Words: Native and BorrowedGary Torres

As it is well known, English is one of the most important languages in the world

which has developed as the time passes. The text goes through the different changes that

English as a language has experienced, basically since its birth as the famous Old

English, which I consider as the cleanest and the less blended one.

I think the text is a good support of what have talked about in class, and even a

better complement of the texts we have read before this one. It gives us relevant

information which is useful for an advanced level of knowledge and obviously for our

reading training. I see it as a tool which will help me to understand why English is the

way it is, the similarities it has with other languages and the process of borrowing

words, which has been the origin of thousands of items that native speakers and even us

use. Furthermore, to be specific, the etymologic origin of words in English is far form

being homogenous, however, it is very well explained and shown through the cognates

and their varied phonetic evolutions, which I understood as derived from the Indo-

European branch.

What I comprehended through this reading, is that languages in general have two

kinds of word repertoires, the one added by the natives themselves and the one which is

compound by borrowed words from other cultures. In the case of English, I believe that

the borrowed repertoire is larger than the native one, by the fact of having received a lot

of contributions (loanwords) from the Catholic Church and from many sorts of ancient

civilizations in general. The interesting thing about the evolution of English is how

receptive the country’s inhabitants were to foreign languages. That is why I consider

borrowing as the most main way of enrichment of English vocabulary.

I think it is worth saying that the development of cities such as London was an

important aspect for the progress of English itself. Moreover, the dialect spoken in that

area turned into what we know nowadays as Standard English. I could notice that the

text shows London not only as the actual capital of England, but also as a big city

destined to be the future of commerce and a source of benefits for the whole country.