Introduction. [ ] A chronological investigation most obviously begins with the native tongue, that was brought to these islands in the fifth century by the Germanic tribes

[…] A chronological investigation most obviously begins with the native tongue, that was brought to these islands in the fifth century by the Germanic tribes who eventually overran the native Britons. The importance of this purely Germanic basis is often overlooked, largely because of the great number of foreign words incorporated in our present-day vocabulary. But an examination of actual usage, as opposed to mere presence in a dictionary, shows how im­portant the native words are. The next step will be to discuss the foreign words which have found a way into our language from those early days, and see not only which words they have displaced, when the object or idea was already known, but also what effect they have had on the native element.

Our method, then, will be to take the old Germanic element as the basis, and regard everything else as foreign. But it is not easy at first to grasp what this means. Many of the words we shall have to class as ‘foreigners’ will seem at first sight ‘true-born Englishmen’, for they have been part of our vocabulary for centuries, but they have only a ‘certificate of naturalization’, not a right by birth. When, under this heading, such familiar words as candle, face, inch, mile, ounce, rose, school, street and wine are mentioned, it will be realized that we shall need to clas­sify under foreign borrowings, or loan-words, to use the technical term, many more words than the ordinary reader has been accustomed to consider under that heading, and some, at least, which are usually looked upon as native words […] two ways, through the spoken word, by personal contact between the two peoples, or through the written word by indirect contact, not between the peoples themselves but through their literatures. The former way was more productive in the earlier stages, but the latter has become increasingly important in more recent times. Direct contact may take place naturally in border regions, or by the transference of considerable numbers of people from one area to another, either by peaceful immigration, settlement, or colonization, or through invasion and conquest. It may also take place, though to a more limited extent, through travel in foreign countries and through residence abroad, for trade or other purposes, of relatively small numbers of people.

The type of word borrowed by personal contact would undoubtedly at first be names of objects unfamiliar to the borrowers, or products and commodities exchanged by way of trade. If the contacts were maintained over a long period, then ideas concerned with government, law, reli­gion, and customs might be absorbed, and perhaps the names of these would be adopted. Only in the case of na­tions in relatively advanced stages of civilization would there be much influence exerted through the written word; concrete objects would come first, then abstract ideas learnt from what might actually be seen from their effects in everyday life and abstract ideas through the indirect con­tact achieved by books would come much later. […]