Calque
Inlinguistics,acalque(/kælk/) orloan translationis awordorphraseborrowed from anotherlanguagebyliteralword-for-word or root-for-roottranslation.When used as averb,“to calque” means to borrow a word or phrase from another language while translating its components, so as to create a newlexemein the target language. For instance, the English word "skyscraper" has been calqued in dozens of other languages,[1]combining words for "sky" and "scrape" in each language, as for example,German:Wolkenkratzer,Portuguese:Arranha-céu,Turkish:Gökdelen,Swedish:Skyskrapa.Another notable example is the Latinweekday names,which came to be associated by ancient Germanic speakers with their own gods following a practice known asinterpretatio germanica:the Latin "Day ofMercury",Mercurii dies(latermercrediin modernFrench), was borrowed intoLate Proto-Germanicas the "Day ofWōđanaz"(Wodanesdag), which becameWōdnesdæginOld English,then "Wednesday" in Modern English.[2]
Calquing is distinct fromphono-semantic matching:while calquing includessemantictranslation, it does not consist ofphoneticmatching—i.e., of retaining the approximatesoundof the borrowed word by matching it with a similar-sounding pre-existing word ormorphemein the target language.[3]
Proving that a word is a calque sometimes requires more documentation than does an untranslated loanword because, in some cases, a similar phrase might have arisen in both languages independently. This is less likely to be the case when the grammar of the proposed calque is quite different from that of the borrowing language, or when the calque contains less obvious imagery.
Types[edit]
One system classifies calques into five groups. This terminology is not universal:[4]
- Phraseological calques:idiomatic phrasesare translated word for word. For example, "it goes without saying"calques the Frenchça va sans dire.[5]
- Syntactic calques:syntactic functionsor constructions of the source language are imitated in the target language, in violation of their meaning. For example, the use of "by" instead of "with" in the phrase "fine by me" is thought to have come from Yiddishbei,namely from the 1930s Yiddish Broadway musical song titleבַיי מיר ביסטו שיין/Bei Mir Bistu Shein/lit. 'To Me You're Beautiful'.[6]
- Loan-translations:words are translatedmorphemeby morpheme, or component by component, into another language.
- Semantic calques(also known assemantic loans): additional meanings of the source word are transferred to the word with the same primary meaning in the target language. As described below, the "computer mouse" was named in English for its resemblance to the animal; many other languages have extended their own native word for "mouse" to include the computer mouse.
- Morphological calques:theinflectionof a word is transferred. Some authors call this amorpheme-by-morpheme translation.[7]
Some linguists refer to aphonological calque,in which the pronunciation of a word is imitated in the other language.[8]For example, the English word "radar" becomes the similar-sounding Chinese wordRadar(pinyin:léidá),[8]which literally means "to arrive (as fast) as thunder".
Partial[edit]
Partial calques, or loan blends, translate some parts of a compound but not others.[9]For example, the name of the Irish digital television serviceSaorviewis a partial calque of that of the UK service "Freeview",translating the first half of the word from English to Irish but leaving the second half unchanged. Other examples include"liverwurst"(< GermanLeberwurst)[10]and "apple strudel"(< GermanApfelstrudel).[11]
Semantic[edit]
The "computer mouse"was named in English for its resemblance to theanimal.Many other languages use their word for "mouse" for the "computer mouse", sometimes using adiminutiveor, inChinese,adding the word "cursor"(Tiêu), makingshǔbiāo"mouse cursor" (simplified Chinese:Con chuột;traditional Chinese:Con chuột;pinyin:shǔbiāo).[citation needed]Another example is the Spanish wordratónthat means both the animal and the computer mouse.[12]
Examples[edit]
The common English phrase "flea market"is a loan translation of the Frenchmarché aux puces( "market with fleas" ).[13]At least 22 other languages calque the French expression directly or indirectly through another language.
The wordloanwordis a calque of theGermannounLehnwort.In contrast, the termcalqueis a loanword, from the Frenchnouncalque( "tracing, imitation, close copy" ).[14]
Another example of a common morpheme-by-morpheme loan-translation is of theEnglishword "skyscraper",which may be calqued using the word for" sky "or" cloud "and the word, variously, for" scrape "," scratch "," pierce "," sweep "," kiss ", etc. At least 54 languages have their own versions of the English word.
SomeGermanicandSlavic languagesderived their words for "translation" from words meaning "carrying across" or "bringing across", calquing from the Latintranslātiōortrādūcō.[15]
History[edit]
Since at least 1894, according to theTrésor de la langue française informatisé,theFrenchtermcalquehas been used in itslinguisticsense, namely in a publication by Louis Duvau:[16]
Un autre phénomène d'hybridation est la création dans une langue d'un mot nouveau, dérivé ou composé à l'aide d'éléments existant déja dans cette langue, et ne se distinguant en rien par l'aspect extérieur des mots plus anciens, mais qui, en fait, n'est que lecalqued'un mot existant dans la langue maternelle de celui qui s'essaye à un parler nouveau. [...] nous voulons rappeler seulement deux ou trois exemples de cescalquesd'expressions, parmi les plus certains et les plus frappants. |
Another phenomenon of hybridization is the creation in a language of a new word, derived or composed with the help of elements already existing in that language, and which is not distinguished in any way by the external aspect of the older words, but which, in fact, is only thecopy(calque) of a word existing in the mother tongue of the one who tries out a new language. [...] we want to recall only two or three examples of thesecopies(calques) of expressions, among the most certain and the most striking. |
Since at least 1926, the termcalquehas been attested in English through a publication by the linguistOtakar Vočadlo:[17]
- [...] such imitative forms are calledcalques(ordécalques) by Frenchphilologists,and this is a frequent method in coining abstract terminology, whether nouns or verbs.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
Notes
- ^Gachelin, Jean-Marc (1986).Lexique-grammaire, domaine anglais.Université de Saint-Etienne. p. 97.ISBN978-2-901559-14-6.
- ^Simek, Rudolf (1993).Dictionary of northern mythology.D.S. Brewer. p. 371.ISBN0-85991-369-4.
- ^Zuckermann, Ghil'ad(2003).Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew.Palgrave Macmillan.ISBN1-4039-1723-X.
- ^Smith, May.The Influence of French on Eighteenth-century Literary Russian.pp. 29–30.
- ^Fowler, H. W.[1908] 1999. "Vocabulary § Foreign Words."chap. 1 inThe King's English(2nd ed.). New York:Bartelby.
- ^Shapiro, Michael (25 January 2013).""It's OK by Me" as a Syntactic Calque ".Language Lore.Archivedfrom the original on Sep 28, 2022.
- ^Gilliot, Claude. "The Authorship of the Qur'ān." InThe Qur'an in its Historical Context,edited byG. S. Reynolds.p. 97.
- ^abYihua, Zhang, and Guo Qiping. 2010. "An Ideal Specialised Lexicography for Learners in China based on English-Chinese Specialised Dictionaries." Pp. 171–92 inSpecialised Dictionaries for Learners,edited by P. A. F. Olivera. Berlin: de Gruyter.p. 187.ISBN9783110231328
- ^Durkin, Philip.The Oxford Guide to Etymology.§ 5.1.4
- ^"liverwurst".Oxford English Dictionary(Online ed.).Oxford University Press.(Subscription orparticipating institution membershiprequired.)
- ^"apple strudel".Oxford English Dictionary(Online ed.).Oxford University Press.(Subscription orparticipating institution membershiprequired.)
- ^"ratón".Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (DPD), 2.ª edición (versión provisional)(in Spanish). Real Academia Española y Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española.Retrieved30 May2024.
- ^"flea market".Bartleby.Archived fromthe originalon March 11, 2007.
- ^Knapp, Robbin D. 27 January 2011. "Robb: German English Words."Robb: Human Languages.
- ^Christopher Kasparek,"The Translator's Endless Toil",The Polish Review,vol. XXVIII, no. 2, 1983, p. 83.
- ^Duvau, Louis (1894). "Expressions hybrides".Mémoires de la Société de linguistique de Paris.8.Paris:191.
- ^Vočadlo, Otakar (1926). "Slav Linguistic Purity and the Use of Foreign Words".The Slavonic Review.5(14): 353.JSTOR4202081.
Bibliography
- Kasparek, Christopher.1983. "The Translator's Endless Toil."The Polish Review28(2):83–87.
- Robb: German English Words
- Zuckermann, Ghil'ad.2003.Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew.Palgrave Macmillan.ISBN1-4039-1723-X
- 2009."Hybridity versus Revivability: Multiple Causation, Forms and Patterns."Journal of Language Contact(2):40–67.
External links[edit]
