A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a
word at least partly assimilated from one
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
(the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to
cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because they share an
etymological origin, and
calques, which involve translation. Loanwords from languages with different
scripts are usually
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 → or L ...
(between scripts), but they are not translated. Additionally, loanwords may be adapted to
phonology,
phonotactics
Phonotactics (from Ancient Greek "voice, sound" and "having to do with arranging") is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes. Phonotactics defines permissible syllable struc ...
,
orthography, and
morphology
Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to:
Disciplines
* Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts
* Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...
of the target language. When a loanword is fully adapted to the rules of the target language, it is distinguished from native words of the target language only by its origin. However, often the adaptation is incomplete, so loanwords may conserve specific features distinguishing them from native words of the target language: loaned phonemes and sound combinations, partial or total conserving of the original spelling, foreign plural or case forms or indeclinability.
Examples and related terms
A loanword is distinguished from a
calque (or
loan translation), which is a word or phrase whose
meaning or
idiom is adopted from another language by word-for-word
translation into existing words or word-forming roots of the recipient language. Loanwords, in contrast, are translated.
Examples of loanwords in the
English language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...
include ''
café'' (from French ''café'', which means "coffee"),
bazaar (from Persian ''bāzār'', which means "market"), and
kindergarten
Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th ce ...
(from German ''Kindergarten'', which literally means "children's garden"). The word ''calque'' is a loanword from the French noun ''calque'' ("tracing; imitation; close copy"); while the word ''loanword'' and the phrase ''loan translation'' are calques of the
German nouns ''Lehnwort'' and ''Lehnübersetzung''.
Loans of multi-word phrases, such as the English use of the French term ''
déjà vu
''Déjà vu'' ( , ; "already seen") is a French loanword for the phenomenon of feeling as though one has lived through the present situation before.Schnider, Armin. (2008). ''The Confabulating Mind: How the Brain Creates Reality''. Oxford Univers ...
'', are known as adoptions, adaptations, or lexical borrowings.
Although colloquial and
informal register loanwords 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 terms
substrate and
superstrate are 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).
Most of the
technical vocabulary of classical music (such as
concerto,
allegro,
tempo,
aria
In music, an aria ( Italian: ; plural: ''arie'' , or ''arias'' in common usage, diminutive form arietta , plural ariette, or in English simply air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompa ...
,
opera, and
soprano) is borrowed from
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
, and that of
ballet from
French. Much of the
terminology of the sport of
fencing
Fencing is a group of three related combat sports. The three disciplines in modern fencing are the foil, the épée, and the sabre (also ''saber''); winning points are made through the weapon's contact with an opponent. A fourth discipline, ...
also comes from French. Many loanwords come from prepared food, drink, fruits, vegetables, seafood and more from languages around the world. In particular, many come from
French cuisine (
crêpe
A crêpe or crepe ( or , , Quebec French: ) is a very thin type of pancake. Crêpes are usually one of two varieties: ''sweet crêpes'' () or ''savoury galettes'' (). They are often served with a wide variety of fillings such as cheese, ...
,
Chantilly,
crème brûlée
''Crème brûlée'' or ''crème brulée'' (; ), also known as burnt cream or Trinity cream, and virtually identical to the original crema catalana, is a dessert consisting of a rich custard base topped with a layer of hardened caramelized sugar ...
),
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
(
pasta,
linguine,
pizza,
espresso), and
Chinese (
dim sum,
chow mein
''Chow mein'' ( and , ; Pinyin: ''chǎomiàn'') is a Chinese dish made from stir-fried noodles with vegetables and sometimes meat or tofu. Over the centuries, variations of ''chǎomiàn'' were developed in many regions of China; there are s ...
,
wonton
A wonton () is a type of Chinese dumpling commonly found across regional styles of Chinese cuisine. It is also spelled wantan or wuntun in transliteration from Cantonese () and wenden from Shanghainese (). There are many different styles o ...
).
Linguistic classification
The studies by Werner Betz (1971, 1901),
Einar Haugen (1958, also 1956), and
Uriel Weinreich
Uriel Weinreich ( yi, אוריאל ווײַנרײַך ''Uriel Vaynraykh'', ; May 23, 1926 – March 30, 1967) was a Jewish–American linguist.
Life
Uriel Weinreich was born in Wilno, Poland (since 1945, Vilnius, Lithuania), the first child of ...
(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 German ''Fremdwort'', 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: "
en 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) ''Loanwords'' show morphemic importation without substitution.... (2) ''Loanblends'' show morphemic substitution as well as importation.... (3) ''Loanshifts'' show 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) defines ''simple 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, see
Lists of English words by country or language of origin
The following are lists of words in the English language that are known as " loanwords" or "borrowings," which are derived from other languages.
For Old English-derived words, see List of English words of Old English origin.
* English words ...
and
Anglicisation.
Some English loanwords remain relatively faithful to the original phonology even though a particular
phoneme might not exist or have contrastive status in English. For example, the
Hawaiian word ''
aā'' is used by geologists to specify lava that is thick, chunky, and rough. The Hawaiian spelling indicates the two
glottal stops in the word, but the English pronunciation, , contains at most one. The English spelling usually removes the
ʻokina and
macron diacritics.
Most English affixes, such as ''un-'', ''-ing'', and ''-ly'', were used in Old English. However, a few English affixes are borrowed. For example, the verbal suffix
''-ize'' (American English) or ''ise'' (British English) comes from Greek -ιζειν (''-izein'') through Latin ''-izare''.
Languages other than English
Transmission in the Ottoman Empire
During more than 600 years of the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
, the literary and administrative language of the empire was
Turkish, with many
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
, and
Arabic loanwords, called
Ottoman Turkish, considerably differing from the everyday spoken Turkish of the time. Many such words were adopted by other languages of the empire, such as
Albanian,
Bosnian,
Bulgarian,
Croatian,
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
,
Hungarian,
Ladino,
Macedonian,
Montenegrin and
Serbian. After the empire fell after
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
and the
Republic of Turkey was founded, the Turkish language underwent an extensive
language reform
Language reform is a kind of language planning by widespread change to a language. The typical methods of language reform are simplification and linguistic purism. Simplification regularises vocabulary, grammar, or spelling. Purism aligns the langu ...
led by the newly founded
Turkish Language Association, during which
many adopted words were replaced with new formations derived from
Turkic roots. That was part of the ongoing cultural reform of the time, in turn a part in the broader framework of
Atatürk's Reforms, which also included the introduction of the new
Turkish alphabet.
Turkish also has taken many words from
French, such as ''pantolon'' for ''trousers'' (from French ''pantalon'') and ''komik'' for ''funny'' (from French ''comique''), most of them pronounced very similarly. Word usage in modern Turkey has acquired a political tinge:
right-wing publications tend to use more Arabic or Persian originated words,
left-wing ones use more adopted from European languages, while centrist ones use more native Turkish root words.
Dutch words in Indonesian
Almost 350 years of Dutch presence in what is now
Indonesia have 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., ''
buncis'' from Dutch ''
boontjes'' for (green) beans) and as well in administrative, scientific or technological terminology (e.g., ''
kantor'' from Dutch ''
kantoor'' for office). The Professor of Indonesian Literature at
Leiden University, and of Comparative Literature at
UCR, argues that roughly 20% of
Indonesian words can be traced back to Dutch words.
Dutch words in Russian
In the late 17th century, the
Dutch Republic had a leading position in shipbuilding. Czar
Peter the Great, eager to improve his navy, studied shipbuilding in
Zaandam
Zaandam () is a city in the province of North Holland, Netherlands. It is the main city of the municipality of Zaanstad, and received city rights in 1811. It is located on the river Zaan, just north of Amsterdam.
The statistical district Zaand ...
and
Amsterdam. Many Dutch naval terms have been incorporated in the Russian vocabulary, such as
бра́мсель (''brámselʹ'') from Dutch ''bramzeil'' for the
topgallant sail,
домкра́т (''domkrát'') from Dutch ''
dommekracht'' for
jack
Jack may refer to:
Places
* Jack, Alabama, US, an unincorporated community
* Jack, Missouri, US, an unincorporated community
* Jack County, Texas, a county in Texas, USA
People and fictional characters
* Jack (given name), a male given name, ...
, and
матро́с (''matrós'') from Dutch ''
matroos'' for sailor.
Romance languages
A large percentage of the lexicon of
Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...
, themselves descended from
Vulgar Latin, consists of loanwords (later
learned 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 from
Classical or
Ecclesiastical Latin
Latin, also called Church Latin or Liturgical Latin, is a form of Latin developed to discuss Christian thought in Late Antiquity and used in Christian liturgy, theology, and church administration down to the present day, especially in the Ca ...
that 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 Spanish, for example, they are usually referred to as "cultismos", and in Italian as "latinismi".
Latin is usually the most common source of loanwords in these languages, such as in Italian, Spanish, French, 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 etymological
doublets in 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 (see
Romanian lexis, ), 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 to
Hans Henrich Hock
Hans Henrich Hock (born 26 September 1938) is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Sanskrit at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Hock holds a PhD in linguistics from Yale University. His research interests include general historical ...
and 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. The English word ''Viking'' became Japanese
バイキング (''baikingu''), meaning "buffet", because the first restaurant in Japan to offer
buffet
A buffet can be either a sideboard (a flat-topped piece of furniture with cupboards and drawers, used for storing crockery, glasses, and table linen) or a system of serving meals in which food is placed in a public area where the diners serve ...
-style meals, inspired by the Nordic
smörgåsbord
Smörgåsbord () is a buffet-style meal of Swedish origin. It is served with various hot and cold dishes.
Smörgåsbord became internationally known at the 1939 New York World's Fair when it was offered at the Swedish Pavilion "Three Crowns ...
, was opened in 1958 by the Imperial Hotel under the name "Viking".
The German word ''
Kachel'', meaning "tile", became the Dutch word ''
kachel'' meaning "stove", as a shortening of ''
kacheloven'', from German ''
Kachelofen'', a
cocklestove.
See also
*
Bilingual pun
*
Hybrid word
A hybrid word or hybridism is a word that etymologically derives from at least two languages.
Common hybrids
The most common form of hybrid word in English combines Latin and Greek parts. Since many prefixes and suffixes in English are of Latin ...
*
Inkhorn term
*
Language contact
*
Neologism
*
Phono-semantic matching
*
Reborrowing
Reborrowing is the process where a word travels from one language to another and then back to the originating language in a different form or with a different meaning. This path is indicated by A → B → A, where A is the originating language, an ...
*
Semantic loan
A semantic loan is a process of borrowing semantic meaning (rather than lexical items) from another language, very similar to the formation of calques. In this case, however, the complete word in the borrowing language already exists; the change i ...
References
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.
* Bloom, Dan (2010): "What's That Pho?". French Loan Words in Vietnam Today; Taipei Times
[ SOCIETY ] What's that 'pho'? - Taipei Times*Cannon, Garland (1999): "Problems in studying loans", ''Proceedings of the annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society'' 25, 326–336.
*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 Online' 4, 22–42.
*Grzega, Joachim (2004): ''Bezeichnungswandel: Wie, Warum, Wozu?'' Heidelberg: Winter.
*Haugen, Einar (1950): "The analysis of linguistic borrowing". ''Language'' 26, 210–231.
*Haugen, Einar (1956): "Review of Gneuss 1955". ''Language'' 32, 761–766.
*.
*.
*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.
*.
*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, ()
External links
World Loanword Database (WOLD)AfBo: A world-wide survey of affix borrowing
{{Authority control
Historical linguistics
Etymology
Cultural assimilation
Translation
Sociolinguistics