On Loanwords of Latin Origin in Contemporary Icelandic
This article focuses on the Icelandic lexis’ history by analysing the loanwords of Latin origin in it. The examined corpus examined traverses the history of Icelandic in its entirety. The borrowings are divided into four main waves, excluding the pre-literary period. Each wave is dominated by one or two borrowing languages. The semantic fields Icelandic selects loanwords from are various and no field is strictly bound to any of the above-mentioned waves. Finally some words of particular interest are presented and discussed, because of the importance they acquire in the light of the Icelandic lexis’ history.
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