Loanword
A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related process whereby it is the meaning or idiom that is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort.
Although loanwords are typically far less numerous than the native words of most languages (creoles and pidgins being an obvious exception), they are often widely known and used, since their borrowing served a certain purpose, for example to provide a name for a new invention.
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Distinction between borrowing and inheriting
As languages develop, in most cases the bulk of the vocabulary of a language is inherited from its ancestral language. Words that are inherited from ancestral language, the "native" words of the language, are not considered to have been borrowed. Borrowing is when words are added to a language from any language other than the ancestral language or, on the other hand, when words from one language are taken into another language, especially during translation processes.
Classes of borrowed words
Certain classes of loanwords are more common; function words, such as pronouns, numbers, words referring to universal concepts, are usually not borrowed. Examples of these words being borrowed have been attested, however.
Words referring to exotic concepts or ideas are usually borrowed. What is "exotic" can vary from language to language. Thus, English names for creatures not native to Great Britain are almost always loanwords, and most of the technical vocabulary referring to classical music is borrowed from Italian.
Beyond words
Idiomatic expressions and phrases, sometimes translated word-for-word, can be borrowed, usually from a language that has "prestige" at the time. Often, a borrowed idiom is used as a euphemism for a less polite term in the original language. In English, this has usually been Latinisms from the Latin language and Gallicisms from French. If the phrase is translated word-for-word, it is known as a calque.
Loanwords in English
English has many loanwords. In 1973, a computerised survey of about 80,000 words in the old Shorter Oxford Dictionary (3rd edition) was published in Ordered Profusion by Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff. Their estimates for the origin of English words were as follows:
- French, including Old French and early Anglo-French: 28.3%
- Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%
- Germanic languages, including Old and Middle English: 25%
- Greek: 5.32%
- No etymology given or unknown: 4.03%
- Derived from proper names: 3.28%
- All other languages contributed less than 1%
This survey shows no information about the frequency of words, however. If the frequency of words is considered, words from Old and Middle English occupy the vast majority.
The reasons for English's vast borrowing include:
- (to a relatively small extent) the existence of other languages native to Britain;
- the invasion of England by the Vikings and the Normans;
- its modern importance;
- its being a scientific language;
- its development as a trade language in the 18th century; and
- the flexibility of its syllable structure.
This lack of restrictions makes it comparatively easy for the English language to incorporate new words. Compare this with Japanese, where the English word "club" (itself originally from Old Norse) was turned into "kurabu" because of Japanese's inflexible syllable structure. However, the English pronunciation of a loanword will often differ from the original pronunciation to such a degree that a native speaker of the language it was borrowed from will not be able to recognize it as a loanword when spoken.
Affixes
The majority of English affixes, such as "un-", "-ing", and "-ly", were present in older forms in Old English. There are, however, a few English affixes that have been borrowed. One example, possibly the most prolific, is the suffix -er (agentive suffix, not the comparative suffix), which was borrowed (ultimately) from Latin. The verbal suffix '-ize' comes (via, Old French, via Latin) ultimately from Ancient Greek and became utilized liberally in America, often to the chagrin of the British.
Other languages
Direct loans, expressions translated word-by-word, or even grammatical constructions and orthographical conventions from English are called anglicisms. Similarly, loans from Swedish are called sveticisms or svecisms. In French, the result of perceived over-use of English loanwords and expressions is called franglais. Denglish is English influence on German. English loanwords in French include 'le weekend', 'le job' and 'le biftek' (beefsteak). This has so outraged French purists that much time and energy is spent by various French institutions keeping the language pure; probably a futile endeavor.
English often borrows words from the cultures and languages of the British Colonies. For example there are at least twenty words from Hindi, including syce/sais, dinghy, chutney, pundit, wallah, pajama/pyjamas, bungalow and jodhpur. Other examples include trek, aardvark, laager and veld from Afrikaans, shirang, amok (Malay) and sjambok (Afrikaans via Malay).
During the Ottoman period, Turkish literature became heavily influenced by Persian and Arabic borrowings. Within the course of over six hundred years of the Ottoman Empire, the literary and official language of the empire was a mixture of Turkish, Persian, and Arabic, which is now called Ottoman Turkish, considerably differing from the everyday spoken Turkish of the time. After the fall of the empire in World War I, and following the foundation of Republic of Turkey, Turkish language underwent an extensive language reform led by the newly founded Turkish Language Association, during which a very large body of loanwords were replaced with equivalent words derived from Turkic roots. The language reform was a part of the ongoing cultural reforms of the time, in turn a part in the broader framework of Atatürk's Reforms, and also included the introduction of the new Turkish alphabet. Turkish also has many loanwords derived from French, such as pantalon - trousers, comique(Fr)/komik(Tr) - funny, etc., all of them having very similar pronunciations (except for the French pronunciation of the letter 'r').
Reborrowing
It is possible for a word to travel from one language to another and then back to the originating language in a different form, a process called reborrowing. A specific example of this is anime which is borrowed from the Japanese アニメ, which is a shortened version of アニメーション (animeshon), which is in turn borrowed from the English animation.
See also
External links
- Discussion on how loan words exacerbate Future Shock (Streaming audio & mp3)
Categories
Linguistics