Use of English Cognates and
Common Loan Words
FRANKG. BANTA
GERMAN-ENGLISH COGNATES
THE SOUNDS AND FORMS OF ANY LANGUAGE
are limited in number. German has thirty-five
to thirty-seven distinctive sounds, depending
on one's analysis, and only Id, 1x1, and /a/
have variations which the native speaker of
English must learn individually. German endings are even more limited in number; the
main problem is learning the multiple functions of some of them: -en in nouns, adjectives,
and verbs, for example. Strong and irregular
verbs are more numerous, but altogether German has less than 200, of which some ten percent are rare. Even syntactic patterns are so
restricted that the American student learns all
but the rarest in two college semestersor highschool years.
Vocabulary, however, is quite another matter.' It is safe to say that not even the most
erudite speakers ever learn the entire vocabulary of their native language. No dictionary of
a living language is ever complete. Fortunately, learning German vocabulary can be
facilitated by using the English that we already know. A number of words will be immediately familiar: Hunger, Mann, Butter,
lernen, in, hier, oft, intelligent will probably be
understood at first sight or sound, although
one is sometimes astonished at the inability of
some students to recognize even such obvious
cognates and common borrowings. Or is it inability? Is it perhaps mistrust? Do we make it
sufficiently clear to our students that German
and English are close relatives? Do we make
them usefully aware of the linguistic community that is Western Europe and all its
wide-spread former colonies? Do we really
Modern LanguauageJournal, 65 (Summer 1981): 129-36
train them for intelligent guessing when they
meet new words? Not nearly enough.*
Feelings of insecurity on the part of the
teacher possibly contribute toward robbing
students of a readily available tool for vocabulary building. Most German teachers have
had at least some training in historical German linguistics, and some of its principles are
both comprehensible and useful. We need not
fear them. We need not be afraid of the occasional, but prized, student who will want to
know more than we normally offer. A little
more will probably satisfy, and if not we can
suggest readings.3
We need not make Elementary German
into a course on historical English and German linguistics. On the relationship of the
Germanic languages it suffices to state, early
in the semester, that German, English,
Dutch, Afrikaans, and Yiddish are related to
one another, derive from a common source,
just as French, Spanish, and Italian are related; and that, therefore, we will see many
familiar traits in German just as we observe
similarities of appearance and behavior in
members of a human family. We can add that
German and English have developed for
nearly 2,000 years in a cultural community
that has given both a common stock of words
borrowed from Latin, Greek, French, and
other languages, and that they have borrowed
as well from one another.
With this minute historical background we
can proceed directly to a practical observation
and use of cognates. Cognates are pairs of
words that show sound-meaning correspondences indicating their historical relationship. The correspondences need not be perfect, but they must be present in both sound
and meaning. German Hand and English hand
sound similar, although not completely alike.
130
Frank G. Banta
They have similar meanings, although not
completely; the English word is also used for
that part of a clock that German calls der
Zeiger. They are cognates. German bald and
English bald sound almost equally similar, on
the other hand, but bear no resemblance in
meaning; they are not cognates. German
Wange and English cheek are similar in meaning but entirely different in sound; they, too,
are not cognates.
The criterion of sound correspondence does
not require that sounds be identical. One of
the characteristicsof language change is that a
given sound develops in the same way in the
same environment in the same language at the
same time. By “environment”we mean position in the word and presence of other sounds.
Although theories differ on the reasons for
such change, its regularity leads to astonishingly dependable sound correspondences between related languages. A knowledge of these
correspondences can help us recognize many
hundreds of German words from their already
familiar English cognates. They are not without exceptions, some apparent and some real,
but they are sufficiently reliable and sufficiently easy that we should teach them. One
can devote a whole hour to them or, preferably, a series of short units, starting with the
most useful and trustworthy.
The following paragraphs present rules
stated both in simple linguistic form and in an
even simpler applied form. Each teacher will
know, or quickly discover by experiment,
which is more practical for a given class; some
may want to use both. Our point of departure
is the sound system of West Germanic as
scholars have reconstructed it, the parent language of English and German, which was
spoken in the last centuries before and the first
centuries after the birth of Christ in the north
of what are now the Netherlands and West
and East Germany.
FIGURE 1
West Germanic Consonants
voiceless stops
voiced stopslspirants
voiceless spirants
liquids
nasals
semivowels
P t k
b/P d g/r
f e s x h
T
I
m n I l
W
J
West Germanic consonants b / p and g/y were
stops in some positions and spirants in others,
as their descendents in English still are. The
symbols 0 and y represent voiced bilabial and
velar spirants (which some students will have
learned in Spanish haber and agua). 6 = th in
English thin, x = ch in German ach, 3 = ng or
n in English bring or think. Obviously one
would not present this system in the classroom
except in a linguistics course for students with
some fluency in German. When we say below
“p>fJf,”
we mean “West Germanic p changes
to Modern German single or doublef,” but in
teaching Elementary German we should say
rather something like “Germanforff = English p after a vowel.” Let us take a look at sets
of German-English correspondences.4
FIGURE 2
West German Voiceless Stops
A . Voiceless stops become German voiceless spirants (p, t, k
but regularly remain unchanged in English.
A . l f/ff = p
schlafen = sleep
hoffen = hope
helfen = help
Schtff = ship
> flff, s/ssg, ch) after a vowel and sometimes after r a n d I ,
A.~s/ss@= t
besser = better
Nhse = nuts
FuJe =feet
das, d d = that
In all other environmentsp and t become German affricates (p, t
change in German nor, usually, in English.
A . 3 c h = k, ch
machen = make
brechen = break
Milch = milk
Kirche = church
> pJ
z h ) , but remain unchanged in English; k does not
A . 6 k k k = c/k/ck,ch
A . 4 P f = P/pP
A . S z / & = tht
w a d = path
zehn = ten
kann = can
stampfen = stamp
Herz = heart
Volk = f o l k
Kaize = cat
dick = thick
Apfel = apple
Kupfer = copfin
sitz(end) = sit(ting)
Kinn = chin
Note: Letters separated by a slash indicate differences in spelling only, not in pronunciation, but letters separated by
commas represent differences in pronunciation; cf. English can, folk, but chin.
131
Teaching Germun Vocabulary
A.3,6: In English k changed to ch in certain
environments.
Answers to possible questions:
A.l-A.2: In certain combinations p and t
did not change in German either, so that
Germanp, t = Englishp, t : sp, st,), cht, t(e)r
as in Wespe = wasp, Stein = stone, g t = gten,
Licht = light, treu = true, Winter = winter. West
Germanic f, s, and x appear almost unchanged in Modern German, so that German
f/v = Englishf, v, s = s, andch = gh,w,+; see
C . l-3 below.5
A.4-A.6: West Germanic long (double) pp,
tt yielded German p j d t z , but the double consonant is not always retained in English spelling. German Hopfen = Middle English hoppe
> Modern English hops.
A.6: English c in this formula is always
"hard" c as in can.
FIGURE 3
West Germanic Voiced StopslSpirants
B. In initial position, b remains in both languages, d becomes t in German but remains in English, and g remains in
German while yieldingg or sometimesy in English.
B.l b
= b
beide = both
beuor = before
blau = blue
bringen = bring
In other positions the development of voiced
the spirantic value of @ and y.
B.4b
=
-u;$
sieben = seuen
Silbm = silver
Kalber = calves
Kalb = calf
B.21
B.38 = g,y
gehen = go
lief = deep
groJ = great
Garten = yard,garden
irinken = drink
gestem = yester(day)
Tochter = daughter
stopshpirants is the same as initially in German, whereas English retains
= d
tun = do
B.5Utt = d/dd
leiten = lead
kali = cold
unier = under
Futter =fodder
B.4: English shows -v- within a word and -f
finally, a development which explains the
plurals of calf, w i f , ha& shelf, etc.
B.6g = y,i,w,+
sagen = say
sagie = said
folgen =follow
liegen = lie
B.6: The English development of noninitial g is so complex that the cognates are of
little practical use.
FIGURE 4
West Germanic Voiceless Spirants
C. The development of the West Germanic voiceless spirants is fairly simple in German but quite complex in English,
where the only general tendency has been to voice them in voiced environment.
c.1flu - j u
fur =for
vier =four
Zwog = iwelue
st@ =
Stlff
C .4 h = h, -4-,-gh
Haus = h o w
sehcn = see
rauh = rough
(Sohn = son)
C . ~ S , S C=~s/c,s/!!
sehm = see
Eis = ice
Nnre = nose
schwimmen = swim
C.3ch = gh,w,+
Nacht = nkht
lachen = laugh
C.5d = ih
danken = thank
drei = ihree
baden = bathe
Bad = bath
C.6sch = sh
Schatten = shade
Schuh = shoe
waschen = wash
Fisch =fish
C.l: The distinction between Englishfand
v is in pronunciation as well as in spelling,
whereas in German the difference is in spelling only.
C.2: In English s remained voiceless except
in voiced environment, but instead of voice-
Furche =furrow
nichi = not
less s we sometimes write c and instead of
voiced s sometimes z (graze). German also
voiced s in voiced environment in the northern half of the language area, but continues to
write s for both the voiced and the voiceless
sounds. In initial position before consonants
German changed s to the sch sound.
Frank G. Bantu
132
C.3,4: The earlier Germanic sound x split
into two West Germanic sounds, h before a
vowel and x otherwise. This situation is still
preserved in German hoch, hoher, hochst-. The h
remains in initial position in both English and
German. Both languages lost it internally, although German still writes it in some words,
such as sehen. In most cases, however, noninitial h in German simply indicates that the
preceding vowel is long, and has no counterpart at all in English or in earlier German
(Middle High German sune > Sohn). The x
fell together with the ch which we saw in A.3
above and normally yielded ch in German. In
English the sound was usually lost, but a reminder of it is often retained as gh in spelling.
In a few words it changed to anf sound, which
we cheerfully continue to write gh.
C .5,6: These correspondences are unproblematic, and are the only sets in this group
which many teachers will want to present. The
schLsh derives from earlier sk and was not yet
present in West Germanic.
The remaining consonants, the nasals,
liquids, and semivowels, show a high degree
of correspondence between the two languages,
as does the sound combination [ks].
FIGURE 5
Other West Germanic Sounds
D.lm = m
Mann = man
Sommer = summer
ihm = him
D.2n = n
Nanu = name
finden =find
in = in
E.11-1
F.lj =y
Jahr =year
jener = yondm
jung =young
leben = live
alles = all
Stahl = steel
E.2r
=
r
rot = red
bred = broad
hier = here
D.3 n k 9 = n O
Finger = jnger
lang = long
denken = think
G . l ch/x
=x
sech = six
wachsen = wax
Axt = ax
F.2w = w,wh
Wagen = wagon
Schweg = sweat
was = what
The vowel development is so complex in
both languages that only detailed knowledge
can be of practical help.
Even in the carefully selected examples
above, meanings of the cognates do not always
completely match. Ein dickes Buch is “a thick
book,” but ein dicker Mann is “a fat man.” Gehen
equals “gon in Ich gehe nach Hause, but not in
Wiegeht es Ihnen? E r hat lunge gesessen may mean
“He sat a long time,” but it may also mean “He
was in jail a long time.” These partial discrepancies should neither astonish nor disturb
us. Two words in two languages rarely have
precisely matching spheres of meaning.
Furthermore, we quite regularly learn one
meaning of a new word when we first encounter it, and add additional meanings later. We
learn that Zug means “train” in our first weeks
of German, and only in time come to know
that it also means “parade, draught, stroke,
ductus, rifling, trait,” etc.
If either the sound or the meaning of one of
two cognates has changed so much that the
correspondence is no longer recognizable, the
comparison is no longer useful in applied linguistics: fast and fast, Zwerg and dwa$ A partial shift in meaning, however, may still leave
a pair of which one is a helpful mnemonic aid
in learning the other. One should certainly
avoid such cognates in illustrating the principle of sound-meaning pairs, but may still
cite the English relative when the German
word is first encountered. Examples are laufen
: leap/lope; Zaun : town; Acker : acre; Baum :
beam; Bein : bone; Tier : deer; Herbst : harvest;
sterben :starve; Knabe :knave; Stube :stove; Vieh :
fee; Knecht : knight; Dach : thatch, and many
others. The semantic history of such pairs
often casts an interesting light on the cultural
Teaching Germun Vocabulary
133
history of our ancestors, as do etymologies in
general.6
New knowledge must be put to immediate
and frequent use. In the first vocabulary introduced after the first mini-unit (A above),
any cognates illustrating the patterns just discussed should be stressed. When the voiced
stops and their English equivalents are presented, sound equivalents already learned
under A should be reviewed. Not only does
the t of tit$ trinken = the d of deep, drink and the
g of g r d = the g of great, but the correspondence off = p (A. l), k = k (A.6), andJ
= t (A.2) makes the three sets of cognates the
clearer for students than would otherwise be
the case. As encouragement to educated
guessing, passages can be taken from what-
ever texts are employed in the course and
exercises developed that will lead students
from mere drill to independent thinking. A
possible sequence of exercises is: 1) familiar
passage with cognates underlined in the text
and the English equivalents given at right; 2)
familiar passage with cognates underlined but
English equivalents left for the student to
supply; 3) familiar passage without underlining or English equivalents; 4) unfamiliar passage with cognates underlined but without
English equivalents; 5) unfamiliar passage
without underlining or English equivalents.
An illustration of the first with a passage
from Wolfgang Borchert's "Nachts schlafen
die Ratten doch" is seen in Figure 6.
FIGURE 6
Illustration of Sound-MeaningCorrespondences
Das hohle Fenster in &r vereinsamten
Mauergahnte blaurot uoll friiher Abendsonnc. Staubgewolke flimmerte zwischen
den steilgereckten Schornsteinresten.Die
Schuttwuste doste. Er ha& die Augen zu.
Mit einmal wurde es noch dunkler. Er
merkte, daJ jemand gekommen war und
nun uor ihm stand, dunkel, leise. Jetzt
haben sie mich! dachte er.
the, in the, one
yawned blue-redfull,
evening-sun.
the, stone. the.
had the yes to.
one, if.
marked that, come was and
now (beyore him stood.
have. thought
In this easy modern text, fifty-one percent of
the vocabulary is composed of cognates,
counting component parts of compounds as
individual words. This statement greatly simplifies the facts. All forms of the definite article
are cognate with the. The -er of the comparative and the -t- of the weak past have obvious
English equivalents. Hohl is related to hole.
Rest is a loan word borrowed by both English
and German, and doste is a High German loan
word from Low German; such borrowings
will be discussed in the second part of this
article. Zwischen is distantly related to (be)tween. But we are not looking for the total picture. We are not even looking for linguistic
precision, and can go so far as to say that misidentification of a cognate is no cause for
worry provided it does not violate the sound
correspondences being observed and applied,
and provided it is pragmatically useful in
building German vocabulary. Certainly we do
not wish to vitiate linguistic data, but our immediate aim here is the swift increase of Ger-
man vocabulary through observation of English cognates.
COMMON BORROWINGS
English and German are genetically related
languages descended from a common ancestor, but to tell our students only so much is to
ignore the cultural community which the languages have shared from their inception.
Throughout the Middle Ages, Latin was the
language of technology, history, philosophy,
religion, literature, education, diplomacy,
first as the vehicle of the vastly more complex
Roman culture and then of Christianity and
the pervasive influence of the church. Anyone
who wrote at all was trained to write in Latin,
and, if an attempt was made to write English
or German (Anglo-Saxon or Old High German), the writer borrowed Latin vocabulary
freely. A second wave of heavy borrowing
from Latin occurred during the period of Humanism (ca. 1350-1600), along with a smaller
amount from Greek.
134
The Norman French nearly succeeded in
making their speech the language of England;
even though modern English is a Germanic
language in structure, an estimated seventy
percent of its vocabulary is Latin in origin,
often through French.’ Linguistically, French
influenced German as well, lending it hundreds of words in the thirteenth-century and
actually threatening to replace it during the
“alamodische Zeitalter” of the seventeenthand eighteenth-centuries. With the rapid development of science in the nineteenth- and
twentieth-centuries, modern Western civilization has again turned to Latin and Greek stock
for new vocabulary. To a lesser degree both
English and German have borrowed from
Italian, Spanish, Low German, Dutch, the
Slavic languages, Arabic, Hebrew-and indeed from every major and many minor languages of the world. Thousands of these borrowings are common to both languages, as the
concepts they represent have become common
to both cultures, like the Kafeekgfee (Arabic),
Tee/tea (Chinese), and Kakao/cocoa (Nahuatl)
that we drink.
Cognates, as we have seen, show patterned
similarities in their corresponding sounds,
either regular sameness (m = m) or regular
divergency (d = th). Common loan words
ordinarily are much more similar in their
sound features, both vowels and consonants:
I n t e m z z o = intermezzo, Elefant = elephant.
Where they differ, they will usually show the
same patterned similarities as cognates. In
fact, with more practicality than honesty, we
have already cited a few pairs of common loan
words among the cognates listed in the first
part of this article: Kirche : church, Kupfer :
copper, Katze :cat, Silber :silver, possibly Apfel :
apple. In a sense, however, these are indeed
genetic pairs as far as German and English are
concerned. They were borrowed into West
Germanic or some earlier stage of the language before German and English began to
become separate dialects, were thoroughly integrated, and went through all subsequent
sound changes exactly like inherited words.
One language can influence the vocabulary
of another in various ways. A foreign word is
simply a word from a foreign language used
with as little change as the speakers of the host
language can manage, like das Make-up in German or sauerkraut in English. A loan word is a
Frank G. Bantu
foreign word that has been assimilated to the
host language, such as those we saw in the preceding paragraph. A loan translation is a compound that is translated literally part for part
from one language to another, as is German
Hosen-anzug < Englishpants suit. A loan rendition is an inexact translation of a compound
from one language to another; English sky
does not equal German Wolke, but a sky-scraper
is a Wolkenkratzer. These and other categories
of influence of one language upon the vocabulary of another are useful in discussing
theories and principles, even though the distinctions arr not always sharp or universally
accepted. As in the first part of this article,
however, we are here interested in practical
vocabulary building and will concentrate on
what can be of help to us.
Probably the most useful single fact we can
tell our students about loan words is that they
exist, and that German and English share
literally thousands in common. Intelligent
guessing is to be encouraged, just as with cognates. The guess will sometimes be wrong,
just as with cognates; but attention to common loan words can more often be a tremendous help than a hindrance. The more basic
the language and simple the style, the more
examples of cognates will occur. Loan words,
on the other hand, increase in number in technical and scientificlanguage.
Recent loan words borrowed by both German and English are ordinarily immediately
recognizable, and we need not waste space by
giving lists. It may be useful to call attention
to certain common endings. All are borrowed
from Latin or Greek, sometimes via French,
and are used to form nouns or, much less
often, adjectives.
Like the sound correspondences discussed
earlier, these endings can best be introduced
in small portions. When the first word with
one of the endings occurs in a course, one can
present several other examples-and the student‘s vocabulary grows not just by one, but
by three, four, or six new words. At the same
time any peculiarities of the group of words
can be presented. Mostly all nouns with the
same ending have the same gender, the same
plural, the same accent pattern. Sometimes -ik
and -ie are accented, sometimes not, and -ie
varies in pronunciation depending on whether
it is accented. Related to -er are the French
135
Teaching Gennan Vocabulary
FIGURE 7
Suffixes Common to German and English
German
-itit
-ic
-ik
-idn
-hL?/dN
-lir
-ismus
-mint
-er
English
-4
9
-ic(s)
-ion
-ence/ance
-UTC
-ism
-ment
-n
-fit
-id
-Cnt
-tor
-iu
-knt/dnt
-0s
-dl
-ent
-tor
-iuc
-ent/ant
-0US
-a1
Examples
die Uniuersitat, Nationalitat, Menfafitat
die Melodie, Energie, Familie, Komodie
die Ljrik, Politik, Musik, Physik, Mathemdtik
die Religion, Million, Station, Multiplikation
die Existem, Dekadenz, Substam, Toleram
die Literatur, Natur, Figur, K u l t ~ r Kreatur
,
der Optimismus, Idealismus, Perfektionismus
das Argument, Element, Dokument, Kompliment
der Backer, Schwimmer, Denker, Trinker, Renner
d n optimist, Tourist, Kommunist, Journalist
der Student, Patient, Priiident; das Talent
der Ddktor, Diriktor, Alligdtor, Apdtor
miu, progressiv, konseruatiu, objektiu
prominent, dekadent, interessant, tolerant
nervos, skanhlos, relisiiis, serios, mysterios
liberal, universal, sentimental, brutal
endings -ier and -eur, as in der Bankier, Juwelier
(note the varying pronunciation!), Ingenieur,
Chauffeur. When -ent refers to a person it is
masculine, otherwise usually neuter. In the
singular -tor is unaccented, but it receives the
stress in the plural -then. Finally, students
should look upon these endings as having an
existence of their own; they are morphemes,
smallest language units with meaning. The
examples above have English equivalents in
both stem and ending, but German uses these
same endings with stems that do not combine
with the equivalent ending in English or do
not exist in English: Rivalitat, Frisur, Fabrikant,
Methddik, Arbeiter, Traktorist. English uses the
stem rival-, but the derived abstract noun is
rivalry and not *nirality. It uses the ending -er
just as freely as German to indicate an agent,
but has no cognate of Arbeit-. Even if students
do not immediately understand such words,
they will at least know their class of meaning,
usually their gender and their plural.
A vast number of English words has entered
the language of West Germany since 1945.
One finds them particularly in advertising and
pop culture. Whether they disturb a sensitive
ear, whether we like them or not, they are
present in contemporary German. Students
enjoy seeing popular magazines and will
notice the English borrowings. The meanings
will usually be immediately clear. What is not
obvious is how Germans pronounce the English loan words and what gender they assign
the nouns. Many are not to be found in any
dictionary. Standards are established with
time. Pronunciation of recent borrowings is
partially adjusted to German speech habits,
and the less English the individual German
speaker knows the more he will conform to his
native patterns. Gender of nouns usually
either remains as in the original language or is
assigned on the basis of a semantically related
German word. With English only the latter alternative is available, and it does not always
prevail. There seems a strong tendency to
make monosyllabic English nouns masculine:
der Job, Jet, Boom, Pie, Test (but das Quiz), Gin,
Rum, Jazz, Blues, Touch, Song (in spite of das
Lied), Gag, Sport, Spurt, Klub, Spoon (but das
Golf, das Team alongside die Mannschaft, das
Foul).
With borrowings as with cognates, students
have to be encouraged toward intelligent
guessing. The first time they see or hear a
clear example of a loan word common to both
languages, the teacher can speak briefly about
the common cultural heritage of German and
English. Three or four equally clear examples
can be given. If the word has a frequently occurring ending, it may receive comment.
Equal stress should be placed on both the language-learning value and the cultural significance of the word; but here we are not teaching linguistics, we are using it. The difference
between cognates and common loan words
may be explained, but at this stage no one
should worry over whether two obviously related words are cognates or common borrow-
136
ings. If Schule and school are incorrectly termed
cognates, neither teacher nor student need
worry now; they are old and well-assimilated
borrowings.
New expressions often replace old ones, but
it is a characteristic of German to borrow a
new word and still keep the old, or to use a
borrowed word first for a new concept and
then create an equivalent term from native
stock. Sometimes the one and sometimes the
other wins out eventually, sometimes they develop different shades of meaning, but sometimes they can be used interchangeably even
though often with stylistic differences. With
due caution the German instructor can turn
such pairs of borrowed and native words to a
teaching device, using the loan word and the
native term side by side. In this way new
vocabulary can be introduced in such sentences as:
Ich gehc zu einem Meeting, zu einer Sifzung.
Welche Mannschaft, welches Team hat gewonncn?
Hasf du ein Auto, eincn Wagen?
Er sucht eincnJob, cine Stellung.
The teacher who employs this method must
know the language well and have a sense of
style, must know for example that Auto and
Wagen are equally acceptable at any level of
discourse but Job and Stellung are not. Once a
class has learned Stellung via Job, it should be
NOTES
‘For the suggestion of the topic of this article and helpful advice I am indebted to Charles V. Miller, Ohio State
University.
?A text which makes conscious use of loan words is
Kimberly Sparks & Edith Reichmann, So ist es!A Conternporary Reader(New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1972).
TWO very readable and two more detailed histories of
German are W. Walker Chambers &John R. Wilkie, A
Short History of the German Language (London: Methuen,
1970); John T. Waterman, A History Ofthe German Language (Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 1976); Robert
Priebsch & W. E. Collinson, The German Language
(London: Faber & Faber, 1966); Hans Eggers, Deutsche
Sprachgeschichfe, 4 vols. (Reinbeck bei Hamburg:
Rowohlt , 1963-77).
‘Most examples are taken from vocabulary normally
learned in first-year college German. Teachers will want
Frank G. Banh
led by example to use the former. With care,
however, the method can be fruitfully employed.
Like cognates, indeed like any words, borrowings may shift their meaning. Among
common borrowings also one finds “false
friends.” AktuelL “topical, contemporary” #
actual < Old French actuel ureal”; Brief “letter”
# brief “condensed statement, abstract” <
Latin brevis “short”- but compare briefcase; and
Chf‘boss, leader” # chef“cook” < French chef
“chief, head.” Sometimes the one language has
changed the underlying meaning of the word,
sometimes the other. There are perhaps a few
dozen such treacherous couples, however,
compared to literally thousands of useful
pairs.
The close histories and cultural relations of
German and English are a factor of which we
do not make enough conscious use. Ears and
eyes trained to recognize their cognates and
common loans will help brains to build new
passive vocabulary more rapidly in the target
language. All vocabulary is at first passive; by
practice it becomes active. The method is a
crutch-or, perhaps a more fitting metaphor,
a Gangelband. Students will not run as long as
they are dependent on it, but they will learn to
walk more steadily and swiftly.
to substitute their own examples from the texts they are
using.
SThe symbol I#J indicates a significant absence of a linguistic unit. ’Nothing“ is one of the English correspondences of German ch; g and w contrast with one another
and with “nothing“ as the other two correspondences.
6Two German etymological dictionaries are Friedrich
Kluge, Elymologisches Worterbuch der deutschen Sprache (1883;
rpt. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1975); DergroJe Duden: Elymologie:
Herkunftsworterbuch der deutschen Sprache (Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut, 1963). A number of English dictionaries contain etymologies (the various editions of
Webster, The Oxford English Dicfionary, The American Heritage Dicfionary). The standard English work is W. W.
Skeat , Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, New
ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958).
’No accurate count appears to exist or may even be
possible. The Encyclopedia Americana (1980 edition, X,
423) states that an estimated eighty percent of English
vocabulary is borrowed, mostly from Latin, and more
than half of this amount through French.