Borrowed Words

This accessible history of how, when, and why English has borrowed words from other languages shows how to discover their origins, when and why they were adopted, and what happens to them later. The history of English shows the effects of contact with languages in many contexts, including range from Latin, Greek, Scandinavian, Celtic, French, Italian, Spanish, and Russian, to Hebrew, Maori, Malay, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, and Yiddish. Philip Durkin describes theepisodes as they occurred, from Saxon times to the present, in a book that will appeal to everyone interested in the history of English.