Abstract:
The purpose of the paper was two-sided, aiming (1) to test the assertion that
Celtic loanwords in Old English were represented very sparsely, and in the majority
of cases concerned toponyms; and (2) to attempt to analyse the presence of Celtic
loanwords in the Old English language.
For the purpose of achieving the aims, the following objectives were outlined:
1. To study the theory and resource materials on the topic;
2. To determine the traditionally accepted and recently suggested Celtic lexical
borrowings in Old English;
3. To elucidate four characteristics of Celtic loanwords (number, frequency, part of
speech, and semantic field);
4. To analyse the percentage correlation of the obtained list of loanwords with the
traditional one;
5. To outline the Celtic loanwords in Old English that are still being used in Presentday English, if any.
