Loanword

Tofuis anEnglishloanword fromJapanesewordTōfu,in which it is itself a loanword from theChineseworddòufu.

Aloanword(also aloan word,loan-word) is awordat least partly assimilated from onelanguage(the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process ofborrowing.Borrowing is a metaphorical term that is well established in the linguistic field despite its acknowledged descriptive flaws: nothing is taken away from the donor language and there is no expectation of returning anything (i.e., the loanword).

Loanwords may be contrasted withcalques,in which a word is borrowed into the recipient language by being directly translated from the donor language rather than being adopted in (an approximation of) its original form. They must also be distinguished fromcognates,which are words in two or morerelated languagesthat are similar because they share anetymologicalorigin in the ancestral language, rather than because one borrowed the word from the other.

Examples and related terms

A loanword is distinguished from acalque(orloan translation), which is a word or phrase whosemeaningoridiomis adopted from another language by word-for-wordtranslationinto existing words or word-forming roots of the recipient language.Loanwords, in contrast, arenottranslated.

Examples of loanwords in theEnglish languageincludecafé(from Frenchcafé,which means "coffee" ),bazaar(from Persianbāzār,which means "market" ), andkindergarten(from GermanKindergarten,which literally means "children's garden" ). The wordcalqueis a loanword, while the wordloanwordis a calque:calquecomes from the French nouncalque( "tracing; imitation; close copy" );while the wordloanwordand the phraseloan translationare translated fromGermannounsLehnwortandLehnübersetzung(German:[ˈleːnʔybɐˌzɛt͡sʊŋ]).

Loans of multi-word phrases, such as the English use of the French termdéjà vu,are known as adoptions, adaptations, or lexical borrowings.

Although colloquial andinformal registerloanwords are typically spread by word-of-mouth, technical or academic loanwords tend to be first used in written language, often for scholarly, scientific, or literary purposes.

The termssubstrateandsuperstrateare often used when two languages interact. However, the meaning of these terms is reasonably well-defined only in second language acquisition or language replacement events, when the native speakers of a certain source language (the substrate) are somehow compelled to abandon it for another target language (the superstrate).

AWanderwortis a word that has been borrowed across a wide range of languages remote from its original source; an example is the wordtea,which originated inHokkienbut has been borrowed into languages all over the world. For a sufficiently old Wanderwort, it may become difficult or impossible to determine in what language it actually originated.

Most of thetechnical vocabulary of classical music(such asconcerto,allegro,tempo,aria,opera,andsoprano) is borrowed fromItalian,and that ofballetfromFrench.Much of theterminologyof the sport offencingalso comes from French. Many loanwords come from prepared food, drink, fruits, vegetables, seafood and more from languages around the world. In particular, many come fromFrench cuisine(crêpe,Chantilly,crème brûlée),Italian(pasta,linguine,pizza,espresso), andChinese(dim sum,chow mein,wonton).

Linguistic classification

Loanwords are adapted from one language to another in a variety of ways. The studies byWerner Betz(1971, 1901),Einar Haugen(1958, also 1956), andUriel Weinreich(1963) are regarded as the classical theoretical works on loan influence.The basic theoretical statements all take Betz's nomenclature as their starting point. Duckworth (1977) enlarges Betz's scheme by the type "partial substitution" and supplements the system with English terms. A schematic illustration of these classifications is given below.

The phrase "foreign word" used in the image below is a mistranslation of the GermanFremdwort,which refers to loanwords whose pronunciation, spelling, inflection or gender have not been adapted to the new language such that they no longer seem foreign. Such a separation of loanwords into two distinct categories is not used by linguists in English in talking about any language. Basing such a separation mainly on spelling is (or, in fact, was) not common except amongst German linguists, and only when talking about German and sometimes other languages that tend to adapt foreign spellings, which is rare in English unless the word has been widely used for a long time.

According to the linguist Suzanne Kemmer, the expression "foreign word" can be defined as follows in English: "[W]hen most speakers do not know the word and if they hear it think it is from another language, the word can be called a foreign word. There are many foreign words and phrases used in English such as bon vivant (French), mutatis mutandis (Latin), and Schadenfreude (German)."This is not how the term is used in this illustration:

On the basis of an importation-substitution distinction, Haugen (1950: 214f.) distinguishes three basic groups of borrowings: "(1)Loanwordsshow morphemic importation without substitution.... (2)Loanblendsshow morphemic substitution as well as importation.... (3)Loanshiftsshow morphemic substitution without importation ". Haugen later refined (1956) his model in a review of Gneuss's (1955) book on Old English loan coinages, whose classification, in turn, is the one by Betz (1949) again.

Weinreich (1953: 47ff.) differentiates between two mechanisms of lexical interference, namely those initiated by simple words and those initiated by compound words and phrases. Weinreich (1953: 47) definessimple words"from the point of view of the bilinguals who perform the transfer, rather than that of the descriptive linguist. Accordingly, the category 'simple' words also includes compounds that are transferred in unanalysed form". After this general classification, Weinreich then resorts to Betz's (1949) terminology.

In English

The English language has borrowed many words from other cultures or languages. For examples, seeLists of English words by country or language of originandAnglicisation.

Some English loanwords remain relatively faithful to the original phonology even though a particularphonememight not exist or have contrastive status in English. For example, theHawaiianwordʻaʻāis used by geologists to specify lava that is thick, chunky, and rough. The Hawaiian spelling indicates the twoglottal stopsin the word, but the English pronunciation,/ˈɑː(ʔ)ɑː/,contains at most one. The English spelling usually removes theʻokinaandmacrondiacritics.

Most English affixes, such asun-,-ing,and-ly,were used in Old English. However, a few English affixes are borrowed. For example, the verbal suffix-ize(American English) orise(British English)comes from Greek -ιζειν (-izein) through Latin-izare.

Pronunciation often differs from the original language, occasionally dramatically, especially when dealing withplace names.This often leads to divergence when many speakers anglicize pronunciations as other speakers try to maintain the way the name would sound in the original language, as in thepronunciation of Louisville.

Languages other than English

Transmission in the Ottoman Empire

Backgammon and Dominos numbers in Ottoman Turkish, 1907 (seeTables game#Languages)

During more than 600 years of theOttoman Empire,the literary and administrative language of the empire wasTurkish,with manyPersianandArabicloanwords, calledOttoman Turkish,considerably differing from the everyday spoken Turkish of the time. Many such words were adopted by other languages of the empire, such asAlbanian,Bosnian,Bulgarian,Croatian,Greek,Hungarian,Ladino,Macedonian,MontenegrinandSerbian.After the empire fell afterWorld War Iand theRepublic of Turkeywas founded, the Turkish language underwent an extensivelanguage reformled by the newly foundedTurkish Language Association,during whichmany adopted wordswere replaced with new formations derived fromTurkicroots. That was part of the ongoing cultural reform of the time, in turn a part in the broader framework ofAtatürk's Reforms,which also included the introduction of the newTurkish Alpha bet.

Turkish also has taken many words fromFrench,such aspantolonfortrousers(from Frenchpantalon) andkomikforfunny(from Frenchcomique), most of them pronounced very similarly.

Word usage in modern Turkey has acquired a political tinge:right-wingpublications tend to use more Arabic-originated words,left-wingpublications use more words adopted from Indo-European languages such as Persian and French, while centrist publications use more native Turkish root words.

Dutch words in Indonesian

Almost 350 years of Dutch presence in what is nowIndonesiahave left significant linguistic traces. Though very few Indonesians have a fluent knowledge of Dutch, the Indonesian language inherited many words from Dutch, both in words for everyday life (e.g.,buncisfrom Dutchboontjesfor (green) beans) and as well in administrative, scientific or technological terminology (e.g.,kantorfrom Dutchkantoorfor office).The Professor of Indonesian Literature atLeiden University,and of Comparative Literature atUCR,argues that roughly 20% ofIndonesianwords can be traced back to Dutch words.

Dutch words in Russian

In the late 17th century, theDutch Republichad a leading position in shipbuilding. CzarPeter the Great,eager to improve his navy, studied shipbuilding inZaandamandAmsterdam.Many Dutch naval terms have been incorporated in the Russian vocabulary, such asбра́мсель(brámselʹ) from Dutchbramzeilfor thetopgallant sail,домкра́т(domkrát) from Dutchdommekrachtforjack,andматро́с(matrós) from Dutchmatroosfor sailor.

Romance languages

A large percentage of the lexicon ofRomance languages,themselves descended fromVulgar Latin,consists of loanwords (laterlearned or scholarly borrowings) from Latin. These words can be distinguished by lack of typical sound changes and other transformations found in descended words, or by meanings taken directly fromClassicalorEcclesiastical Latinthat did not evolve or change over time as expected; in addition, there are also semi-learned terms which were adapted partially to the Romance language's character. Latin borrowings can be known by several names in Romance languages: in French, for example, they are usually referred to asmots savants,in Spanish ascultismos,and in Italian aslatinismi.

Latin is usually the most common source of loanwords in these languages, such as in Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, etc.,and in some cases the total number of loans may even outnumber inherited terms(although the learned borrowings are less often used in common speech, with the most common vocabulary being of inherited, orally transmitted origin from Vulgar Latin). This has led to many cases of etymologicaldoubletsin these languages.

For most Romance languages, these loans were initiated by scholars, clergy, or other learned people and occurred in Medieval times, peaking in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance era- in Italian, the 14th century had the highest number of loans.In the case of Romanian, the language underwent a "re-Latinization" process later than the others (seeRomanian lexis,Romanian language § French, Italian, and English loanwords), in the 18th and 19th centuries, partially using French and Italian words (many of these themselves being earlier borrowings from Latin) as intermediaries,in an effort to modernize the language, often adding concepts that did not exist until then, or replacing words of other origins. These common borrowings and features also essentially serve to raise mutual intelligibility of the Romance languages, particularly in academic/scholarly, literary, technical, and scientific domains. Many of these same words are also found in English (through its numerous borrowings from Latin and French) and other European languages.

In addition to Latin loanwords, many words of Ancient Greek origin were also borrowed into Romance languages, often in part through scholarly Latin intermediates, and these also often pertained to academic, scientific, literary, and technical topics. Furthermore, to a lesser extent, Romance languages borrowed from a variety of other languages; in particular English has become an important source in more recent times. The study of the origin of these words and their function and context within the language can illuminate some important aspects and characteristics of the language, and it can reveal insights on the phenomenon of lexical borrowing in linguistics as a method of enriching a language.

Cultural aspects

According toHans Henrich Hockand Brian Joseph, "languages and dialects... do not exist in a vacuum": there is always linguistic contact between groups.The contact influences what loanwords are integrated into the lexicon and which certain words are chosen over others.

Leaps in meaning

In some cases, the original meaning shifts considerably through unexpected logical leaps, creatingfalse friends.The English wordVikingbecame Japaneseバイキング(baikingu), meaning "buffet", because the first restaurant in Japan to offerbuffet-style meals, inspired by the Nordicsmörgåsbord,was opened in 1958 by the Imperial Hotel under the name "Viking".The German wordKachel,meaning "tile", became the Dutch wordkachelmeaning "stove", as a shortening ofkacheloven,from GermanKachelofen,acocklestove.The Indonesian wordmansetprimarily means "base layer", "inner bolero", or "detachable sleeve", while its French etymonmanchettemeans "cuff".

See also

• Bilingual pun
• Hybrid word
• Inkhorn term
• Language contact
• Neologism
• Phono-semantic matching
• Reborrowing
• Semantic loan

Sources

• Best, Karl-Heinz, Kelih, Emmerich (eds.) (2014):Entlehnungen und Fremdwörter: Quantitative Aspekte.Lüdenscheid: RAM-Verlag.
• Betz, Werner (1949):Deutsch und Lateinisch: Die Lehnbildungen der althochdeutschen Benediktinerregel.Bonn: Bouvier.
• Betz, Werner (1959): "Lehnwörter und Lehnprägungen im Vor- und Frühdeutschen". In: Maurer, Friedrich / Stroh, Friedrich (eds.):Deutsche Wortgeschichte.2nd ed. Berlin: Schmidt, vol. 1, 127–147.
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• Duckworth, David (1977): "Zur terminologischen und systematischen Grundlage der Forschung auf dem Gebiet der englisch-deutschen Interferenz: Kritische Übersicht und neuer Vorschlag". In: Kolb, Herbert / Lauffer, Hartmut (eds.) (1977): Sprachliche Interferenz: Festschrift für Werner Betz zum 65. Geburtstag. Tübingen: Niemeyer, p. 36–56.
• Gneuss, Helmut (1955):Lehnbildungen und Lehnbedeutungen im Altenglischen.Berlin: Schmidt.
• Grzega, Joachim(2003):"Borrowing as a Word-Finding Process in Cognitive Historical Onomasiology",Onomasiology Online4, 22–42.
• Grzega, Joachim (2004):Bezeichnungswandel: Wie, Warum, Wozu?Heidelberg: Winter.
• Haugen, Einar (1950):"The analysis of linguistic borrowing".Language,26(2), 210–231.
• Haugen, Einar. (1956): [Review ofLehnbildungen und Lehnbedeutungen im Altenglischen,by H. Gneuss].Language,32(4), 761–766.
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• Kersley, Leo; Sinclair, Janet (1979),A Dictionary of Ballet Terms,Da Capo Press,ISBN978-0-306-80094-8.
• Koch, Peter (2002): "Lexical Typology from a Cognitive and Linguistic Point of View". In: Cruse, D. Alan et al. (eds.):Lexicology: An International on the Nature and Structure of Words and Vocabularies/Lexikologie: Ein internationales Handbuch zur Natur und Struktur von Wörtern und Wortschätzen.Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1142–1178.
• Oksaar, Els (1996): "The history of contact linguistics as a discipline". In: Goebl, Hans et al. (eds.):Kontaktlinguistik/contact linguistics/linguistique de contact: ein internationales Handbuch zeitgenössischer Forschung/an international handbook of contemporary research/manuel international des recherches contemporaines.Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1–12.
• Shanet, Howard (1956),Learn to Read Music,New York: Simon & Schuster,ISBN978-0-671-21027-4.
• Stanforth, Anthony W. (2002): "Effects of language contact on the vocabulary: an overview". In: Cruse, D. Alan et al. (eds.) (2002): Lexikologie: ein internationales Handbuch zur Natur und Struktur von Wörtern und Wortschätzen/Lexicology: an international handbook on the nature and structure of words and vocabularies. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, p. 805–813.
• Zuckermann, Ghil'ad(2003),Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew,Houndmills:Palgrave Macmillan,(ISBN978-1-4039-3869-5)

External links

• World Loanword Database (WOLD)
• AfBo: A world-wide survey of affix borrowing
• Daghestanian loans database