Borrowing
Every language in the world has borrowed, at some point in time, words from other languages. This is by the way how a new language is formed. Apart from our original language (if such a language ever existed), all other languages are made of borrowed and adapted words, structures and sounds.
There are basically four ways a word can be borrowed:
1. Loanword with morphological accommodationfootball > futebol (Port.)
2. Loanword without accommodationfeedback > feedback (Port.)
3. Loan blendDies Saturni > Saturday (Eng.) The God "Saturn" comes from Latin + Germanic root "day"
4. Loan shift (calque and semantic extension)
Calque - football > ποδόσφαιρο (Greek) podos (foot) + sfero (sphere)
Semantic extension - mouse > souris (French) The word in French had one meaning before the borrowing, now it has two.
Haugen (1950) The Analysis of Linguistic Borrowing
The "most borrowed" word class is nouns, followed by adjectives and verbs. Each language/country has specific rules for borrowed words. In Portuguese, for instance, all borrowed verbs must end in -ar (1st conjugation). Some languages prefer loanwords with accommodation, others prefer loan shifts.
How do you say the following nouns and verbs in your languages?
NOUNS1. computer2. monitor3. screen4. mouse5. keyboard6. folder7. file8. mobile phone9. touchscreen10. e-mail
VERBS1. download2. upload3. e-mail4. print5. click6. save7. log in8. scan9. post (on Facebook)10. share
1 comment:
Verbs are the most changing and open class of various categories. Nouns are very fixed and usually pronouns (but not in Japanese). An example of this is 'Google it' taking a made up name (noun) and changing it into a verb--transitive, at that. Arial typology seems to be a great impact on how languages develop also.
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