A very little reflection will show that dialect-speakers have always been in contact with some at least of those who employ words that belong rather, or once belonged, to foreign nations.  Even shopkeepers are familiar with such words as beef, mutton, broccoli, soda, cork, sherry, brandy, tea, coffee, sugar, sago, and many more such words that are now quite familiar to every one.  Yet beef and mutton are Norman; broccoli and soda are Italian; cork and sherry are Spanish; brandy is Dutch; tea is Chinese; coffee is Arabic; sugar is of Sanskrit origin; and sago is Malay.  It must be evident that many similar words, having reference to very various useful things, have long ago drifted into the dialects from the literary language.  Hence the purity of the dialects from contamination with foreign influences is merely comparative, not absolute.

Our modern language abounds with words borrowed from many foreign tongues; but a large number of them have come to us since 1500.  Before that date the chief languages from which it was possible for us to borrow words were British or Gaelic, Irish, Latin, Greek (invariably through the medium of Latin), Hebrew (in a small degree, through the medium of Latin), Arabic (very slightly, and indirectly), Scandinavian, and French.  A few words as to most of these are sufficient.

It is not long since a great parade was made of our borrowings from “Celtic”; it was very easy to give a wild guess that an obscure word was “Celtic”; and the hardihood of the guesser was often made to take the place of evidence.  The fact is that there is no such language as “Celtic”; it is the name of a group of languages, including “British” or Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Manx, Gaelic, and Irish; and it is now incumbent on the etymologist to cite the exact forms in one or more of these on which he relies, so as to adduce some semblance of proof.  The result has been an extraordinary shrinkage in the number of alleged Celtic words.  The number, in fact, is extremely small, except in special cases.  Thus we may expect to find a few Welsh words in the dialects of Cheshire, Shropshire, or Herefordshire, on the Welsh border; and a certain proportion of Gaelic words in Lowland Scotch; though we have no reliable lists of these, and it is remarkable that such words have usually been borrowed at no very early date, and sometimes quite recently.  The legacy of words bequeathed to us by the ancient Britons is surprisingly small; indeed, it is very difficult to point to many clear cases.  The question is considered in my Principles of English Etymology, Series I, pp. 443-452, to which I may refer the reader; and a list of words of (probably) Celtic origin is given in my larger Etymological Dictionary, ed. 1910, p. 765.  It is also explained, in my Primer of English Etymology that, in the fifth century,