Questions tagged [language-contact]
Interaction of two languages, often leading to changes in one or both languages.
22 questions
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Could the Romanian gând/gândi (thought/think) be ultimately of Latin and/or Albanian origin?
A gândi is in modern Romanian the common/main form of the verb "to think", based on the noun gând ("thought"). It is considered of Hungarian origin, from "gond".
I don't ...
- 780
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"Turkic Esperanto" spoken in the Soviet army
Michael Korotkow, the author of the language learning book Kirgisisch Wort für Wort mentions in the introduction of that book that there was a Turkic Esperanto used by people of different Turkic ...
- 31.1k
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How common is it for languages in contact to exchange inflectional morphemes?
So languages in contact will of course borrow vocabulary from each other. And languages in contact for a really long time might converge on a common sentence structure or other morphological typology -...
- 600
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Possible influence of Phoenician on local dialects in the British Isles during the Iron Age
I'm very interested in the possible influence of Phoenician, specifically, on local dialects in the British Isles during the Iron Age. I'm curious about any historical and linguistic evidence that may ...
- 61
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An East Asian sprachbund?
I wonder whether it makes sense to consider the east Asian languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and potentially others) as part of a sprachbund, like the European languages in standard ...
- 729
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Why are mixed languages so rare?
It seems to be an established fact that mixed languages are rare, and that most languages can be classified as belonging to some family. And this seems to be true; for example, in the former ...
- 729
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Is there any superstrate influence of Old East Norse left in East Slavic languages?
The word "Russia" is derived from the name "Rus", the name of a Viking tribe originating from Sweden who ended up founding kingdoms in what is now Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, most notably the so-...
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Is there any evidence of language contact between the Inuit and Ainu languages?
The Eskimo-Aleut and Ainu languages were historically spoken in the same region (near the Kamchatka Peninsula), and they share some features that are common in Paleo-Siberian languages, including ...
- 249
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Can two close languages be merged?
For example: Norwegian and Danish are very close. If for some reason, Norwegian and Danish people live together in the same place, after a certain time, they'll speak the same language, will they?
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- 353
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How effective is linguistics at tracking trade routes?
Is anyone aware of any studies done that show the effectiveness of using linguistics as a means of identifying trade between civilizations. I'll provide this example for what I mean:
I have been told ...
- 203
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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 ...
- 992
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Are there any words understood by speakers of any language in the world?
Are there any words probably understood by “everyone” in the world?
I understand that this question needs multiple clarifications, including the following:
By a 'word' I mean a word used in the ...
- 651
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512
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Language shift because of contact or interest
Are there any examples of language shift, where population A changes language because of contacts with population B? I am not looking about examples where population A was conquered or colonized by B. ...
- 2,572
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Influence of Polish and Czech on the phonology of German dialects
German has for more than 1000 years been in contact with West Slavic languages, notably Polish and Czech. This is highly likely to have led to borrowing or interference between these languages, in ...
- 4,289
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Dental fricatives for Brazilian Portuguese speakers
Whenever I observe my fellow Brazilian countrymen learning to speak English, a clear sound change pattern stands out:
[θ] → [f]
[ð] → [d], syllable-initial
[f], syllable-final
So, for example,...
- 8,228
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To what extent do African dialects of Italian differ from their European counterparts?
According to Wikipedia, Italian is spoken to some degree in Libya, Eritrea and Federal Republic of Somalia.
Are there in Africa any clearly different varieties of this language which have distinct ...
- 2,779
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Are there any loanwords between Turkish and Armenian?
In the Ottoman Empire, both Turks and Armenians shared common social and cultural domains, but are there any loanwords in either language from either side - i.e. Turkish loanwords in Armenian or ...
- 2,779
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What is probable origin of Basque word for city/town?
The Basque word for 'town/city' is hiri, with mute H. Could its origin be in Middle Eastern languages with its subsequent incorporation into Basque through the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia?
There is ...
- 2,779
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Are there any linguistic factors that influence the degree to which a language accepts loanwords?
Obviously, the degree to which loanwords enter a language is highly influenced by culture - for instance, a community which has a lot of contact with another culture, through which many new objects / ...
- 487
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Is there any case of a "convergent language family"?
As far as I know, language families originate from a process of divergent, tree-like evolution. All the languages within a family or subfamily can be traced back to the same proto-language, which was ...
- 8,228
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Was there a Semitic influence on Proto-Germanic?
One of the hypotheses supported by Theo Vennemann and other linguists is that Proto-Germanic was influenced by some Semitic language. The evidence they present for their case includes:
Loss of some ...
- 8,228
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Do languages borrow morphemes?
It is clear that languages can borrow words and even syntax from other languages but do they borrow morphemes?
For example, the English morpheme -ation has a very specific usage in Portuguese. It is ...
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