Borrowing

Borrowing
Introduction
Language borrowings occur in the event of contact of different ethnic groups speaking different
languages due to social, political, economic, or cultural reasons (Sapir 15). To illustrate, when a
certain ethnic minority lives in the area dominated by the host society, language assimilation,
or as it is often referred to by linguists, language shift takes place (Sapir 157). The language shift
in such a case is conditioned by the pragmatic considerations such as the need to acquire a job,
get an education, or engage in business (Sapir 157).
The direction of language shift is always conditioned by the most influential factors that refer to
the situation (Sapir 158). To illustrate, a seller will tend to shift to buyers’ language to manage
to win customer trust and develop customer relations based on loyalty. This situation has been
observed through human history when traveling merchants being the clients of numerous
sellers in the Asian countries introduced into their local languages some of the Roman group
language words (Sapir 158).
For instance, the word bank that is so common in its different phonetic variations in hundreds
of modern-day languages originally comes from Italy, and it was spread by the Hebrew
merchants through the entire area of countries located within the major trading road from
Europe to Asia (Sapir 168).
The process of language shift is inevitably connected with the process of conventionalization.
Kemmer defines conventionalization as “a gradual process in which a word progressively
permeates a larger and larger speech community” (par. 5). The result of the process of
conventionalization is the total loss of connections with the source language according to the
perception of the community of the word borrowers (Kemmer par. 5).
In the English language, linguists had distinguished many periods of conventionalization when
the language was affected by a certain culture and its language and was actively adopting new
words (Kemmer par. 2). The outcome of conventionalization for the English language is the
creation of its more or less stable version known by the modern-day people (Kemmer par. 12).
According to Winford, there exist three types of language contact situations as it can be seen
from the following comment, “we can, in general, distinguish three broad kinds of contact
situation: those involving language maintenance, those involving language shift, and those that
lead to the creation of new contact languages” (11). Although this author distinguishes the
three major types of language contact situations, he makes a clarification that in numerous
situations, the type of a contact situation is difficult to distinguish, and at times, contact
situations may have the features of more than one type of contact situations (Winford 11).
Evaluation of cultural and historical examples of language changes suggests an important
conclusion. When two languages come into contact with each other, certain linguistic shift
situations may occur, such as language borrowing. In this essay, language borrowing will be
discussed.
Language Borrowing Types

Language borrowings may differ in their kinds and degrees from minor ones to more structural
types and from casual to heavy language borrowings (Winford 12). Commenting on language
borrowing types, Winford has stated that “situations involving primary lexical borrowing, that
is, borrowing of content morphemes like nouns, verbs, etc., are extremely common, and most,
if not all, languages have been subject to this kind of influence at some time or another” (12).
The common types of language borrowings that are distinguished by linguists are phonological,
lexical, and calques (List 141). The example of phonological borrowings is [x]: yecch and [Z]:
prestige (List 142). The examples of lexical loanwords are the following words coming from
French and Spanish ballet, captain, chivalry, fiancé, adobe, cigar, mosquito, and rodeo (List
143). The examples of calques originating from French and Canton Pidgin English are look-see,
no-go, long time no see, no can do, and chop-chop (List 143).
Language Borrowing Type 1

Language borrowing type 1 is lexical borrowing. In this case, the new language acquires the
loan words or loan blends. The example of this phenomenon in the English language is
borrowing from French, such as rendezvous (Winford 45). One more example of the loan words
is the Dutch corner (Winford 45). Another example is loan blends originating from Pennsylvania
German, such as basic (Winford 45).
A yet anotherr example is the derivational blend that consists of an imported stem and native
affix such as artillery (Winford 45). The compound blend is one more illustration of the language
borrowing type 1 linguistic phenomenon. This blend implicates the creation of new loan words
with the use of imported stem and native stem. The case of the compound blend is plumpie,
where the reader may notice two stems plum and pie (Winford 45).

Language borrowing type 2 is the borrowing that appears in use in the new language as a result
of loan shifts. To illustrate, a semantic extension from Portuguese to English is frio meaning cold
infection (Winford 45). This word is formed under the impact of model of the native language
usage. Another illustration is the case of phonological resemblance being the basis for shift in
semantics in such English word as humorous in parallel with Portuguese word humoroso
(Winford 45). A yet another illustration is the loan shift from the Norwegian language of the
word wervelwind to English word whirlwind (Winford 46). More examples are French art deco
or art style and rotonde or rotunda (Kemmer par. 17).
Evaluation of the particular loan shifts examples narrated above suggests a conclusion that in
the case of lexical borrowing, the lower language will borrow a word with the semantic
connotation absent in this language from the upper language, where people have already faced
certain phenomenon and came up with the lexical term for it.
By further examining these loan shifts and historical context in which they came into use, one
may observe what cultural, political, social or other factors have influenced such shift (Kemmer
par.5). Overall, loan shifts in languages take place when the borrower is not willing to accept
the donor’s lexical material fully but is trying to adopt the new borrowing to the peculiarities of
one’s language (Kemmer par.5).

Language borrowing type 3 is loan translations. Here, the phenomenon of borrowing through
direct translation takes place (Winford 44). An illustration of such phenomenon is the creation
of a German word with the lexical meaning ‘skyscraper’ by means of literary translation of
morphemic parts of this word from English into German (Winford 44). As a result, the German
language has adopted the translational loan from English-speaking nations that became familiar
with the very notion of skyscrapers earlier due to the emergence of this technological
breakthrough in their territory (Sapir 163).
From this illustration, it becomes clear that loan translations are the phenomenon that takes
place when the loan item is a composite form in the upper language and the borrower creates a
parallel composite structure from one’s language material (Kemmer par.7)

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Language Borrowing Types

Language Borrowing Type 1

Language Borrowing Type 2

Language Borrowing Type 3

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