Etymological composition

The full extent of the Old English vocabulary is not known to present-day scholars. There is no doubt that there existed more words in it. Surely, some Old English words were lost altogether with the texts that perished; some might not have been used in written texts as they belonged to some spheres of human life which were not of great interest (some colloquial words, for instance).

Modern estimates of the total vocabulary (recorded and preserved in written monuments) range from 30 000 words (some even say 100 000 -Smirnitsky, Pei).It is mainly homogeneous. Loan words are fairly insignificant, and are grouped around some specific spheres of life.

Native words, in their turn can be subdivided into: Common Indo-European words, which were inherited from the common Indo-European language. They belong to the oldest layer and denote the names of natural phenomena, plants and animals, agricultural terms, names of parts of the human body, terms of kinship; verbs belonging to this layer denote the basic activities of Old English man, adjectives indicate the basic qualities; personal and demonstrative pronouns and most numerals are of this origin too.

These have already been mentioned in this book to illustrate the shift of sounds according to Grimm's law -faeder (father), modor (mother), brodor (brother), sweostor (sister); etan (to eat), sitan (to sit), slepan (to sleep), beran (to bear), cndwan (to know), witan (to know); ceald (cold), cwene (woman), dor (door), sta:n (stone), waiter (water), fot (foot), heorte (heart).

Some contained more stable sounds and in common Germanic were closer to their Indo-European counterparts. They changed only in the course of the Old English assimilative changes: sunu (son), sunne (sun), earm (arm; сотр. Ukr. рамена), neowe (new), geong (young), meolc (milk), nosu (nose), ryge (rye; сотр. Rus. рожь), sndw (snow).

These words belong to the sphere of everyday life, and denote vital objects, qualities, and actions. Other words of common Indo-European origin are daeg(day), eage (Got. augo - Lat. oculus), fisc (fish), foda (food; Lat. panis - bread), ford (ford; Greek poros - a ferry), freond (friend; сотр. Ukr. приятель), fyr (fire; Greek pyr; in Ukr. nipomexmm), giest (host-guest), geoc (yoke), guma (man, human, Lat. homo), heorte (heart), hocyht (коготь) (hook), meolc (milk), medu (mead), nama (name), swehur (father-in-law), swin (swine, pig), dorn (thorn; Ukr. терен), beatan (beat), beran (bear), brecan (fragment), faestan (fast), fleotan (float), hselan (to heal), licjan (lie), sittan (sit), standan (stand), weorcan (work), witan (know), willan (wi\l)',feor (far; Lat. porro, Greek pen, perimeter), ful (full), heard (hard), manig (many), mere (sea), топа (moon), beard (beard), lippa (lip; Lat. labium, Rus. улыбка), treow (tree).

The majority of pronouns and numerals also spring mainly from the same source: twd (two), dreo (three), fif (five), eahta (eight), fien (ten); ic (I), thu (thou), me (me), daet (that), hwd (who; Lat. quis), hwtt (what; Lat. quod).

Common Germanic words are the words than can be found in all Germanic languages, old and new, eastern, western and northern. Here belong such words, for instance, as

eorthe (earth - Goth, air da, OHG erda, OSax ertha, Olceljord, Mn Germ. Erde)',

grene (green - OHG gruoni, OSax groni, OFr grene, OScand groeney Mn Germ grun)

heall (hall - OHG, OSax holla, Oicel holl, Mn Germ. Halle)', hors (horse - OHG hros, OSax hros, OFr hars, hros, OScand hros, Mn Germ Ross)',

hand (hand - Goth handus, OHG hant, OSax hand, OFr hand, hond, Mn Germ Hand)',

hleapan (leap - Goth hlaupan, OHG hloufan, OSax hlopan, OScand hlaupa, OFr hlapa, Mn Germ laufeh)

land (land - Goth, land, OHG lant, OSax, OFr, OScand land', Mn Germ Land)', lang (long - Goth laggs, OHG lang, OSax, OFr lang, OScand langr, Mn Germ lang)

sand (sand - OHG sant, OSax, OFr sand, Oicel sandr Mn Germ Sand)', smsel (small - Goth smals,OHG smal, OFr smel, OScand smalr, Mn Germ schmal - narrow)

wicu (week - Goth wiko, OHG wehha, wohha, Oicel vika, OSax wica, OFr wike, Mn Germ Woche)\

Some linguists tend to treat common West-Germanic words separately, but mainly they are not so numerous. For instance, sprecan (to speak) is found also in OHG and Dutch (sprecheh)', wermod (wormwood) - OHG werimuota (wermouth).

Finally, hypothetically there are specifically Old English words, that is the words not found in any of the known old texts. These are to be taken for granted - no one knows what other texts might have been lost and the words might have existed in some other language. But we can still say that bridda (bird), wogian (to woo, to court), 0w/(woof), terorian (to tire, to be tired) so far are treated as specifically English. Still, it is to be marked that some words still bear this British colouring: hlaeford (the owner of bread and that one who was making the dough, kneading it). Lord, Lady may be used in other meanings in other variants of the language, and have different metaphorically extended meanings: warlords, first lady) but everyone feels that it belongs to English culture. The parts of these compounds are not specifically English, but such combinations of morphemes are.

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