Loanwords in English Quiz
This is the announcement of the practice on Jan. 25, 2025.
English is affluent in loanwords of various origins. Why? The history of the English language is that of conquests.
The English language is the result of the fusion of many different elements, which those conquests brought about.
Finding loanwords in English is knowing English history. It is fun to find out loanwords in English.
【Ultra-Short History of English】
The original inhabitants of Great Britain were Celts. (Celtic)
54 B.C. Roman Conquest. (Latin)
Julius Caesar occupied Great Britain, which came under the complete control of Rome by Emperor Claudius in A.D.43.
449 Germanic Conquest. (Anglo-Saxon language=Old English) The legendary Celtic king, King Arthur, fought against Germans only to the exile of Celts.
Germanic society consisted of patriarchal tribes.
1018 Danish Conquest. (Old Nordic language=Old Norse)
Alfred the Great fought against Danes and repelled them. Knud the Great conquered England after all.
The fusion of Old English and Old Norse contributed to the grammatical simplification of English.
1066 Norman Conquest. (Norman French)
William the Conqueror conquered England and established the English feudalism.
With the influx of Norman French, Old English turned from synthetic language (=inflective language) into analytic language (=word-order language) called Middle English.
1485 End of War of the Roses. (Greek, Latin, French Italian, Spanish)
England developed under the monarchism established by Henry�, � and Elisabeth�.
They introduced Renaissance from continental Europe, during which Shakespear brought many loanwords into English.
The English language in this era is called Early Modern English, which is fairly near to Present Day English.
【Procedure】
1. Divide into three or four groups. (six to seven members each.)
2. Decide MC (the chief) in each group.
3. MC hands out a quiz sheet to every participant.
4. Answer the questions according to the direction on the sheet.
Individual activity is as follows:
(1) Match each loanword underlined with the meaning below.
(2) Tell what origin it has.
(3) Turn each sentence into Japanese.
MC checks answers session by session (six sessions in all).
MC has both the answer sheet and the Japanese translation sheet.
Each session should be finished within ten minutes including both answering and checking.)
I hope you will enjoy the quiz. Thank you. (by Shinichiro Kittaka)