Introduction Examination of the origin of words is of great interest in establishing the interrelations between languages and linguistic groups. Word etymology throws light on the history of the speaking community and on its contacts with other peoples. The Old English language, as is believed by many scholars, was formed during the period from the 5th century to the Norman Conquest of 1066. However, some of the scientists suppose that its beginning can be only taken as the 7th century when the first written evidence appeared. In the course of our research in order to fulfill all the above mentioned tasks we used works of Russian and foreign scholars on the history of the English language. Our work was based on the researches of Smirnitsky A.I., Ilyish B.A., Arakin V.D., Ivanova I.P., Rastorguyeva T.A., as well as on those of Crystal D., Freeborn D., Lerer S., Mugglestone L. and some others. The object of our study is the vocabulary of the Old English language. Its subject is the comparative analysis of the Old English vocabulary and the Modern English vocabulary. The aim of this work is to compare the composition of the vocabularies of the Old and Modern English. The aim being set this way requires the following tasks to be done: 1) to study the historical background of Old English in order to understand which historical events influenced the vocabulary formation; 2) to reveal the sources of the vocabulary development of the Old English language; 3) to examine the composition of the New English vocabulary taking into consideration the Middle English background; 4) to comprehend the state of the Modern English vocabulary, that is the vocabulary of the present-day English; 5) to compare the vocabulary composition of Old English and Modern English; 6) to make conclusions on the basis of the results obtained.
Introduction……………………………………………………………….…3 Chapter 1. Old English vocabulary composition……………………………5 1.1. Historical background of Old English………………………………….5 1.2. Composition of the Old English vocabulary……………………………9 1.2.1. Native words………………………………………………………….9 1.2.2. Foreign Element in the Old English vocabulary…………………….11 Chapter 2. Comparative analysis of the Old English and Modern English vocabulary………………………………………………………………………...14 2.1. Composition of the New English vocabulary…………………….…...14 2.1.1. Sources of the Middle English vocabulary………………………….14 2.1.2. Sources of the New English vocabulary…………………………….17 2.2. Similarities and differences of the Old English and Modern English vocabulary………………………………………………………………………...19 Conclusion………………………………………………………………….22 Bibliography………………………………………………………………..23
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