Linguistics

Questions tagged [borrowing]

Ask Question

When words are taken from one language and incorporated into another.

83 questions
Newest
Active
Bountied
Unanswered
Filter by
Sorted by
Tagged with
0
votes
0answers
76 views

Percentage of Latin loanwords in northern Germanic languages

What is the percentage of Latin loanwords or words that are of ultimate Latin origin even from intermediate languages in each of the northern Germanic languages? I have noticed that there seem to be ...
0
votes
1answer
70 views

Compound English word with most etymologies

There are many English words with two different core etymologies, often Latin + Greek. For example: Claustrophobia – from the Latin claustrum meaning "confined space" and Greek φόβος (...
1
vote
1answer
143 views

Examples for calque / loan-translation words with different meanings in different languages

Are there words/phrases/compound-words in two different languages that use the same words in their respective languages (like a calque / loan translation) but result in different meanings? Here is a ...
0
votes
0answers
34 views

Formal terms for pronunciations of loanwords in source and recipient languages?

If they exist, what are formal terms meaning "pronunciation of a loanword in the donor language" and "pronunciation of a loanword in the recipient language"? In shorter terms, the ...
2
votes
2answers
403 views

Words with "hybrid" declension (in Latin, or borrowed by English from Latin)?

There is a recently-coined technical usage (in mathematics) of the word "anima", borrowed from Latin to English. The funny thing about this coinage is that the coin-ers of the term insist on ...
3
votes
0answers
78 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 ...
1
vote
1answer
107 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 ...
1
vote
1answer
193 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
222 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 ...
3
votes
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 (...
-3
votes
1answer
53 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? ...
-1
votes
1answer
128 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
votes
1answer
374 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
votes
1answer
138 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
votes
2answers
219 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) ...
1
vote
2answers
837 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
votes
3answers
189 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
votes
2answers
932 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
votes
3answers
197 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
257 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
186 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
vote
1answer
422 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
votes
1answer
74 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-...
2
votes
3answers
131 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 ...
5
votes
3answers
423 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 ...
7
votes
2answers
368 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 ...
5
votes
4answers
279 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
votes
1answer
287 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 "...
9
votes
4answers
552 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
votes
2answers
300 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-...
1
vote
3answers
223 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 ...
10
votes
4answers
556 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 "...
4
votes
1answer
55 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 ...
0
votes
2answers
203 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
119 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
votes
1answer
298 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 ...
1
vote
2answers
314 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
votes
1answer
152 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 ...
2
votes
3answers
2k views

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
370 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
votes
1answer
97 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 ...
1
vote
2answers
223 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
votes
2answers
5k 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
votes
2answers
288 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
votes
1answer
524 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, ...
3
votes
1answer
172 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
vote
1answer
120 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
242 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
178 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 ...
1
vote
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 ...

1
2

Your privacy

By clicking “Accept all cookies”, you agree Stack Exchange can store cookies on your device and disclose information in accordance with our Cookie Policy.