Loanword

A loanword (or loan word or loan-word) is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language without translation. It is distinguished from a calque, or loan translation, where a meaning or idiom from another language is translated into existing words or roots of the host language.

Examples of loan words in English include: café (from French café ‘coffee’), bazaar (from Persian bāzār ‘market’), and kindergarten (from German Kindergarten ‘children’s garden’). The word loanword is itself a calque of the German term Lehnwort,^[1] while the term calque is a loanword from French.

Problems with the term 'loanword'

Lexical adaptations are frequently in the form of phrases, for which the term "loanword" is less apt, e.g. déjà vu, an English loan from French. For simplicity, adopt/adoption, adapt/adaptation, or lexical borrowing are thus used by many linguists.^[2][3]

Strictly speaking, the terms borrow and loanword, although traditional, conflict with the ordinary meaning of those words since something is taken from but nothing is returned to the donor languages.^[4] This metaphor is not isolated to the concept of loanwords, but also found in the idiom "to borrow an idea," and even in the mathematical term "borrowing" used in subtraction.

Loanwords entering a language

Donor language terms frequently enter a recipient language as a technical term in connection with exposure to foreign culture. The specific reference point may be to the foreign culture itself or to a field of activity where the foreign culture has a dominant role.

External associations (from travel abroad)

A foreign loanword is arguably still outside the recipient language, and not yet a "loanword" when it is fixed in the local culture. What is "exotic" varies from language to language. Thus, English names for creatures not native to Great Britain are almost always loanwords.

Loanwords from a dominant field of activity

Examples of loanwords from a dominant field of activity:

• Arts – Most of the technical vocabulary of classical music (e.g., concerto, allegro, tempo, aria, opera, soprano) is borrowed from Italian,^[5] and that of ballet from French.^[6]
• Business – English exports terms to other languages in business and technology (examples le meeting to French).
• Philosophy – many technical terms, including the term philosophy itself, derive from Greek dominance in philosophy, mathematics, linguistics, economic theory and political theory in Roman times. Examples include democracy, theory and so on.
• Religion – religions may carry with them a large number of technical terms from the language of the originating culture. For example:
  • Arabic (Islam) – caliph, hajj, jihad, Qur'an
  • Greek (Christianity) – baptisma has entered many languages, e.g. English baptism.
  • Hebrew (Judaism) – Some terms in the Hebrew Bible have been carried into other languages as borrowings rather than translated. For example Hebrew shabbat ("day of rest" שַׁבָּת) has been borrowed into most languages in the world: in Greek the word is Σάββατο; Latin sabbatum; Spanish and Portuguese sábado; and in English Sabbath. The major exceptions are languages like Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese, where Chinese characters are used and words are often translated rather than transliterated; for example, "Sabbath" is translated as "(peaceful) rest day" (安息日; Mandarin: ān xī rì, Japanese an soku jitsu, Korean an sig il, Vietnamese an tức nhật) rather than transliterated.
  • Latin (Catholicism) – missa and communio have entered English as mass and communion.
  • Sanskrit (Hinduism) – guru(teacher), yoga
• Science (Latin) – medicine (itself a Latin loanword) uses a large vocabulary of Latin terms (e.g. sternum, appendix), as a result of medieval advances in medical science being conducted in Latin – even if some of the earliest Latin medical texts were translations from Greek and Arabic.

Loanword passing into general use

When a loanword loses foreign cultural associations it has passed into general use in the language. This is the case with a vast number of English language terms for which a dictionary entry will show that the etymology is French (typically from the Norman Conquest onwards) and not of Anglo-Saxon origin.

Loanword-resistant areas

By contrast, function words such as pronouns, and words referring to universal concepts, are the most static words within each language. These function words are borrowed only in rare cases such as English they from Old Norse þeir. Sometimes only one word from an opposite pair is borrowed, yielding an unpaired word in the recipient language.

Linguistic classification

The studies by Werner Betz (1949, 1939), Einar Haugen (1950, also 1956), and Uriel Weinreich (1953) are regarded as the classical theoretical works on loan influence.^[7] 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 representation of these classifications is given below:^[8]

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.

Models that try to integrate borrowing in an overall classification of vocabulary change, or onomasiological change, have recently been proposed by Peter Koch (2002) and Joachim Grzega (2003, 2004).

In English

The English language has often borrowed words from other cultures or languages. For example:

Spanish definition English definition sombrero "hat" "a wide-brimmed festive Mexican hat" Other examples of words borrowed by English from Hindi from Afrikaans from Malay jungle dacoit loot juggernaut (from Sanskrit 'Jagannath') syce/sais dinghy chutney pundit wallah bangle cheetah cot blighty shampoo thug karma (from Sanskrit) sari bungalow jodhpurs [from Persian origin] pajama/pyjamas bazaar trek aardvark laager wildebeest veld orangutan shirang amok [via Afrikaans from Malay] sjambok

Some English loanwords remain relatively faithful to the donor language's phonology, even though a particular phoneme might not exist or have contrastive status in English. For example, the Hawaiian word ʻaʻā is used by geologists to specify lava that is relatively thick, chunky, and rough. The Hawaiian spelling indicates the two glottal stops in the word, but the English pronunciation, /ˈɑː.ɑː/ or /ˈɑːʔɑː/, contains at most one. In addition, the English spelling usually removes the ʻokina and macron diacritics.^[9]

The majority of English affixes, such as un-, -ing, and -ly, were present in older forms in Old English. However, a few English affixes are borrowed. For example, the agentive suffix -er, which is very prolific, is borrowed ultimately from Latin - arius (with similar forms found in other Germanic languages). The English verbal suffix -ize comes from Greek -ιζειν (-izein) via Latin -izare.

In languages other than English

English loanword exports to other languages

Direct borrowings, calques, or even grammatical constructions and orthographical conventions from English are called anglicisms. This leads to a virtual pseudo-dialect where language consists of words from two (and sometimes three or even more) vocabularies. In French, for example, the result of perceived over-use of English words and expressions is called franglais. Some English terms in French include le week-end, le bifteck (beefsteak), and le job (in France) or la job (in Canada). Spanglish is the English influence on the Spanish language, while Denglisch is the English influence on German, and Dunglish is the English influence on the Dutch language. Conversely, words are oftentimes borrowed from other languages by English speakers. For example, a straight clone from Swedish into English – like the word smörgåsbord – is called a sveticism (in Swedish svecism).

Loanword transmission in the Ottoman Empire

During more than 600 years of the Ottoman Empire, the literary and administrative language of the empire was Turkish, with many Persian, and Arabic loanwords, called Ottoman Turkish, considerably differing from the everyday spoken Turkish of the time. Many such words were exported to other languages of the empire, such as Albanian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Greek, Hungarian and Ladino. After the empire fell in World War I and the Republic of Turkey was founded, the Turkish language underwent an extensive language reform led by the newly founded Turkish Language Association, during which many adopted words were replaced with new formations derived from Turkic roots. This 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), mostly pronounced very similarly. Word usage in modern Turkey has acquired a political tinge: right-wing publications tend to use more Islamic-derived words, left-wing ones use more adopted from Europe, while centrist ones use more native Turkish root words.^[10]

Dutch words in Indonesian

Almost 350 years of Dutch presence in what is now Indonesia have left significant linguisitic traces. Though only a small minority of present-day Indonesians have a fluent knowledge of Dutch, the Indonesian language inherited many words from Dutch, both in words for everyday life, and as well in scientific or technological terminology.^[11] One scholar argues that 20% of Indonesian words can be traced back to Dutch words.^[12]

Cultural aspects

According to Hans Henrich Hock and Brian Joseph, "languages and dialects ... do not exist in a vacuum"—there is always linguistic contact between groups.^[13] This contact influences what loanwords are integrated into the lexicon and why certain words are chosen over others. Using the example of Plautdietsch/Mennonite Low German, the influence of many historical and cultural factors can be seen in the loanwords adopted by this unique language. For example, as Mennonites were pushed from the lowlands of Germany into Poland and then on to Russia Plautdietsch gathered vocabulary from Dutch, Frisian, Russian, and Ukrainian.. Some examples appear below:

Plautdietsch word (recipient language)	Donor language word	English gloss
drock	Dutch druk	busy
ladig	Dutch ledig	empty
kjast	Frisian kest	wedding
kjwiel	Frisian kwyl	spit
schessnikj	Russian чеснок	garlic
lauftje	Russian лавка	general store
Borscht	Ukrainian борщ	beet soup
Warenikje	Ukrainian варе́ники	dumplings

Loanword transmission patterns

Changes in meaning when loaned

Words are occasionally imported with a different meaning than that in the donor language. Among the best known examples of this is the German word Handy, which is a borrowing of the English adjective handy, but means mobile phone (and is hence a noun). (See also: Pseudo-anglicism.) Conversely, in English the prefix über-, taken from German, is used in a way that it is rarely used in German. An abundance of borrowed words taking on new meaning can be found in Rioplatense Spanish. For example, the English gerund camping is used in Argentina to refer to a campsite, and the word wok, borrowed from the Cantonese word meaning pan, is used to mean stir-fry.

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. If the phrase is translated word-for-word, it is known as a calque.

Changes in spelling when loaned

Words taken into different recipient languages are sometimes spelled as in the donor language (such as many of the terms above). Sometimes borrowed words retain original (or near-original) pronunciation, but undergo a spelling change to represent the orthography of the recipient language. Welsh is a language where this is done with some consistency, with words like gêm (game), cwl (cool), and ded-gifawe (dead giveaway). The French expression "cul de sac" (meaning "dead end" or "no through road") is used in English as is, with the same meaning but a spelling pronunciation: the 'l' is mute in French but enunciated in English.

Changes in pronunciation when loaned

In cases where a new loanword has a very unusual sound, the pronunciation is frequently radically changed, a process sometimes referred to by the archetypal name of the law of Hobson-Jobson; this is particularly noted in words from South Asian and Southeast Asian languages, as in this example. Some languages, such as Jèrriais, have a tendency to apply historical sound-shift patterns to newly introduced words. For example, while Jèrriais speakers would have little difficulty pronouncing "parki" (to park), the form used is partchi, displaying the typical Norman ki → tchi shift.

Most languages modify foreign words to fit native pronunciation patterns (including morpheme structure constraints, morpheme combinations, and morphophonemic alterations).^[14] Whether or not a change in pronunciation occurs depends on multiple factors such as: if the sounds occur in both the original and target languages and the level of contact between cultures. An excellent example is Japanese, which has an enormous number of loanwords (gairaigo). Japanese often denotes gairaigo in the writing system with the use of カタカナ(katakana). There was a massive ancient influx from China, and then a flow of new words came from European languages, particularly from Portuguese, which was spoken by the first European people whom Japanese encountered in the transition from the Middle Ages to Early modern period. Recently, most gairaigo have come from English, though there have been numerous loanwords borrowed from Dutch, German, French and other languages. There are almost always significant pronunciation shifts.

Japanese katakana	Romaji	IPA	Donor language word	English gloss
パン	pan	/paɴ/	Portuguese pão [ˈpɐ̃w]	bread
コップ	koppu	/kopːu͍/	Portuguese copo [ˈkɔpu]	glass (cup)
フラスコ	furasuko	/ɸu͍̥ɽasu͍̥ko/	Portuguese frasco [ˈfɾaʃku]	(laboratory) flask
じょうろ	jōro	/dʑoːɽo/	Portuguese jarro [ˈʒaʀu]	watering can (jar)
バレーボール	barēbōru	/baɽeːboːɽu͍̥/	English volleyball	volleyball
ソープ	Sōpu	/soːpu͍/	English Thorpe	name: Thorpe
ソープ	sōpu	/soːpu͍̥/	English soap	soap
ホワイトハウス	howaitohausu	/how͍aitohau͍su͍̥/	English White House	White House
ランゲージ ラボラトリー	rangēji-raboratorī	/ɽaŋɡeːdʑi̥ ɽaboɽatoɽiː/	English language laboratory	language laboratory
テレフォン カード	terefon-kādo	/teɽefoɴ kaːdo/	English telephone card	telephone card
パトカー	pato-kā	/pato kaː/	English patrol car	patrol car

Longer gairaigo are often shortened:

Japanese katakana	Romaji	IPA	Donor language word	English gloss
サントラ	san-tora	/saɴ toɽa/	English soundtrack	soundtrack
デパート	depāto	/depaːto/	English department store	department store
ハンカチ	hankachi	/haŋkatɕi/	English handkerchief	handkerchief
カーナビ	kānabi	/kaːnabi/	English car navigation system	car navigation system

In some cases, the original meaning shifts considerably through unexpected logical leaps: buffet → バイキング baikingu (Viking): derived from the name of the restaurant "Imperial Viking", the first restaurant in Japan which offered buffet style meals.^[15]

dress shirt → ワイシャツ waishatsu: derived from the words white shirt and shortened.

There are other cases where words are borrowed, seemingly at random, and used in totally inexplicable contexts. This is often the case in the names of small businesses and in anime and manga series such as Bubblegum Crisis. Gairaigo is so large a part of the modern Japanese vocabulary that there are specialized dictionaries for it.

Reborrowing

It is possible for a word to travel from the recipient language to another and then back to the original donor language in a different form, a process called reborrowing. Some examples are:

Original	Borrowed to:	Reborrowed to original as:
French bœuf “ox”	English as beef, the root of the English word beefsteak	bifteck
Greek κίνημα (transliteration: kinima)	French as cinema “motion picture”	σινεμά (transliteration: sinema) “motion picture”
English animation	Japanese as アニメ, (transliteration: anime) "animated movies"	anime (Japanese-style cartoons)
Hebrew keli-zemer “musical instrument”	Yiddish as klezmer “(traditional Ashkenazic) musician”	klezmer “(traditional Ashkenazic) musician”[16]
Portuguese feitiço “charm”	French as fétiche "fetish, amulet"	fetiche "fetish"

See also

• Cognate
• Hybrid word
• Inkhorn debate
• Language contact
• Semantic loan
• Lists of English words by country or language of origin

Notes

References

• 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,
• 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.
• Hitchings, Henry (2008), The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English, London: John Murray, ISBN 978-0-7195-6454-3 .
• Hayakawa, Isamu (2014), A Historical Dictionary of Japanese Words Used in English, Revised and Corrected Edition, Amazon, Tokyo: Texnai, ISBN 978-4907162313 .
• Kersley, Leo; Sinclair, Janet (1979), A Dictionary of Ballet Terms, Da Capo Press, ISBN 0-306-80094-2 .

• 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.
• Shanet, Howard (1956), Learn to Read Music, New York: Simon & Schuster, ISBN 978-0-671-21027-4 .
• 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.
• Weinreich, Uriel (1953): Languages in contact: findings and problems. The Hague: Mouton.
• Zuckermann, Ghil’ad (2003), ‘‘Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew’’, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

External links

Look up loanword in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• World Loanword Database (WOLD)
• Discussion on how loan words exacerbate Future Shock (Streaming audio & mp3)