3. Cognates
What are cognates?
Cognates are words that share a common etymological origin with similar meanings.
For example:
Spanish: Portuguese:
mucho (much, many) muito (much)
Latin: multus (much)
4. Language family: introduction
Let’s look at another pair of cognates:
Hebrew (spoken in Israel): Kabyle (spoken in northern Algeria):
(aba) אבא (father) baba (father)
proto-Afroasiatic: *ʔab (father)
5. Language family
The proto-Afroasiatic language is the ancestor of all Afro-Asiatic languages, or in
other words, all languages that come from single language are all part of a
language family, in this case, the Afro-asiatic language family.
6. Language branch
Language branch is a group of languages that share a common ancestral language
that came out of a another language.
In the table above we can see languages from two branches of the Afro-asiatic
language family.
Languages
Branch
Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic
Semitic
Coptic
Egyptian
Kabyle
Berber
7. Loan words
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word adopted from one language (the donor
language) and incorporated into another language without translation.
8. Loan words: examples
Here are some examples for words that do not originate in Russian (and not in English), but exist
in both
English: Aviation English: Horizon
Russian: авиация Russian: горизонт
English: Ceremony English: Regime
Russian: церемония Russian: режим
English: Biology English: Physics
Russian: биология Russian: физика
9. Grammatical cases
Grammatical case is a feature in many languages, where the form of a noun,
adjective etc. changes according to its function in the sentence.
10. Grammatical case: examples
Книга [kniga] (book)
Я знаю эту книгу [knigu] (“I know this book” - Accusative case)
[Question answered: Whom or what?]
Карандаш [karandash] (pencil)
Я пишу карандашом [karandashom] (“I write with a pencil” -
Instrumental case)
[Question answered: How? With what or using what? By what
means? With whom?]
11. Guten tag! Und wer bist du?
(Good day! And who are you?)
Did you know, that in some dialects of English, if you want to talk to a single person it is possible to say, not “you”,
but “thou”?
But wait, what if similar words exist in different languages?
English: thou
German: du
Russian: ты (ty)
Italian: tu
Finnish: sinä
Persian: تو (tu)
Hindi: तुम (tum)
12. Indo-European languages
46% of the world speaks an Indo-European
language at a native speaker. Examples:
• English
• German
• Russian
• Italian
• Persian
• Hindi
• And many more...
13. Connection between IE languages: example
Thou (English) Du (German) تو (Persian)
Tu (Italian)
Ты (Russian) तुम (Hindi)
PIE: *tu-
14. The Germanic languages
The Germanic languages started in south Scandinavia. Examples:
• German (West Germanic)
• Dutch (West Germanic)
• Norwegian (North Germanic)
• Danish (North Germanic)
• But most importantly: English (West Germanic)
15. Connection between the Germanic languages:
example
Land (English) Land (Danish)
Land
(Norwegian)
Landa
(Swedish)
Land
(German)
Land (Dutch)
Lân (Frisian)
Proto-Germanic: *landja-
16. English
• West Germanic language
• Started being spoken in northern Germany
• Spoken by 1.8 billion people (400 million native speakers)
But how did it become the English we know today?
17. The Anglo-Saxons: first years
• Migration of Jutes, Saxons and
Angles to Britain
• Creation the Anglo Saxons and
Anglo-Saxon language (Old
English)
• Celtic influence on Anglo-Saxon
18. Anglo Saxon: Celtic influence
• Almost non-existing influence on vocabulary
• Influence particularly on grammar:
The “do support” or “meaningless do”:
“Do you drink coffee?” or “I did wash the dishes”.
Having a specific form for verbs in order to express and action that
happens in the present moment:
“I am running” or “He is drinking”.
19. Anglo Saxon: Viking influence
Throughout the 8th to 11th centuries, part of England were under
control of Vikings. Language, Old Norse, influenced Anglo-Saxon
in terms of both grammar and vocabulary.
20. Viking influence: vocabulary
By the end of the rule of the Danelaw, words from Old Norse made 14% of Anglo
Saxon (in addition to 50% of words that were cognates). A lot of those words are
very basic words, indicating close relationship between Anglo Saxons and Vikings.
Modern English: They Modern English: Anger
Old Norse: Þeir Old Norse: Angr
Modern English: Egg Modern English: Rotten
Old Norse: Egg Old Norse: Rotinn
Modern English: Bag Modern English: Knife
Old Norse: Baggi Old Norse: Knífr
21. Viking influence: grammar
• Instead of conjugating the verb to a future form, a future tense (will/shall) was
added
• Many verbs lost their conjugation in the past form and just got added to them
the suffix d/ed
• Old English lost its grammatical cases.
• Instead of various ways of plural forms, the ending of “s” became generalized to
most nouns.
All these influences pushed Anglo-Saxon towards Middle English.
22. Middle English
• The Normans, a tribe of Vikings who settled in Northern France and
adopted Christianity and the French language.
• In 1066, the Normans invaded England, and influenced English by
pushing a lot of words form French and Latin
• In the 12th century, Anglo-Saxon became Middle English
• A language even developed from Middle English: “Scots” (not to be
confused with Scots Gaelic), which is spoken in Scotland.
23. Modern English
• The English spoken today is English, or to be specific, Modern English
• The majority of words in English aren’t Germanic, but those words are often
used in science and technology, and not basic speech.
Origins of words in English vocabulary
Germanic (26%) French (29%) Latin (29%)
Greek (6%) Other (10)%
24. Big words vs basic words
Big words
Basic words
ambivalence
Yes
Assiduous
No
Auspicious
I
Desideratum
Thanks
Circumlocution
Good
Parsimonious
Do (v.)
Penultimate
Make (v.)
Sesquipedalian
Water
Splendiferous
Tell (v.)
Unencumbered
What
