LOAN WORDS

Many of the everyday words we use in spoken and written in English today have been adopted from other countries.

Words taken directly from foreign languages other than the ancestral language are known as loan words.

Loan Words have come mainly in three ways:

•Brought by foreign invaders who settled in the country

•Came through foreign contacts originating in war, exploration, trade, travel etc.

•Came through scholarship, learning and cultures

Latin Contribution

Cross from Latin Crux

Candle from Latin Candel

Creed from Latin Creeda

Comet from Latin Cometa

Saint from Latin Sanet

French Contribution

The French loan words in English can be classified under the following heading:•Government and administrative word: govern, crown, empire, minister, duke, duchess

•Military words: army, navy, enemy, battle, defense, admiral, soldier

•Law words: trespass, heir, estate, property, court, accuse, pardon

•Eccleastical terms: theology, sermon, religion, clergy, parson, cardinal

•Meat : salmon, sardin, calf, swine,pig, roast, boil, fry, saucer

German Contribution

German gave English certain musical termslike waltz, yodel etc

•Terms related to mining and metal work: Quartz, Cobalt, nickel, zinc

•Philosophical terms: zeitgeist, leitmotif

•Psychological term gestalt

•Terms like seminar, kindergarten, diplomacy, Nazism, Hitlerism

English words of Arabic origin

In science and math:

•algebra, algorithm, average, alchemy and chemistry

Technical terms (engineering, military, business, commodities, etc.)

•admiral, adobe, arsenal, assassin, coffee, cotton

Knowing a word involves

•recognise what it sounds like

•What it looks like

•being able to provide a dictionary definition.

• being able to use it appropriately and effectively in a range of contexts.

•The most important part of any language is the vocabulary.

•To understand the meaning of the words and to use them in day to day life is a very difficult task.

•And knowledge of loan words can help the students overcome this difficulty.

•They play an important role to help improve the word database of the students.

•Whatever the teaching methodology can be, but teaching must be leaner’s centred.

•The language has to be taught in such a way that it will help us not just to speak and write and listen but to communicate.

•A child’s receptive vocabulary is typically larger than his or her productive vocabulary.

•A beginner usually develops a receptive understanding of new words before they are able to produce them.