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An anglicism is a word or construction borrowed from English by another language. With the rise in
Anglophone Speakers of English are also known as Anglophones, and the countries where English is natively spoken by the majority of the population are termed the ''Anglosphere''. Over two billion people speak English , making English the largest language ...
media and the global spread of British and US cultures in the 20th and 21st centuries, many English terms have become widespread in other languages. Technology-related English words like ''internet'' and ''computer'' are prevalent across the globe, as there are no pre-existing words for them. English words are sometimes imported verbatim and sometimes adapted to the importing language in a process similar to anglicisation. In languages with non-
Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...
s, these borrowed words can be written in the Latin alphabet anyway, resulting in a text made up of a mixture of scripts; other times they are
transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → o ...
. Transliteration of English and other foreign words into Japanese generally uses the
katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fro ...
script. In some countries, such anglicisation is seen as relatively benign, and the use of English words may even take on a '' chic'' aspect. In Japan, marketing products for the domestic market often involves using English or pseudo-English
brand name A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...
s and
slogan A slogan is a memorable motto or phrase used in a clan, political, commercial, religious, and other context as a repetitive expression of an idea or purpose, with the goal of persuading members of the public or a more defined target group. Th ...
s. In other countries, anglicisation is seen much more negatively, and there are efforts by public-interest groups and governments to reverse the trend. It is also important to note that while the word ''anglicism'' is rooted in the word English, the process does not necessarily denote anglicisms from England. It can also involve terms or words from all varieties of English so that it becomes necessary to use the term Americanism for the loan words originating from the United States.


Definitions

Definitions of anglicism differ significantly across various fields. The word is employed in various situations of language contact. The criteria for being considered an anglicism by the ''Usage Dictionary of Anglicisms in Selected European Languages'' are as follows: a loanword that is recognisably English in form with regards to spelling, pronunciation and morphology. In this specific sense, loan translations and calques are excluded (as well as words that are etymologically derived from languages related to modern French). Some see anglicisms as harmless and useful, others perceive them as bad influences to be countered. Other definitions of anglicism include: a word or construction peculiar to English; a word or phrase that is peculiar to
British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Oxford Dictionaries, "English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadly ...
; or English syntax, grammar, or meaning transposed in another language resulting in incorrect language use or incorrect translation.


Adaptation

A number of scholars agree that for anglicism to take place, adaptation must first occur such as in the case of the integration of a great number of anglicisms in Europe. Fischer said that it is similar to neologism in the sense that it completes several phases of integration, which include: 1) the beginning, when it is still new and not known to many speakers; 2) the phase where it begins to spread and take part in the process of institutionalization; and, 3) the word becomes part of the common core of the language. There are experts who propose a more detailed framework such as the model of anglicism adaptation that transpires on four levels: orthographic, phonological, morphological, and semantic.


By language


Chinese

These are English terms, expressions, or concepts that have been absorbed into the Chinese language, including any of its varieties, and should not be confused with
Chinglish Chinglish is slang for spoken or written English language that is either influenced by a Chinese language, or is poorly translated. In Hong Kong, Macau, Guangdong and Guangxi, the term "Chinglish" refers mainly to Cantonese-influenced English. ...
, the variety of the English language used by native Chinese speakers. The origins of Chinese anglicisms vary, one of the most common being those obtained by
phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
borrowing. For example, a "
bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...
" (, in
Mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...
or
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
) is usually called in Hong Kong and
Macao Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a po ...
because its
Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...
pronunciation is similar to its English counterpart. Another type of anglicism is syntactic anglicism, when a sentence is rendered following the English
word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...
instead of the standard Chinese word order; for example, the word for "
network Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...
" is or , where can be translated as "net".


Finnish

The anglicisms can be divided to four types: direct phonetic imitation, lexical and grammatical
calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language w ...
s, and contamination of orthography. Official language (as given by the Language Planning Office) deprecates Anglicisms, and for the most part, native constructions are sufficient even in
spoken language A spoken language is a language produced by articulate sounds or (depending on one's definition) manual gestures, as opposed to a written language. An oral language or vocal language is a language produced with the vocal tract in contrast with a s ...
. Nevertheless, some anglicisms creep in. Computer jargon is generally full of direct imitation, e.g. "swap". Other jargons with abundant anglicisms are pop music, scifi, gaming, fashion, automobile and to some extent scientific jargon. This is regarded a sign of overspecialization, if used outside the context of the jargon. Generally, direct imitation is not as common, but there are examples. For example, the word ''sexy'' , pronounced with an Y unlike in English , might be used as an adjective. This is teenager-specific. Lexical calques take an English expression, like ''
killer application In marketing terminology, a killer application (commonly shortened to killer app) is any computer program or software that is so necessary or desirable that it proves the core value of some larger technology, such as computer hardware, a video gam ...
'', and produce , which does mean "an application that kills" just as in English. Readers need to know the equivalent English term to understand this. Some speakers, especially those in frequent contact with the English language have created a grammatical calque of the English ''you''-impersonal. The English impersonal utilizes the second person pronoun ''you'', e.g. ''You can't live if you don't eat''. Here, the word ''you'' does not refer explicitly to the listener, but signifies a general statement. The same example is rendered in Finnish as , where a separate grammatical impersonal (also known as ) is used. When translated word-by-word, , it will refer directly to the listener. Here the contraction of spoken language is used instead of the of spoken language. Then, ''you'' will need to understand that it is an anglicism, or ''you'' can be offended by the commanding "You there!" tone produced. (There are also native examples of the same construction, so the origin of this piece of grammar may not always be English.) An English orthographical convention is that compound words are written separately, whereas in Finnish, compound words are written together, using a hyphen with acronyms and numbers. In Finnish, and would be correct, but ''process engineering'' or ''Intel 80286 processor'' would not. Failure to join the words or omitting the hyphen can be either an honest mistake, or contamination from English. Another orthographical convention is that English words tend to be written as the originals. For example, the computer jargon term from ''to chat'' is written as (chat +
frequentative In grammar, a frequentative form (abbreviated or ) of a word is one that indicates repeated action but is not to be confused with iterative aspect. The frequentative form can be considered a separate but not completely independent word called a ...
), even if it is pronounced . The forms or are used, too. Sometimes, it is even standard language, e.g. , instead of according to English pronunciation .


French

A distinction is made between well-established English borrowings into French, and other words and structures regarded as incorrect. The term is often pejorative, carries a large amount of political weight, and frequently denotes an excessive use of English in the French language. French has many words of English origin for which the English roots are unknown or unrecognized due to a lack of salience or the length of time since the borrowing took place, as well as other words which are seen as English but that are well accepted as part of French (e.g., ''parking'', ''week-end''). Other examples include (pronounced ), (meaning "public square"), and (meaning " melancholy" rather than the organ). These are not considered anglicisms but are fully accepted as French words by the Académie Française. Occasionally governments and linguistic institutions of both
Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirteen ...
and France have undertaken strenuous efforts to eradicate anglicisms, often by suggesting French replacements with French phonology and morphology. Although efforts in Quebec have been met with some success (e.g., for ), attempts by the Académie have largely been unsuccessful. Sociolinguists have attributed these failures to the general inability of linguistic institutions to enforce a linguistic norm. The Académie regularly updates a list of prescribed linguistic norms, many of which include using suggested French replacements instead of anglicisms (e.g., for ). Replacements have taken many different forms. For example, in
Quebec French Quebec French (french: français québécois ), also known as Québécois French, is the predominant variety of the French language spoken in Canada. It is the dominant language of the province of Quebec, used in everyday communication, in educ ...
, the
portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsneologism A neologism Ancient_Greek.html"_;"title="_from_Ancient_Greek">Greek_νέο-_''néo''(="new")_and_λόγος_/''lógos''_meaning_"speech,_utterance"is_a_relatively_recent_or_isolated_term,_word,_or_phrase_that_may_be_in_the_process_of_entering_com ...
is a word coined from the words ("keyboard") and ("chat"). Other replacements have various forms created by the Académie and
office québécois de la langue française The (, OQLF; en, Quebec Board of the French Language) is a public organization established on 24 March 1961, by the Liberal government of Jean Lesage. Attached to the , its initial mission, defined in its report of 1 April 1964, was "to align ...
. Quebec French and
Metropolitan French French of France () is the predominant variety of the French language in France, Andorra and Monaco, in its formal and informal registers. It has, for a long time, been associated with Standard French. It is now seen as a variety of French along ...
tend to have entirely different anglicisms for historical reasons. Quebec French acquired its anglicisms in a gradual process of linguistic borrowing resulting from linguistic contact with English speakers for the roughly 250 years since the
Battle of the Plains of Abraham The Battle of the Plains of Abraham, also known as the Battle of Quebec (french: Bataille des Plaines d'Abraham, Première bataille de Québec), was a pivotal battle in the Seven Years' War (referred to as the French and Indian War to describe ...
of 1759. Metropolitan French, on the other hand, mostly adopted its anglicisms in recent decades due to the post-Second World War international dominance of English, or the rise of
English as a lingua franca English as a lingua franca (ELF) is the use of the English language "as a global means of inter-community communication" and can be understood as "''any use of English among speakers of different first languages for whom English is the communica ...
. Due to the differences in English borrowings between Canada and France, the people of Quebec and France often consider each other's anglicisms to be incorrect or humorous, while considering their own to be perfectly normal. An example of a Metropolitan French anglicism not used in Quebec French: * : short for , but pronounced like the English word "sweet" An example of a Quebec French anglicism not used in France; * : to
French kiss A French kiss, also known as cataglottism or a tongue kiss, is an amorous kiss in which the participants' tongues extend to touch each other's lips or tongue. A kiss with the tongue stimulates the partner's lips, tongue and mouth, which are sens ...
The social meaning and acceptance of anglicisms also differs from country to country due to the differences in the historical relationship to French. In Quebec, anglicisms are never used in formal documentation (government papers, instruction sheets) and very rarely used in informal writing (magazines, journals). In 1993, the French passed the legislation which forbids the use of anglicisms (or those from other languages) in commercial and government publications. In both countries, wherever the use of an anglicism is unavoidable, it is often written in
italics In typography, italic type is a cursive font based on a stylised form of calligraphic handwriting. Owing to the influence from calligraphy, italics normally slant slightly to the right. Italics are a way to emphasise key points in a printed tex ...
or in quotations. Various anglicisms are largely differentiated on the way in which they entered the language. One type of anglicism is a
calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language w ...
, or a direct translation from English. For example, the
valediction A valediction (derivation from Latin ''vale dicere'', "to say farewell"), or complimentary close in American English, is an expression used to say farewell, especially a word or phrase used to end a letter or message,semantic field In linguistics, a semantic field is a lexical set of words grouped semantically (by meaning) that refers to a specific subject.Howard Jackson, Etienne Zé Amvela, ''Words, Meaning, and Vocabulary'', Continuum, 2000, p14. The term is also used in ...
, referring not just to the game of golf, but also to a golf course, as in (trans: "were going to the golf course"). Anglicism is a political term and does not necessarily indicate the etymology or history of the word itself. Rather, it indicates the common attitudes and perceptions about the (theoretically English) history of the word. For example, because English itself borrowed a great amount of French vocabulary after the
Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conqu ...
, some anglicisms are actually Old French words that dropped from usage in French over the centuries but were preserved in English and have now come full circle back into French. For instance, one attested origin of the verb "to flirt" cites influence from the Old French expression , which means "to (try to) seduce". Other possible origins for the word include , E. Frisian (a flick or light stroke), and E. Frisian (a giddy girl). This expression is no longer used in French, but the English
Gallicism A Gallicism can be: * a mode of speech peculiar to the French; * a French idiom; * in general, a French mode or custom. * a loanword, word or phrase borrowed from French. See also * Francization * Franglais * Gallic (disambiguation) * Gallica ...
"to flirt" has now returned to French and is considered an anglicism, despite its likely French origins.


German

Denglisch is a pejorative term used in German describing the increased use of anglicisms and
pseudo-anglicism A pseudo-anglicism is a word in another language that is formed from English elements and may appear to be English, but that does not exist as an English word with the same meaning. For example, English speakers traveling in France may be struck ...
s in the German language. It is a
portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsLambert, James. 2018. A multitude of 'lishes': The nomenclature of hybridity. ''English World-wide'', 39(1): 23. DOI: 10.1075/eww.38.3.04lam To some extent, the influence of English on German can be from normal language contact. The term Denglisch is however mostly reserved for forced, excessive exercises in anglicization, or pseudo-anglicization, of the German language.


Italian

Under
Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...
, efforts were made to purify Italian of anglicisms and other foreign words. Today, Italian is one of the most receptive languages for anglicisms.


Japanese

Anglicised words in Japanese are altered to reflect the absence of certain phonemes in Japanese, such as 'l' (changed to 'r') and 'v' (changed to 'b'). Other changes occur when, for example, an English word ending in "l" becomes "ru". For example, "hotel" becomes , as in the expression (love hotel), the word is strictly speaking not an anglicism, coming from the French (with).


Latvian

The first anglicisms in the written sources of Latvian appear at the end of the 18th century, however, up until the middle 1970s they were barely researched as their number remained low and since they mostly appeared in the terminology of sports and engineering. The direct contact between Latvian and English at that time was very limited, thus most of the anglicisms entered Latvian through German or Russian. Ever since Latvia regained its independence, there has been an influx of anglicisms into the Latvian language due to the fact that media in English is more accessible than ever.


Polish

Sporadic linguistic contacts between Polish and English-speaking areas have been noted at least since the 15th century. However, most early anglicisms in Polish were mostly limited to names for places in Great Britain and the Americas. The first proper anglicisms were also related to geography and were recorded in an 18th-century work by
Franciszek Siarczyński Franciszek Siarczyński (1758–1829) was a Polish Roman Catholic priest, member of the Piarist religious order, historian, geographer, teacher, writer and publicist. He was a lecturer of grammar, history and geography at the Collegium Nobili ...
. By the end of that century there were at least 21 lexemes of English provenance in Polish usage. The 1859 dictionary of foreign words by Michał Amszejewicz contains roughly 100 anglicisms, the so-called Vilnian dictionary of 1861 contains roughly 180 of such words.Mańczak-Wohlfeld, p. 32 The anglicisms recorded in the 19th century were in large part words related to social, political, legal and economic concepts used in English society and lacking corresponding institutions in contemporary Poland. Another group comprised naval, sports-related and technical terms. Typically new words were initially being written in their original form, especially when they were used to describe English or American contexts. Such was the case of the word ''
budget A budget is a calculation play, usually but not always financial, for a defined period, often one year or a month. A budget may include anticipated sales volumes and revenues, resource quantities including time, costs and expenses, environment ...
'', first recorded as such in 1792 in relation to English economy, but soon also used in Polish context. With time the word was assimilated and remains in modern Polish dictionaries, written as . Early 19th century Dictionary of the Polish Language by Samuel Linde includes the following anglicisms: (after London's suburb of
Vauxhall Vauxhall ( ) is a district in South West London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. Vauxhall was part of Surrey until 1889 when the County of London was created. Named after a medieval manor, "Fox Hall", it became well known fo ...
; meaning an evening garden party in contemporary Polish), , , , , , and . The assimilation of new English words into Polish sped up in the 20th century and gradually English replaced Czech, German, French, Italian and other languages as the primary source of new imports into the Polish language. At the turn of the century there were roughly 250 English words in use, by 1961 the number of English lexemes in Polish rose to over 700, breaking 1000 lexemes in the 1980s and at least 1600 in 1994. Borrowings from English language used in modern Polish fall into a number of thematic categories: * Science and technology: , , , , , , (used as a generic word for personal stereo rather than a trademark); * Sports and healthcare: aerobic, lifting, jogging, peeling, , , , , , , , jockey, , , , , , , , , , , ; * Computers: , , (a semantic blueprint), , , ; * Economy: , , , , , , , , , , , ; * Fashion: , , , ; * Politics: , * Daily life: , , , , , , , , , , , , ; * Maritime terms: , , , , , ; * Food: , , , , , , , , , Take note, that some of the borrowed words already have Polish equivalents and therefore are not recognized by all language users: * (manager) instead of * (
quad bike An all-terrain vehicle (ATV), also known as a light utility vehicle (LUV), a quad bike, or simply a quad, as defined by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI); is a vehicle that travels on low-pressure tires, with a seat that is strad ...
) instead of * (
CCTV Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly t ...
) instead of , * (English: How can I help you) instead of (English: How can I serve you). In addition to lexical borrowings, there is also a number of
calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language w ...
s in everyday use.


Spanish

Spanglish (a
portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordspidgins, or creole languages that result from interaction between Spanish and English used by people who speak both languages or parts of both languages, mainly spoken in the United States. It is a blend of Spanish and English
lexical item In lexicography, a lexical item is a single word, a part of a word, or a chain of words ( catena) that forms the basic elements of a language's lexicon (≈ vocabulary). Examples are ''cat'', ''traffic light'', ''take care of'', ''by the way' ...
s and
grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domain ...
. Spanglish can be considered a variety of Spanish with heavy use of English or vice versa. It can be more related either to Spanish or to English, depending on the circumstances. Since Spanglish arises independently in each region, it reflects the locally spoken varieties of English and Spanish. In general different varieties of Spanglish are not necessarily mutually intelligible. In Mexican and Chicano Spanish the common term for "Spanglish" is "Pocho".


Urdu

Urdish Urdish (or Urglish), a portmanteau of Urdu and English, is the macaronic hybrid use of English and Urdu in Pakistan, involving code-switching between these languages whereby they are freely interchanged within a sentence or between sentences. The ...
(a
portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordscode-switching In linguistics, code-switching or language alternation occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation or situation. Code-switching is different from plurilingualism ...
between the two languages (this also applies to other varieties of Hindustani, including
Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been d ...
). Standard
Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''
Barbarism (grammar) *
Influence of French on English The influence of French on English pertains mainly to its lexicon but also to its syntax, grammar, orthography, and pronunciation. Most of the French vocabulary in English entered the language after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, when Old ...
* Béarlachas (False Irish) *
Calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language w ...
* Eurospeak *
Engrish ''Engrish'' is a slang term for the inaccurate, nonsensical or ungrammatical use of the English language by native speakers of Japanese, as well as Chinese and other Asian languages. The word itself relates to Japanese speakers' tendency to ...
* Loanword *
Pseudo-anglicism A pseudo-anglicism is a word in another language that is formed from English elements and may appear to be English, but that does not exist as an English word with the same meaning. For example, English speakers traveling in France may be struck ...
* Americanism (disambiguation)


References


External links


Les emprunts à l’anglais
is the thematic section on anglicisms of the Banque de dépannage linguistique ("Linguistic Troubleshooting Bank") of the Office québécois de la langue française, including explanations of the various anglicism types (e.g
Qu'est-ce qu'un emprunt intégral?
*
Lazaro Observatory
', an observatory of anglicism usage in the Spanish press. {{Authority control English language English as a global language Types of words Word coinage Transliteration False friends