Garland Hampton Cannon Livres

The Persian Contributions to the English Language: An Historical Dictionary contains 811 main entries. Its major purpose is to advance the historical study of comprehensive, chiefly lexical borrowing between languages in contact. The ancillary purpose is to show how a collected corpus of loans can shed light on multiple disciplines. This wide-ranging, innovative book is the largest, most up-to-date collection of English words and multiword lexical units borrowed from Persian, directly or through a mediating language such as Hindi/Urdu, Arabic or Turkish. All general English dictionaries were searched, including electronic retrieval from the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. A major feature of the tome is that each dictionary entry gives its first known recorded date in written English, its semantic field, any modern variant form and labels, etymology including ‘native’ meaning(s), English definitions in chronological order as could be dated, any derivative forms includ-ing functional shifts and compounds, sometimes a grammatical note, the symbolized sources where the loan is recorded, and the degree of naturalization in English.

Focusing on the study of language families, this work establishes foundational principles for modern comparative linguistics. It explores the relationships and structures within languages, offering insights that have significantly influenced the field and shaped our understanding of linguistic evolution. The thesis presents a systematic approach to analyzing languages, making it a pivotal resource for linguists and scholars interested in the connections between different languages.

The largest and most up-to-date collection of English words and multiword units borrowed from the Arabic, directly or indirectly, totalling 2338 items. All major dictionaries in English were surveyed, including new-word collections, and college dictionaries. Each dictionary entry gives the fi rst recorded date of the loan in English, the semantic field, variant forms, etymology, the English definitions, derivative forms, and sometimes grammatical comment. The major sources of each entry are noted, along with the approximate degree of assimilation in English. A substantial part of the book is devoted to nontechnical analytical essays, which treat the forty-six semantic areas so as to embrace all disciplines and throw light on the individual subject. Other essays treat the phonological and linguistic aspects of the data, so as to show how languages in contact interact and ultimately influence each other’s culture. This is a wide-ranging, innovational book that advances the study of comprehensive borrowing within languages over the centuries.