Borrowings in the English Vocabulary. Main Groups of Loan Words in English. Translation Loans and Semantic Borrowings

Celtic Borrowings

Celtic borrowings are of primary historical importance for English. When the Anglo-Saxons came to the British Isles in the 5^th century A.D. they met with the Celts or Britains – the native inhabitants of the British Isles whom they pushed away to the North and the West. The whole number of Celtic words in English whether borrowed directly or indirectly is 165 according to Walter Skeat’s counts: banner (булка домашнего хлеба), bard, glad, clad, cradle, loch/lock (lake).

Celtic elements are mostly found in place names, e.g. aber (the mouth of the river) – Aberdeen; avon (a river) – Stratford-on-Avon; inch (an island) – Inchcape.