Abstract
The present study aims at a twofold goal. It evaluates the early English loanwords of Italian origin which the MED, the OED and its nascent third edition record up to the middle of the sixteenth century and it exemplifies how the transfer of Romance loanwords into late Middle and early Modern English should be analyzed. The analysis shows that not more than about two dozens of Italian loanwords were borrowed directly. Only half of them have survived in present-day English. This is much less than what has been assumed so far because many loanwords of Italian origin were transmitted by French whereas others proved to be Latinisms. The transfer does not begin before c. 1400 and only gradually increases after 1500.
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