The development of English vocabulary
With the development of the society, the society promotes the development of the English vocabulary. English is an independent language which has a long history. The development of the English vocabulary can divide into several processes. From
450~1150 is the period of the old English; from 1150~1500 is the period of the Middle English; from 1500 to now is the period of the modern English. The period of modern English can divide into early modern English, later modern English. Every period of the English vocabulary is connecting to the economy, culture and politics.
The Renaissance had created a vast number of cultural giant. From the 16th century to the early 17th century, Western European Renaissance movement was developed. The humanities, natural science, literature and art had promoted quickly. The Leonardo Da Vinci, Nicholas Copernicus, Bruno, and etc. were appeared and Shakespeare is a great British Renaissance dramatist and poet. What they have done were deeply influence the development of the English vocabulary. They have great contributions to rich the English vocabulary. Someone made statistics that there are about 20000～25000 words was used in Shakespeare’s work. These words fully absorbed the essence of language and combine the local language with the foreign language. The Renaissance enriched the English vocabulary.
In the mid-17th century, Britain has experienced the bourgeois revolution. After the restoration, French was popular in Britain. Nowadays, we also can see some words which borrow from France such as ballet, cartoon, and routine and so on. Then the British industrial revolution broke out and Britain was became the economic heavyweight. The British set up colonies in the world, in the meantime, English word has a condition to absorb the words from the major language of the world. So the English vocabulary was enriched.
By the 18th century, British colony and international trade are developed. English has borrowed from the Indian part of vocabulary Such as caribou, hominy, moose, and totem and so on. From Cuba and the West Indies, it borrows the words such as canoe, potato, tobacco, and hurricane and so on. From South America Peru, it borrows the words such as alpaca, condor, puma, liama, quinine and so on. From India, it borrows the words such as bandana, cashmere, coolie, curry, shampoo, candy and so on. From china, it borrows the words such as tea, bohea, pekoe, litchi, cheongsam and so on.
In the 19th century to the 20th century, our life had a great changed so that the English vocabulary has also been a significant expansion and increase. The modern new words were increased in all the part of our life. Tens of thousands of new words are created to express new ideas, new inventions and new achievements of science and technology.
Sum up, the expansion of English vocabulary methods mainly include synthesis
method, conversion method, check method and the word formation.
Synthesis method is on the basis of old words, increase the prefix, suffix, or other components, synthesis of a new word. A popular new word like the Microsoft which is combined the prefix micro with the soft synthetic.
Conversion method is change the word class to create a new word. 1. New meanings of the old words, for example, the old meaning of the word dream is was happy and music but the new meaning is a series of events that you experience only in your mind while you are sleep. The old meaning of the word nice is innocent but the new meaning is pleasant or pleasing or agreeable in nature or appearance. 2. Widening of meaning. For example, the original meaning of the word place is wide roads but now the meaning is any place. The original meaning of the word dog is the old breed of hound but now the meaning is Any Canis animal.
Check method is borrowing some words from other foreign language. For example, English words borrow benediction, computer, and diurnal, feminine and so on from the Latin. It borrows the benison, count, quotidian, female from the French.
The word formation was popular in 20c. 20c is a time when everything changes very fast. To comply with such an era of fast rhythm, English is developing towards constantly refined, constantly simplified. Lead as attributive noun was became the common group of term structure. In order to simplify the lexical structures, use the front noun attributive instead of the attributive adjectives.