satyrs into English the difficultie and dissonance shall make good my assertion. - 1634 Milton
“The…roar…filled the air with barbarous dissonance.

 Trope-taken from the Latin tropus
 It is a figure of speech- 1573 Tusser-
“Christmas is onely a figure or trope”
 Or by 1603- a short distinctive cadence at the close in a melody
 Or in 1677- the turning of the sun at the tropic

 Hellenize
 1613Purchas “The hellenists were so called hellenizing or vsing the Greek tongue in their synagogues

 Like in Middle
English many borrowed words from England’s closest neighbors-
France, Italy, the
Dutch, Spanish and
Portuguese
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor are needed to see this picture.

 Abolish - Fr. aboliss-
 Assets - Anglo-French assets
 Bigot- a hypocritical professor of religion, a hypocrite…generalized beyond religion in 1687

 Ballot- Ballotta“Boxes, into whiche, if he wyll, he may let fall his ballot that no man perceiue hym”
 Rocket- roccheta
 ArgosyRagusea , pl. Ragusee , i.e. una (nave or caracca)
Ragusea , a Ragusan (vessel or carack)1577 DEE Mem. Perf.
Art Navig.
9 Ragusyes, Hulks,
Caruailes, and other forrein rich laden ships. 1587 FLEMING
Contn. Holinsh.
III. 313/2 A great argosie..hauing streamers and flags verie warlike, with two boats at either sterne. 1590 GREENE Wks.
(Gros.) VII. 224 All the Argoses,
Gallyes, Galeons, and
Pataches in Venice.
Quic kTime™ and a
TIFF (Unc ompres sed) dec ompres sor are needed to see t his pic ture.

 Potato-from Spanish potata which was adapted from the Haitian batata
 Hurricane-from Spanish huracan
 Coco or cocoa- first used by Vasco da
Gama in 1498 (coquos)the malay’s called it tenga…but the Portuguese named it quoquos

QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor are needed to see this picture.
 Chintz- from the
Hindi word Chint
 Assassin-from arabic for hashish eaters
 Damnas in “Not worth a damn” and the like - taken from the Hindi word for a coin-dawm

 Skunk-taken from the American Indian tribe
Abenaki- segankw, segongw- first used in
1634
 Cashad. (ultimately) Tamil ksu (‘or perhaps some Konkani form of it’), name of a small coin, or weight of money:Skr. karsha ‘a weight of silver or gold equal to of a tul’
(Williams); Singhalese ksi coin. The early
Portuguese writers represented the native word by cas , casse , caxa , the Fr. by cas , the
Eng.

 Daffodil - Latin species name is aphelosusthe d probably added because of the Dutch and Flemish said t’affodil - thus the t sound morphed into the d sound eventually
 Filibuster-taken from the Dutch vrijbuiter-
1587 Garrad Arte Warre (1591) 236 Such..as bring wares to the campe, he [the High Marshall of the Field] must take order that they be courteously..vsed..procuring them a conuoy..to the intent they may..remaine..satisfied, without suspect of being robbed..of theeues and flibutors. Ibid.
154 Clearing..the hye wayes..from fleebooters.

 Crystal, David. The Stories of English .
Woodstock, NY, Overlook Press, Inc:
2004
 Oxford English Dictionary Online

QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor are needed to see this picture.