Talk:Loanword

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There's so much medieval and Norman French in English that I'm not sure "loanword" is the appropriate term: 40 percent of vocabulary isn't loan words, it's creolization.Vicki Rosenzweig

I am not sure I would agree. I think English at its core has remained English. A vocabulary by itself does not a language make. English grammar fundamentally and directly derives from its Germanic heritage, and as far as vocabulary goes, in general the most common and basic words (pronouns, and most everyday words) come from Old English. The French loanwords were grafted onto a Germanic language; it wasn't like two languages were fused into some kind of hybrid compromise. soulpatch
I don't think the definition of loanword can really be extended to include every word in English not of English origin. In addition to the French that seems so interesting to you two, there are thousands and thousands of Greek and Latin words. They can't all be loanwords. I suggest that loanword should be limited to words of recognizable or easily traceable foreign origin and not include virtually every word in the language outside of the most basic vocabulary (and a lot of forgotten Anglo Saxon).
If general, nonchalant, cinematography, annual, ink, impossible, orphan, concession, et cetera (et cetera, for that matter) are all to be loanwords, then how will we find words like ketchup, garage, corral, buckaroo, kohlrabi, and the like that have genuinely been "lent" and not simply showed up with the rest of the language? Ortolan88
How do you propose to distinguish these two groups, exactly? --Brion 05:22 Oct 9, 2002 (UTC)


Surely loanwords are gradually absorbed. -- Tarquin 09:19 Oct 9, 2002 (UTC)
I was under the impression that a loanword was by definition "absorbed" or nativized at least to some degree. If it weren't, it would simply be a foreign word. No? --Brion 09:45 Oct 9, 2002 (UTC)


but eventually they are considered part of the language. Otherwise, as said above, all words would be loanwords. Where does "English" start? Is "chocolate" still a loanword? "general"? At some (blurry) point the naturalization is complete. What about "tunnel" and "tennis"? They've been batted back and forth between English and French several times. Who gave what to whom? -- Tarquin

I propose to distinguish them by the criterion I proposed above:

I suggest that loanword should be limited to English words of recognizable or easily traceable foreign origin

This will require a certain amount of Sprachgefühl, but we are an encyclopedia and that is one of the requirements that is placed on us. Sprachgefühl ("feel for language"), btw, is a Gastworte, that is, a "guest word" from another language that has not turned into a loanword.

Thus, there is a sort of hierarchy:

  1. Echt English -- father, window, etc, words from the island of Britain
  2. Normal English -- chimney, ink, locution, forest, words from our source languages - Greek, Latin, and French, etc --that are well and truly normal
  3. Loanwords that are part of English but still have a flavor of foreigness, at least to the knowledgeable, buckaroo (Spanish), corral (Zulu), ketchup (Maylasian)
  4. Gastworte -- words that are used in English, but are still considered foreign, czar, sprachgefühl, echt, often italicized

Absorption of words from other languages is one of the glories of our language, and one of the reasons that we have more words than any other language, and also the reason our spelling is such tuff stuff. I'll put some of this in the article after some research. Ortolan88

PS - English as a creole language gave me a good laugh, the equivalent of calling Australia an island instead of a continent.

Are categories 2 and 3 to be distinguished purely by personal taste, or by time depth, or what? Ketchup is certainly "normal English" to any child in this country (who probably has never even heard of Malaysia), while locution is a Latinate monstrosity I can't imagine a real person ever using without being well aware that it has a Latin origin. --Brion 18:11 Oct 9, 2002 (UTC)

I propose we use judgment. I judge that this article is seriously in need of a rewrite. I'm just off to go camping, but when I get back I'll take a crack at it and then you can judge the results. Ortolan88

2 and 3 are completely useless categories because it depends on HOW educated one is. Unless we're going to write in the article that only Ortolan88 knows which is 2 and which is 3, it's a useless distinction. There is no real measure or date or any kind of way to distinguish those.Iopq 23:36, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

An entirely irrelevant aside: in Lojban we created methods for importing names and words from other languages, and originally called them "le'avla", meaning "borrowed words". After some protest, we changed it to "fu'ivla", meaning "taken words", because it was decided that was a more accurate term, since we had no intention of giving them back...

That is correct; except that "le'avla" means take-word, and "fu'ivla" means copy-words. arj 15:58, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Is "exotic" the current academic term in the West to describe the Arabic, Hebrew, Quechua, and Russian languages? That adjective seems a bit out dated. Kingturtle 17:48 Apr 12, 2003 (UTC)

I think a major problem is defining what is the pure original English. Is it the language of the Angles? Or of the Saxes? Or the combined Anglo-Saxon? What about the Celtic languages in Brittain, that affected the Anglo-Saxon? So words like show are also loanwords then? After all, show came from a Gaelic word, is not even a Germanic one...
Boris (Nomæd) A. 20:14, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC)

In French, everything that existed before 842 CE is "pure original French" to put it in your words, and everything else is loan. Don't you have something like that in English?? --Valmi 02:49, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Japanese loanwords

I'm suspicious of the article's claim that flexible syllable structure has anything to do with a large number of loan words in English. The article contrasts this with Japanese, but Japanese has a humongous number of loan words from English, so much so that entire dictionaries of loan words (containing tens of thousands of entries) are published. In addition to this, an earlier "strata" of loan borrowings from Chinese represents a huge percentage of Japanese vocabulary as well.

I support this challenge. It's simply biased to claim that English has a more flexible phonetic structure than other languages. Using Japanese again as an example, many Japanese words borrowed by English are nearly unrecognizable to Japanese speakers. Consider this article on the subject: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001136.html . The paragraph starting with "Returning.." toward the end gives a direct English to Japanese example. This article's musings stating that English's 'lack of restrictions makes it comparatively easy for [it] to incorporate new words' ought be removed. StrawberryZen 169.233.46.59 01:17, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Returning the loan

The name is somewhat misleading since the words are very rarely given back.

This is a joke, right? Does this note deserve being mentioned in the first paragraph of this article? mtreinik 12:02, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I don't get it. It seems a perfectly factual statement from here. -- Smjg 14:25, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Nothing wrong in the statement. To me it just sounded like a pun or a wisecrack to interpret the word 'loan' literally. Something like
- Would you lend me a hand?
- No, I want to use it myself.
In deed, loaning a word is apparently different from ordinary lending of e.g. money or goods:
  • a word is rarely given back (as stated in the article)
  • borrowing a word doesn't require anything from the part of the lender, for example permission
  • the lender of the word can still use it
English is a foreign language for me, so maybe I am the one who doesn't get it. -- mtreinik 11:30, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
It's a joke alright, how would you "give back" a word? The original word is still in the original language. It's a lot like the idiom "to borrow an idea" -- you're not expected to give the idea back! I'm taking this out. - RedWordSmith 03:33, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)
Well, China and Japan gave us boba and anime back, respectively. :) Jun-Dai 20:11, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Persian" loanwords

The enthusiastic list here includes many words that actually entered English from Turkish. Not worth struggling over, but the Wikpedia reader should be alert. --Wetman 03:30, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Statistical inaccuracy

This is the summary of the computerised survey of the 80,000 words described in this article.

- % Entries
L 28,24% 22592
F 28,3% 22640
Gk 5,32% 4256
E & other 38,14% 30512
Total 100% 80000

I have reasons to believe according to my statistical analysis that the French and Greek figures are inaccurate.

I believe that entries like i.e. agony F f. Gk as well as many F f. Gk (French from Greek) entry have been imputed as of French origin.

Is it possible to receive a more detailed account on the computerised survey?

It would be great if we could obtain the list of all the 4.256 words of Greek origin by the computerised survey.--Odysses 15:40, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "The verbal suffix '-ize' comes...ultimately from Ancient Greek and became utilized liberally in America, often to the chagrin of many Englishmen."

I really don't get this: here in the U.K. we use -ise, which is just a slight variation of -ize, so it's not really an American-only thing. Can anyone enlighten me on this one? -19:29, 11 January 2006 (UTC) The Great Gavini tu peux parler avec moi, t'sais...

Burglarize? Sure there are more... JackyR 14:32, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

My objection (yes, I'm British) to the word Burglarize is partly that there is already a perfectly decent word for that meaning. Burgle. Other words which have the -ize ending tend to mean to make into. For example, from the OED, Judaize = make Jewish, demoralize = make hopless, nationalize = make national. Following that trend Burglarize should mean "make into a Burglar"! I don't have any issue with the other words I've listed (except perhaps from the spelling - I'd use an S not a Z). So on balance, I think the statement that "often to the chagrin of Englishmen is inaccurate". It's not -ize that's being objected to, it's inventing new words when there are perfectly serviceable words in the dictionary already. --Pete Bagnall 23:28, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

This reminds me of an article I read - poking fun at English in general, and American English is particular. One point went like this:
If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?
Languages are used by people not computers, and people are prone to bend and mold the language to suit their needs - rather than allow the language to bend them into knots.
With respect to the idea that "burglarize" should not be used because there is a perfectly satisfactory replacement word, "burgle", is ludicrous. Using that same logic, we should renounce the word "color" for the word "colour", or perhaps give up the word "cigarette" for the word "fag". (And, here in America, I can just hear the laughter that would come when someone says they're "smoking a fag"!)
Again, American English uses "eraser" for the British "rubber" - and yes, I want to be a fly on the wall the next time someone asks a pretty young lady for an eraser - using British English...
I could go on - but it would be senseless. Languages, even dialects of the same language, often bend and twist around each other - try comparing Australian English with British English, or classical French as spoken in France with the home-grown variety used in the French Canadian provinces. The French purists may blanch, but that's the way it is.
Respectfully Submitted,
--Jharris1993 (talk) 00:59, 9 January 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Translation

Moved anon IP change here to talk:

"(To the editor: The last statement is inaccurate. The literal translation of Lehnwort is leanword, while the literal translation of Leihwort would be loanword. Lehnen is German for "to lean", while leihen is German for "to loan".)"

I've made the change, but as far as I can tell the claim Leihwort lead to Loanword is unsubstantiated.--Isotope23 21:26, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I made this claim and sorry for not adding it to the discussion first. Here is some more clarification: First, sorry for the confusion. The German word Leihwort, which would be the literal translation of loanword does not exist. Therefore another example should be given like Geiger counter from Geigerzähler or Alzheimer's disease from Alzheimer Krankheit. I’ve seen that other websites have made the same error. Therefore, one could add a note stating something like: It is a common misconception that Lehnwort, the German translation of loanword is a calque. This is not true however since the literal translation of Lehnwort would be leanword.

Although the verb lehnen means "to lean" and not "to loan", the Lehn in Lehnwort comes from Lehen (which is cohnate with loan), and is found in several compounds in Modern German with the meaning "loan", eg. Darlehn, entlehnen, belehnen.
Would it be too radical to suggest that things for this page could be looked up in dictionaries which give dated references and etymologies, rather than relying on Sprachgefühl and web sites? --Pfold 12:18, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Examples

I'm certainly not volunteering, but it'd be nice if there were a bunch of examples (as in the calque page). --Dslawe

[edit] Reborrowing

A new page, reborrowing has been created. You are welcome to contribute.--FocalPoint 21:21, 30 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Examples

For the sake of interest, I suggest that we include a section on loanword examples in English. This would not only be interesting but also would provide a better understanding of the linguistic phenomenon. Also, we could contrast examples of loanwords and calques. If anybody is competent in this field, please, contribute to this article.

                                                      Andrej

[edit] One word or two?

I came across this article now for the first time, and I was very surprised to see it written as one word. I have never seen this before. Surely it is more correctly "Loan word", oui? Just because it was taken from German, that doesn't mean we have to remove spaces. German uses things like Videorekorder - as it is common in that language to push words together. But in English we only do this in specialised cases. Shall we change it? EuroSong talk 13:23, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

The Oxford American Dictionary built into Mac OS X says loanword, but my Canadian Oxford says loan word. I think this is an example where American English has contracted a compound word (I'm guessing that in this case Canadian follows British usage). —Michael Z. 2006-10-13 18:22 Z

[edit] The word bistro

Bistro's Russian connection is apparently a folk etymology, albeit an especially persistent one. It has been repeated by a lot of etymologists, but it's historically baseless. Michael Quinion notes that 'the word is first recorded in French (as bistro in 1884 and as bistrot in 1892) long after those supposedly rowdy rude Cossacks came to town. We wordhounds are used to terms that lurk in the lexicographical shadows for decades before they become popular, but the 70-year gap is just too much to be easily accepted.' It's not totally conclusive, but I don't think we should be repeating what is most likely a myth, especially since we already have anime to illustrate the concept of re-borrowing. Bhumiya (said/done) 00:31, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

This is interesting...
I just did a little snooping on the 'Net - and guess what? The "myth" wins hands down!
Most etymological sites - including Wikipedia's own Bistro - mention this "myth" as a reasonably plausible source for the word.
Admittedly, most also mention that there is no direct-line correspondance or chain of custody taking them from point "A" to point "B", which is perfectly understandable since I am sure that bistro is not the only word with a similarly muddled past.
--Jharris1993 (talk) 01:29, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reborrowing section

The Japanese word "anime" is actually a direct transliteration of the French "animé", meaning "animated". English usage is a transliteration of a transliteration, not reborrowing a loanword. Thuse, I removed it from that section. -- R'son-W (speak to me/breathe) 23:16, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Really? I seem to remember in my younger years that Americans were calling it "japanimation" as a (I forget what it's called) of "Japanese animation" and then sortened to anime. So did Americans really get anime from animé via Japan, or did they just shorten japanimation as to some it sounded somehow racist (I can't fathom why)? Just curious. Gaviidae 21:14, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
This isn't true, to my despair (yeah, I'm French - and yeah, I'm joking about that "despair" stuff). The word "anime" is a short for "animēshon", which obviously comes from the English word "animation". But the legend of it coming from French is supported in folklore by the habit to write the word as "animé" to emphasize the proper pronunciation of the word (to put it shortly, "anime" doesn't rhyme with "rhyme" - I was going to use "time", but I found it more fun that way). However, it's arguable anyway that any term like "anime" should be included as loanword. Or, maybe, it would be a specific variant of loanword : words of foreign origin used to designate a culturally specific variant of work in a given media. For example, the word "manga" is used (in English and in French) specifically to point the Japanese stuff, and the word "comics" is used in French to point most of American stuff, the generic French term being "bande dessinée", which I found used in English to designate (mostly) works of the Franco-Belgian sort. I think this peculiar kind of words is an unstable matter. Schmorgluck 10:05, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion

I deleted the following from the beginning of the article:

"Words which a language inherits from an ancestral language from which it develops are not borrowed words. Inherited words usually constitute most of the vocabulary of a language.
Although loanwords are typically far fewer than the native words of most languages,[verification needed] they are often widely known and used, since their borrowing served a certain purpose, for example to provide a name for a new invention."

This passage was illogical. Loanwords and inherited words are not mutually exclusive groupings, because a word inherited from an ancestral language can still be a loanword in that language. Moreover, it is unclear from which ancestral language level a word should derive in order to be classified as an "inherited word" - e.g., is Middle English or Old English sufficient for a modern English word to be classified as "inherited", or should it derive from Proto-Germanic or Proto-Indo-European? --AAikio 05:15, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Travel words

Do travel words have any special grouping? I was reading in a Dutch newspaper about some journalists (I think they were) traveling to Hungary and noting the lack of such travel loanwords (bus, train/tram, park (as in parking place), station, auto). Some of these words have become almost universal, replacing whatever the original word was, but besides names of foods, this seems really be a travel thing, when a place has so many travelers from who-knows-where that the places pick words that hopefully the most number of travelers understand (often being English or French, but not exclusively).


As a side question, the article mentions Spanglish, but I thought that was mostly intermittant word substitution within a sentence (voy a la beach)... then what is it when immigrants from Mexico say "el trucke" instead of "camión (truck) or "el swiche" for a lightswitch instead of "conmutador")? Gaviidae 21:28, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How do words end up getting "loaned" in the first place?

Ref: The Side Question, (Spanglish).

One thing I've noticed when dealing with people of foreign origin - especially those who have lived here for a while - is that they start doing what may be a form of skid-talking. (i.e. If George Washington were alive today, he'd turn over in his grave!)

In the course of a conversation, they reach into their brain for the "next" word in the sentence and sometimes the English word wins the race rather than the native-language word. The result is a conversation in a foreign language, randomly interspersed with English words. (Common words, not technical words or other special word types.)

This makes me wonder if this isn't one of the mechanisms by which words end up getting "loaned".

Note that this is a purely personal observation. However since I'm often in the company of Russian speaking people, (my wife is Russian), I work with a large group of folks from India and I am often in the company of people of Hispanic descent, I hear this effect on a regular basis.

--Jharris1993 (talk) 01:59, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Chompa?

I'm told that in Bolivia, they use the word "chompa" to mean sweater, derived from the English "jumper." What type of loan is that? When you borrow a word but change the sounds to match your language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.241.227.113 (talk) 01:49, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

This reminds me of something very similar I heard - many years ago - on the Tonight Show.
Ricardo Montoban (sp?) was discussing what happens when English and Spanish collide. He went on to describe a commercial he was taping for Chrysler at the time - advertising the Cordova model that Crysler was bringing out. Apparently "Cordova" is a real Spanish word, and when he reached that portion of the script, he natually pronounced it in the correct Spanish way - CORR-toe-va.
The director stopped the shoot - asked him "what the HECK are you doing?!" - whereupon Ricardo Montoban answered that this was the regular and proper pronunciation of that word.
The director stopped, took a breath, and patiently explained that marketing types had taken that word around to a large number of people in the U.S. - and "CorDOva" is how most people pronounced it - and they'd appreciate if he'd pronounce it the same way.
Ricardo Montoban then laughed, looked at Johnny Carson, and said "That makes sense, especially since the toothpaste "Colgate" is pronounced "Col-GA-tay" in South American countries!"

--Jharris1993 (talk) 02:14, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] -ize

The full online edition of the OED does not substantiate the claim attributed to OED-CD that -ize is British while -ise is American. It merely notes "also written -ise". In fact,

"American spelling accepts only -ize endings in most cases, such as organize, recognize, and realize. British usage accepts both -ize and the more French-looking -ise (organise, recognise, realise). However, the -ize spelling is now rarely used in the UK in the mass media and newspapers, and is hence often incorrectly regarded as an Americanism,[Are spellings like 'privatize' and 'organize' Americanisms?. AskOxford.com (2006).]"