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Saturday, October 7, 2006 |
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Saturday, October 7, 2006 |
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Men
and languages are similar;
they can both die if they remain isolated islands in the main stream of
life. The worst thing a ‘linguaphile’ can do is to suffocate the
language of choice. For edification, one need not go far. Why has
English enveloped the world, in spite of a hated colonial past? Just a
look at the vocabulary confirms its large-hearted policy of acceptance
and adoption. The following is just the tip of the iceberg of borrowing. When the Angles,
Saxons and Jutes invaded England, they brought with them the Latin
words they had taken from their contact with the Roman Empire.
Coupled with the arrival of the missionaries, the above
development gave to the English language words like minister, monk
and bishop. The Anglo-Saxons had a great spring festival that
celebrated their Goddess of Dawn, ‘Eastru’ and ever since, the
festival of Easter has come to stay. The original
inhabitants of the country, the Celts, contributed little or
nothing to the language except for a few place names like
Aberdeen. When William the Conqueror sailed across the channel,
Norman French was superimposed on the West Germanic dialects. For
many generations these two languages grew side by side, the one
being spoken by the Norman overlords, the other by the Saxon
vassals and serfs. The sheep, pig, calf and ox of the native Saxon’s
table became the mutton, pork, veal and beef of the ruling Norman’s
table. Aided by the two
World Wars in which the French and the English were allies, the
process of borrowing from French continues even today, with words
like mousse, clich, barrage, crepe, elite and impasse quietly and
unobtrusively entering the lexicon. English successfully
borrows from Greek as well. Very few English users are aware that
words like phenomenon, agnostic, neurology, atom, character and
chorus owe their existence to Greek and that words from
practically every language exist in English. The absorbing part
of this saga of tolerant growth is the fact that the borrowing is
faster and larger now, in a world where ethnicity can be doomed.
Slang, e-mails, blogging, text messaging`85the areas of influence
are numerous and thereby hangs another tale` |
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