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A loanword (or a borrowing) is a word taken into by one language from another. A calque or loan translation is a related process whereby it is the meaning or idiom that is borrowed rather the lexical item itself. The word loanword itself is a calque of the German Lehnwort.
Although loanwords are typically far less numerous than the "native" words of most languages (creoles and pidgins being an obvious exception), they are often widely known and used, since their borrowing served a certain purpose.
Classes of Borrowed Words
Certain classes of loanwords are more common; certain words, such as pronouns, numbers, words referring to universal concepts, are usually not borrowed. Examples of these words being borrowed have been attested, however.
Words referring to exotic concepts or ideas are usually borrowed. What is "exotic" can vary from language to language. Thus, English names for creatures not native to Great Britain are almost always loanwords; on the other hand, in the Native American Languages where those words came from, the concepts they referred to were very ordinary and not at all exotic. This readily explains why most of the technical vocabulary referring to music is borrowed from Italian.
Borrowing includes placenames. For example, Connecticut can't possibly be considered an English name; towns are a totally different matter; many consist of slightly modified English words, like Hartford (Hart's ford). The obvious conclusion is that English speakers named Hartford but not the Connecticut River.
This can extend to given names.
Beyond Words
Idiomatic expressions and phrases, sometimes translated word-for-word, can be borrowed, usually from a language that has "prestige" at the time. Often, a borrowed idiom is used as a euphemism for a less polite term in the original language. In English, this has usually been Latinisms from the Latin language and Gallicisms from French.
Loanwords in English
English has many loanwords. In 1973, a computerised survey of about 80,000 words in the old Shorter Oxford Dictionary (3rd edition) was published in Ordered Profusion by Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff. Their estimates for the origin of English words is as followed:
- French, including Old French and early Anglo-French: 28.3%
- Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%
- Germanic languages, including Old and Middle English: 25%
- Greek: 5.32%
- No etymology given or unknown: 4.03%
- Derived from proper names: 3.28%
- All other languages contributed less than 1%
There are a few caveats. This survey shows no information about the frequency of words. If the frequency of words is considered, words from Old and Middle English occupy a vast majority. In addition, words from Old and Middle English aren't loanwords.
The reason for English's vast borrowing includes its modern importance, its being a scientific language, England coming in contacts with numerous invaders in the Middle Ages, and English becoming a trade language in the 18th century, and the fact that English is fairly free of phonetic restrictions in its syllable structure.
This leads to the oft-quoted phrase from James D. Nicoll: "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." 1
Compare this with Japanese, where the English word "club" was turned into "kurabu" because of Japanese's numerous phonetic restrictions.
Affixes
A few English affixes are borrowed. Most important English affixes, such as "un-", "-ing", and "-ly" are native, however.
Other Languages
Direct loans, expressions translated word-by-word, or even grammatical constructions and orthographical conventions from English are called anglicisms. Similarly, loans from Swedish are called sveticisms or svecisms. In French, the result of perceived over-use of English loanwords and expressions is called franglais. Germish is English influence on German.
Reborrowing
It is possible for a language to borrow a word. Then, after a long time of use, the original language borrows it back in its current form. This process is called reborrowing, and is how loanwords are "given back."
A specific example of this is the noun "pokemon". It is a blend of the Japanese Poketto Monsutā. Those words mean "pocket monsters" and were borrowed from English. Thus, pocket monsters started out in English, was borrowed into Japanese, blended, and then reborrowed by English.
See also
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