Questions tagged [borrowing]
When words are taken from one language and incorporated into another.
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questions
3
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0answers
68 views
Germanic loanwords in Czech? The case of “lék” [duplicate]
Recently I started studying Czech and I learned the word "lék", pill/medicine and "lékař", doctor/physician. In Polish there is a similar one. They bear a superficial resemblance ...
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1answer
94 views
Why is direct affix borrowing generally thought to be impossible?
F. Seifart (Seifart, 2015) says:
"a widespread assumption in the language contact literature is that
affixes are never borrowed directly, but only indirectly, that is, as
part of complex ...
0
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0answers
57 views
Is the Turkish word for brother(kardeş) of Indo-Iranian origin?
I looked up the word for "brother" in other Turkish languages. In Ubzek it is aka. And in Volga Tatar the corresponding word is abi. The word "kardesh" sounds suspiciously similar ...
3
votes
1answer
131 views
Similarities between Sumerian and Semitic languages
I noticed that the Sumerian words for mother and father, ama and abba respectively, are very similar to the Hebrew words for mother and father, being ema and abba respectively. Given that Sumerian is ...
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4answers
3k views
Why does English have words from Latin and none from Celtic?
It is known that Britain's history of invasion goes as: Celtic arrival, Roman domination, Saxon settlement, Nordic settlement, Norman invasion.
If England's identity was largely made from the Saxons (...
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1answer
49 views
Combine flexibility + ism , how ? thanks [closed]
I want to use the word flexibility in an "ism" form. I have two possible forms in mind but sure which one is better:
flexibilism
flexibiltyism
Which of the above forms is correct?
...
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1answer
114 views
Why hasn't English borrowed more words from China? [closed]
Why hasn't English (or Latin/Greek/others from which English arrived) borrowed more words from China? I am looking at Wikipedia and there's probably only 30 words there out of the millions of words ...
5
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1answer
207 views
Did the Portuguese influence how days of the week are named in Vietnamese and Chinese?
The Portuguese were some of the first colonizers / missionaries in the Far East. In the case of Vietnam, they created the first phonetic transcription of the language. Interestingly, nowadays the ...
0
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1answer
125 views
Pronunciation and spelling of English loanwords in Japanese
The word for allergy in Japanese is アレルギ (pronounced "a/re/ru/gi")
The first three characters are typical for words borrowed from English, but why is the last sound "gi" instead of "ji"? Is this word ...
7
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2answers
163 views
Is it normal for only one verb class to be productive in Indo-European languages?
In another question on this site, there is some discussion on the view that the so-called "strong verb" class in English is no longer "productive" - that is, newly formed or coined words (neologisms) ...
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2answers
409 views
Loanwords with different meanings from original language?
First, let me say this questions is asking only about fairly recent loanwords (as in, the word (or something similar to it) exists in both languages). I'm not asking about very old loanwords that may ...
4
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3answers
174 views
Is there a specific linguistic term for the following practice of constructing new words/characters?
I have in mind examples such as the Scheingallizismus (lit. appearance of Gallicism) in German which are words/phrases constructed from French origins but are themselves unknown in French speaking ...
3
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2answers
504 views
Etymology of Romanian “amor” (cf. “iubire”)
I found it interesting to learn that Romanian borrowed this word from a Slavic language as well as the verb "a iubi". I also discovered that the word "amor" is present in Romanian but apparently it ...
9
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3answers
187 views
Do dead languages borrow words?
So, presumably, at some point during of after the fall of the Roman Empire, Latin became a dead language. Or, at least no longer used outside of the Church or science. When that happens to a language, ...
5
votes
1answer
239 views
Why do French words tend to become so much more intense in English?
My knowledge of French is very rudimentary, but one common theme I noticed in English words borrowed from French is that their meaning becomes so much more intense.
To give just a few examples,
...
3
votes
2answers
169 views
How do you call a languages tendency to adopt foreign words rather than translate them to their language?
One difference between Mandarin Chinese and Japanese is that the former likes to translate foreign terms, while Japanese prefers to transcribe them to Japanese.
E.g. Basketball:
Mandarin Chinese: 篮球 (...
1
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1answer
304 views
What is a loan creation?
How is it different from a loanword? One example given was mitkind created on stimulus of English sibling. Does this mean mitkind is a new word but with a foreign sense? Is there such thing as loaning ...
0
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1answer
68 views
Is there any specific term for "English-originated?
I'm working on an academic writing in English, but as a non-native speaker, I feel lacking of vocabulary.
When a word has its origin in the Chinese language, we use the term 'Sino-' such as Sino-...
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3answers
115 views
What is it called when a new word is replaced by a more familiar one?
I mean the phenomenon that happens when a language borrows a word, but it gets replaced by a similar-sounding word that is already in the language like from Spanish 'aguacate' to 'avocado' or 'echeque ...
4
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3answers
300 views
How do people deal with loanwords with highly alien phonemes?
I've been thinking about how a people who speak a language without rhotics would perceive a rhotic sound. Obviously of course, this would depend on exactly which rhotic we're talking about. I thought ...
6
votes
2answers
286 views
Why does Hebrew transcribe Akkadian š inconsistently?
Biblical Hebrew consistently uses the letter ס (s) to transcribe names with the Akkadian consonant š. For example, Esarhaddon for Aššur-aḥa-iddina, Esther from Ištar, Sargon from Šarru-ukīn (all ...
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4answers
230 views
Which languages have absorbed the most vocabulary from Russian, and which languages have influenced its vocabulary?
I'm a student of formal linguistics and Russian language, my question has been surprisingly hard to google -- I've studied a little Ukrainian, and I've read that its structurally similar to Russian ...
5
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1answer
234 views
Sami loanwords in Swedish language [closed]
Are there any words in Swedish borrowed directly from Sami languages? Excluding proper nouns.
One example would be enough for "yes" answer. A link to some research on related subject is required for "...
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4answers
466 views
Borrowing words along with the articles or other grammatical parts (like Spanish from Arabic)
Disclaimer: I do not know Arabic.
Here is an example of Spanish words of Arabic origin: alacrán, albañil, alquimia...
I wonder why Spanish language borrowed so many Arabic words along with the ...
3
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2answers
235 views
Does Sanskrit really have a large proportion of borrowings from non IE stock?
A comment on an answer to anoher question about Lithuanian suggests that 'quite a large number of words was borrowed from non-IE languages'.
While some words in Sanskrit indeed seem to have Fenno-...
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3answers
208 views
Greek words with initial “ia” instead of “a” [closed]
Greek verbs with initial #i+H4-
from Arnaud Fournet (May 2017)
*H4eH4- ‘to heal, guard’:
(1)Hurrian a-tt- ‘to guard, protect’
(2) Greek ἰάομαι ‘to heal’ < *y-ā-
(3) The question : why "ia" instead ...
9
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4answers
510 views
Languages preserving loanword inflections
Erudite English has an interesting practice where the plural form of loanwords may follow the inflectional grammar of the source language. Thus "campi" as well as "campuses", "minima" as well as "...
3
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1answer
49 views
Can anybody recommend some textbooks/articles that deal with the adaption of loan words into Spanish?
I'm doing a phonology project on Spanish and one of the components is describing how the language adapts loanwords. I'm particularly interested in Arabic loanwords and how they are adapted as I ...
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2answers
177 views
Why are some words to express country names different between Chinese and Japanese?
In some countries, their principal chinese characters are represented differently between Chinese and Japanese. For example,
意 vs 伊 (Italy)
法 vs 仏 (France)
德 vs 独 (Germany)
That being said, there ...
0
votes
2answers
108 views
Is the the Turkish word kin 'hate, venom etc' restricted to Anatolian-Turkish only?
The word kin 'hate, venom, spite' is quite unusual and took my attention for its meaning 'venom'. Is it an Anatolian-Turkish/Azeri only word or is it common in other Turkic languages? Does anyone know ...
3
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1answer
257 views
In Arabic loanwords, why does Persian change the short vowels with different vowels instead of matching them with long counterparts?
Classical Arabic (4th-9th century) short vowels are /a/, /u/, and /i/, and long vowels are /a:/, /u:/, and /i:/.
New Persian (1000-1200 years old) short vowels are /æ/, /o/, and /e/, and long vowels ...
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2answers
269 views
Word classification and labeling
I got myself in a controversial discussion on word classification. To my knowledge words can be classified as a) inherited from a parent language, b) inherited substrate words, c) a result of ...
7
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1answer
137 views
Term for borrowing an inflected form as an uninflected form
Sometimes when a word is borrowed from one language to another, what is an inflected form in the source language becomes an uninflected form in the target language. Examples of this are the Italian ...
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3answers
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Which of 可爱/可愛い was exported to the other between Chinese and Japanese?
In Chinese (Mandarin), there exists a word 可爱 that means "pretty" or "cute" in English. In Japanese, there is also a word 可愛い (adjective) that means the same thing in English.
Given that both words ...
6
votes
2answers
342 views
Historical development of English pronunciation(s) of “hygiene”
I have a two-part question about the pronunciation of hygiene in English. The usual pronunciation, as shown by a variety of online dictionaries accessible from OneLook Dictionary Search, is /...
0
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1answer
95 views
Name of the act of borrowing linguistic concepts from different languages
What is the term for concepts that got translated from one language or another?
I've heard this term in a conversation about Czech Anglicisms such like: "Mějte hezký den." - the literal version of ...
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2answers
205 views
What factors influence the way we adapt loanwords into English?
If someone pronounces "pizza" as /piːzə/ instead of /pitsə/, we'd surely raise an eyebrow at them. But few people (that I know personally) mind when we pronounce "tagliatelle" with a hard G (I wasn't ...
3
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2answers
3k views
Why are raccoons called “washbears” in many languages?
Examples of words that literally mean "washbear" can be found here. This is apparently due to the fact that raccoons just love to wash things so much. But is it just a coincidence that many languages ...
2
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2answers
279 views
Other languages that borrow as promiscuously as English?
I've heard people say that the reason English is such a great language is that it's enriched itself by stealing so promiscuously from other languages. The image I get of English is that she's like the ...
5
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1answer
442 views
What phonological process changes е to ё in Russian?
I've been studying Russian for years now, but the one thing that I can't seem to wrap my mind around is why would the sound е je come to be pronounced like ё jo in certain circumstances?
Obviously, ...
2
votes
1answer
151 views
Why do loanwords tend to be more polite, formal, technical, etc. than native words?
Why do loanwords tend to be more polite, formal, technical, etc. than native words? I've noticed that native words in my language, especially those that refer to body waste and genitals, tend to be ...
1
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1answer
73 views
Treatment of final E's in loanwords to English
Karaoke (from Japanese), simile (from Latin), tu quoque (Latin), apostrophe (Ancient Greek via Latin), machete (Spanish), and other loanwords with final E sounds all end up with an /i/ at the end.
...
2
votes
1answer
187 views
Why are the Turkeys name in reference to other cultures?
Introduction
After being literally translated into english, the name of the Turkey (bird) follow some interesting pattern.
In english, they are called "Turkey".
In turkish, they are called "Hindi".
...
6
votes
1answer
161 views
c- in Irish clann “offspring”
Irish clann "plant; offspring; child" (the source of English clan) is borrowed from Welsh plant with the same meanings, which is itself a borrowing of Latin planta. Why did Irish change the initial p ...
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2answers
1k views
How did the name for st Peter become to be rendered as “Peter” in English, and why is not rendered as “stone” or “rock”
As I understand it, in the original bible passage, Jesus says to Peter "And I tell you that you are Petros, and on this petra I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it"
And ...
3
votes
1answer
173 views
English & Competing Borrowings: How many “pre-Norman” loanwords are known to have been replaced by “post-Hastings” ones?
What I am looking for:
As my question suggests, I'm interested in words English has adopted from other languages. More specifically, I'm interested in old Celtic or Scandinavian (or other) loanwords ...
2
votes
2answers
332 views
Base language of Mitanni Texts
I was going through the sources for early indo-iranian and according to B. Fortson the first documented manifestation of this branch are the proper names in Mitanni Texts. Since the indo-iranian word ...
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6answers
3k views
Examples of Borrowing Languages
In the Wikipedia page History of the English language it is mentioned that English is a "borrowing language", with the implication that there are many loan words in English. What other languages may ...
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5answers
442 views
Has any language ever borrowed an interrogative or relative pronoun?
One of the lexical similarities between reconstructed Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Uralic is in the interrogative and relative pronouns. For the former, in PIE there's a family of interrogatives ...
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2answers
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Did Uralic borrow basic vocabulary from PIE, and if so why?
This section of the Wikipedia article on laryngeal theory lists proposed IE-to-Uralic loanwords containing laryngeals. Several of these have quite basic meanings: "woman", "person", "do", "give", "go"....
