文档介绍：The Hutchinson Dictionary of Word Origins
Preface
This dictionary contains the origins of words ranging from the familiar and
everyday to the more formal and specialized.
Where do e from? Most English words can be traced back to one
of two sources, Germanic or Italic. Germanic words, usually regarded as the
'native' ones, often have their counterparts in modern German, as well as
related languages such as Dutch, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian. Italic
words often have their counterparts in modern French, as well as related
Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, and share mon ancestor in Latin.
Germanic and Italic languages themselves had mon ancestor in Indo-
European, so that some modern English words have 'relatives' in both
branches. This is especially true of the most fundamental words, such as
family relationships, numbers, or objects of the natural world.
In general it is the everyday and concrete words that are Germanic in origin,
and the more formal and abstract that are Italic.
Of course, there are other languages that have also provided English words,
albeit to a lesser extent. Two others, each equally ancient, are Celtic and
Greek. Celtic, like Germanic and Italic, is a group of languages today
represented, among others, by Scottish Gaelic, Irish, and Welsh. Greek, on
the other hand, is a unified language, like Latin.
English words derived from both Celtic and Greek share the qualities of
Germanic and Italic in that Celtic-derived words are usually everyday and
concrete, and Greek-derived words formal and abstract.
Latin, like Greek, has also given many modern or specialized words. At the
other end of the scale, many Germanic words operate at a much more
earthy level, appealing as much to the senses as to the mind.
English as we now understand it was first spoken by the Angles, Saxons, and
Jutes who came to the British Isles in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, when
Britain was sti