Etymological doublets

These are two or more words of the same language (English in our case), which were derived by different roots from a single basic word. E.g. verbs drag and draw are derived from a single Old English root dragan in the same meaning. There are a number of pairs in Modern English which show regular variations of the sh-sc/sk letter combination. E.g.

Old English Scandinavian

shirt skirt

shriek screech

share scar

shabby scabby

One interesting example here is a pair of words stationary and stationery. This likeness in both sound and partially spelling is due to the fact that in Medieval England most booksellers were traveling salesmen, while the permanent bookstores were called stations. There salesmen were stationers, and what they sold was stationery, similarly to grocery, bakery, etc.

International words

This is rather a large group of words that all show relative likeness and identical origin, but occur in several languages if not in the majority of modern European languages. Such occurrence is a result of simultaneous rarely successive borrowing from one and the same source language, typically this is a classical dead language like Old Greek and especially Latin.

The intonational vocabulary shows rapid growth in the number of units common to various language which is the result of expanding global contacts. Internationalisms play the most important part in terminological systems that is vocabularies of science, industry, art, technology, sports, etc. As an example the world of music is predominantly served by Italian words, e.g. allegro, andante, aria, arioso, opera, piano, violoncello, etc. Russian internationalisms may also be singled out, and these are mammoth, balalaika, Perestroika, vlast, vodka, Bolshevik.

Many roots, being intonational by nature, have altered their meanings as they penetrated other languages. In Russian linguistics this phenomenon is known as ложные друзья переводчика. These words present definite difficulties for English language learners and translators. Examples here are meter (счетчик; метр), command, costume, medicine, machine, party, record, passport, family.

Exotisms (exotic borrowed words): anaconda, bungalow, sari, chastushka.

Regional varieties of the English vocabulary. Standard English and dialects

The modern English language is represented in quite a number of its varieties but still has a standard manifestation named literary English, or King’s English, or Queen’s English. This is the official language used in Great Britain, taught at British schools and universities, employed by mass media and spoken by educated people throughout the whole world. This is one of the forms of English which is current and substantially uniform, recognized and acceptable wherever English is spoken or understood.

Alongside with King’s English there exist local dialects which are varieties of English, peculiar to some districts, but having no normalized literary form. Dialects should be distinguished from variants, because the latter, although spoken elsewhere, away from the British Isles, possess their own literary forms.

There are 2 principal variants on the territory of Great Britain: Scottish (Scotts) English and Irish English. There are also 5 main groups of dialects: Northern, Midland, Eastern, Western and Southern. Each dialectal group contains up to 10 dialects and subdialects.

Among the best known Southern dialects is cockney which is spoken in London. Cockney was given special attention by such writers as Charles Dickens, Bernard Shaw and others. Among its features named can be:

• replacement of [θ] and [ð] by [f] and [v] respectively,

• interchange of aspirated and non-aspirated initial vowels (i.e. art is [ha:t], and heart is [a:t]),

• its pronunciation of some silent consonants (i.e. who is [who:]),

• substitution of the diphthong [ai] for the standard [ei] (i.e. day is [dai] and face is [fais]),

• there are also some specific cockney set expressions, i.e. to be up at the pole (to be drunk),

• well-known is cockney rhyming slang, i.e. instead of boots they say daisy roots, instead of wife – trouble and strife.

These days dialects are predominantly preserved in rural communities and in the speech of the elderly people. Dialects undergo rapid changes under the pressure of standard English distributed by schools, universities and mass media. Dialects are preserved by specialized dictionaries. Many dialectal words once belonged to standard English, but have now become obsolete. Among these are to end (to envy, see Old English andian), a barge (a pig, see Old English berg), etc. The best known dialectal dictionary is Joseph Rights English Dialect Dictionary.

Scotts may well be found in literature, e.g. Robert Burns, and in numerous dictionaries. For example wha is “who”, vera is “very”, smick means “to smoke”, Mahone means “devil”, etc.

The Irish variant shows some syntactical features like structures, e.g. it was yourself started it, or the way typically used for “when”. There are specific Irish names or surnames, like O’name, like O’Connery which means “belonging to a kin of” (o’ stands for “of”), Mc means “the son of”, Sean is variant of John, etc.

Sometimes dialectal words enter original variant, like shamrock, whiskey (in Irish it’s any strong alcohol, thus it’s liquor in standard English), bonny, glamour, lassy, slogan, tartan.