Brief Research on French Loan Words in English 英语毕业论文.doc

Brief Research on French Loan Words in English Abstract: Borrowing is an important way to enrich and develop native vocabulary. Owing to the special historical origin and frequent cultural communication between England and France, a great number of French words have been borrowed into English. They have become an important element of English vocabulary. Knowing how French words had been loan to English will help us to know and learn the two languages better. 　　 Key words: English; French; French loan words; vocabulary Introduction: English is just one language of the 3000 languages in the world, it has a great vocabulary. For such a huge vocabulary can’t be created by only English, there are lots of words borrowed form other language. As we all know, except the basic grammar, words illustrate the great relationship between English and other languages. Among all the other languages, French has definitely the greatest influence on English. From some researches, we can see that 30% of the English words are borrowed from French. When I find this, three questions came into my mind： 1. Why English borrow such many words from French? 2. What kinds of words did English borrow? 3. How can we use such situation to learn both English and French well? In this paper I will focus on the answers to these questions. Literature review There are lots of researches on how the French influence on English. Most of researches hold that Norman Conquest is the most important. While the Danes were invading England, other Norsemen raided the coast of France. On the southern shore of the English Channel they established the Duchy of Normandy. These Norsemen, or Normans, became French in language and culture. In the 11th century the Duchy of Normandy was rich, populous, and powerful. After the Norman Conquest, these people charged the English for a long time, for they are the upper class, they treated English as a rural language. So the whole English people want to learn French, and tak