Yin Liu
Ling 2301
Ehsan Safiee Zargar
23rd April, 2015
The OED Expedition Homework
English is a very old form of language that has evolved over hundreds of years, taking a new form each time depending on the era and culture of the time. It is a language comprised from other language sources such as latin, french, anglo-norman, etc. Studying over some words, i have noticed that etymologically some of the words have roots in the the Europe region. This dates back as far as Anglo-norman among others. One thing with the english language is that keeps growing over the years. It does not have a limited vocubaly compared to other languages. This is due to the fact that it takes pieces from other languages and modifies it to fits its purpose and meaning.
One of the base foundations of the English language comes for the anglo-norman language which is in europe. This language has a major influence on the english today. Most of English voculbuary is from anglo norman french. Others include latin, german, indian, arabic. How this other languages come into play was due to the fact the english speaking people had to look for a way to describe what they saw and interacted with. Even the pronouciation of words they made changed over time due to the culture of the time. Though, there are some words that they didnt change but rather assimilated it into the languge perhaps due to the broad use of the use across other countries. Words like champagne, bungalow, khaki, kept their spelling and pronounciations.
Other forms of english also come from the fact they were named after a person who founded the word or object. These dont change over the years but stay the same whether they stemed from latin or french. Also, there is the forming of words by combining other words to each other eg woodchuck. This could have been based on the environment of the animal or object.
English has never been a stable language but has continued to develop throughout the years with new words...