I. Consider your answers to the following. How can you account for the fact that English vocabulary contains such an immense number of words of foreign origin?
What is the earliest group of English borrowings? Date it.
What Celtic borrowings are there in English? Date them.
Which words were introduced into English vocabulary during the period of Christianization?
What are the characteristic features of Scandinavian borrowings?
When and under what circumstances did England become a bi-lingual country? What imprint features were left in English vocabulary by this period?
What are the characteristic features of words borrowed into English during the Renaissance?
What suffixes and prefixes can help you to recognise words of Latin and French origin?
What is meant by the native element of English vocabulary?
