ABSTRACT
The second important way of enriching the vocabulary is by borrowing words from other languages. Like most linguistic communities, the speakers of German have not developed in isolation from the rest of mankind but have been in contact – political and social, cultural and commercial – with a wide variety of other linguistic communities. As a result the German language has been influenced by – and has in its turn influenced – many other languages in Europe and the rest of the world. Some of these contacts have been close and lasting and have influenced German deeply, even leading to changes in its structure; others, being more temporary and superficial, have affected only this or that detail of the language, mainly in the field of vocabulary.
