Growth and structure of the English language

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The historical study of languages is of great use to the study of general history because it tells us about the nature of the contacts of peoples (§ 31). An important principle is that people try to speak a foreign language purely, while they may introduce words from the foreign language into their own language (§ 37). If a people speaking a language are good at making knives, then people speaking another language may adopt words for knives and knife production from that language. Exceptionally, many commonplace Scandinavian words were adopted into English. Jespersen says that this is because a large number of Scandinavians settled in Britain and because the two peoples were equally civilized; on the other hand the Normans were a separate ruling class and the words adopted from them were aristocratic, having to do with government, military, law and fashion.

 

published in 1912