Referent științific:

Dr. Vcsna Muhviâ-Dimanovski, Director

Institutul dc Lingvistică - Academia Croată de Științe și Arte

Descrierea CIP a Bibliotecii Naționale a României

CIOBANU, GEORGETA
Romanian words of english origin / Georgcta
Ciobanu. - Timișoara: Mirton, 2004
144 p.; 24 cm.
Bibliogr.
ISBN 973-661-323-2

811.135.1’373.45:811.111
 Georgcta Ciobanii

Romanian Words of English Origin

second revised edition

Editura MIRTON Timișoara

2 0 0 4
BCU-Litere
 CONTENTS

Page

Introduction 7
Bibliography 10
Terminological Explanations 32
I. Studies Dealing with the English Element in Romanian 35
II. The Representative Corpus of Romanian Words of
English Origin 53
English Words in the Romanian Lexis 53
The Representative Corpus of Romanian Words
of English Origin 64
Americanisms in Romanian 93
III. The Methodology of Studying the English Element in
Romanian 101
Conclusions 131
Appendix 1 135
 Introduction

This volume is devoted to the study of Romanian words of English

origin.
Previous Romanian papers dealing with English loan words in
Romanian are quite recent. They deal with various aspects, such as
sources and channels of borrowing, stages of the adaptation process,
general adaptation tendencies etc. There is no synthesis so far, however,
on the complex topic under consideration. The present volume is an
attempt to fill in this gap.
The starting point for this work has been our Ph.D. thesis(Georgeta
Ciobanu , 1983 ) defended in Bucharest at M Institutul de Cercetări
Etnologice și Dialectologice " in 1984. The initial analysis presented in the
doctoral dissertation was developed and new elements were added.
Our present research has also been based on recent results of
contact linguistics ; at the same time, it involves methods and procedures
used to analyse the English element in other European languages as well.
Participating - as a representative of Romania - at the International
Research Project "The English Element in European Languages" directed
by Rudolf Filipovic, we succeeded to place our study of English words in
Romanian within the broader perspective of the general process of
borrowing English words in about twenty European languages. Thus, on
one hand, we try to outline trends which are specific to Romanian only,
and. on the other hand, to point out features of linguistic bon-owing from
 8

English which are common to Romanian and to other European

languages.
The present study is thooretical as far as It deals with the analysis
of previous contributions to the problem under discussion, with the
methodology of studying the borrowing process, and with linguistic
concepts and rules required to establish linguistic phenomena occurring in
the borrowed words.
The applied character resides in the fact that it outlines the trends
governing the process of borrowing English words into Romanian. This, in
turn, helps to reveal peculiarities of present-day Romanian and might,
thus, contribute to complete the image of the individuality of contemporary
Romanian. It is the belief of the author that the results of this research can
also be used profitably in teaching Romanian and English, and in
assimilating correctly the Romanian words of English origin.
The volume is structured as follows :
- a special chapter devoted to the Terminology used ;
- a chapter entitled Studies Dealing with the English Element in
Romanian.which presents, in chronological order, previous Romanian
linguistic works dealing with the Romanian words of English origin ;
- The Representative Corpus of Romanian Words of.English Origin
outlines aspects of the English influence upon the Romanian lexis , as well
as the procedure applied to establish the corpus of English borrowings in
Romanian;
- TheMethodologyofStudyingtheEnglish.Element.inRomanian
includes a description of the experimental methods and procedures used
to check the theoretical data;
 9

- Conclusions, in which the main characteristics of the presence of

English elements in Romanian are summed up.
Details about the adaptation process of the English elements
borrowed
In Romanian are presented in our volume entitled “Adaptation of the
English Element in Romanian" ( Georgeta Ciobanu, Adaptation of the
English Element in Romanian. Timisoara, Editura Mirton, 1997.
Also, it is necessary to mention the fact that our selection of
English elements in Romanian and the processing of data took place by
the time the first edition was published, that is, before 1997.
 10

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 18

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II. Studies

Abbreviations

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logie. București, 1954 •
AUBLLR AUB. Limbă șl litoratură română.
 19

AUBLLS AUB.Limbi și JiteraturLstrăineL

AUT Analele Universității dinJTirnișoara. Seriaștiințe filologice.
Timișoara, 1963 -
Cl. Cercetări de lingvistică. Cluj, Institutul de Lingvistică, 1956
CLTA Cahiers de linguistique theorique et appliquee, Bucarest,
1962-
LL Limbă_și literatură. București, 1955 -
LR Limba română , București, 1952 -
PN Presa noastră, București, 1955 -
R Lit. România literară , București, 1968 -
URL Revue roumaine de linguistique , Bucarest, 1956 -
SAP Studia Anglica Posnaniensia , Poznan, 1968-
SCL
8RAZ Studia Romanica etAnglicaZagrabiensia, Zagreb, 1956 -
8IUBB Studia Universitatis Babeș-BolyaLSeries philologia ,
Cluj, 1956-
Tlllfis

03. Alexandru, Domnița, Ciobanu, Georgeta, ( 1987 )"Tendințe de relati-

nizare în limba română contemporană " (Re-Latinization
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__ .Lingvistică , Timișoara: Universitatea Timișoara. 66-71.
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română contemporană " ( Endings for Foreign Words in

Contemporary Romanian ),SCL , 4 : 319-324.
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 20

Correct Usage ), București: Editura Academiei.

antaș, Andrei ( 1977 ) "A Bird's Eye View of English Influence upon
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 21

Termeni marinărești de origine engleză " (The

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însușirea corectă a terminologiei de specialitate in limba
română de către studenții din invătămintul superior tehnic (I)
(The Contribution of Teaching English to the Correct Usage
of Romanian Specialized Terminology) In Contribuția
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110. Ciobanu, Goorgola ( 1982 )" Contribuția predării limbii engleze la
însușirea corectă a terminologiei de specialitate in limba
 22

română de către studenții din invătămintul superior tehnic

(II),Contribuția predării limbilor modeme la pregătirea de
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112. Ciobanu, Georgeta ( 1987 a )" Metodologia stabilirii unui corpus de
imprumuturi " (The Methodology of Establishing a Corpus of
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niște. Bacău : I.I.S.Bacău. 148-149.
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Anglo Fashion in Borrowing Anglicism» In Romanian )ln
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 23

Universitatea Galați. 43-44.

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120 Constantinescu, llinca ( 1973 )" Influența limbii engleze in vocabularul
sportiv românesc (III)", LR , 2 : 109-116.
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 24

(Etymology and the Romanian Language ), București:

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 25

Contact Reinterpreted (Illustrated by the English Element in

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13ft.Filipovic, Rudolf (ed.) (1991 ) The English Element in European
Languages.voL 3 , Zagreb : University of Zagreb.
140. Gheorghiu, Mircea (1968) "Inovații și formații noi in limba presei
actuale " (Innovations in Present-day Press Language ),LR,
2:131-133.
141. Gheție, Ion ( 1957 )" Observații asupra limbii folosite in " Sportul
popular1* (Remarks on the Language Used in the
Newspapor" Sportul popular") ,LR ,4 :19-25.
142. Graur, Alexandru (1003 a ) Etimologii romănești( Romanian Etymo-
 26

logies), București: Editura Academiei.

143. Graur, Alexandru ( 1963 b )Evoluția limbii române. Privire sintetică
(General Outline on the Evolution of the Romanian
Language ), București: Editura Științifică, 40-75.
144. Graur, Alexandru ( 1967 a ) The Romance Character of Romanian ,
Bucharest: Publishing House of the Academy of the
Socialist Republic of Romania.
145. Graur, Alexandru ( 1967 b) " Limbajul sportiv " (The Language of
Sports), EN, 6 :31.
146. Gruiță, Mariana ( 1974 )" Adaptarea cuvintelor de origine engleză la
sistemul fonetic și ortografic al limbii române actuale " ( The
Adaptation of English Loanwords to the Phonetical and
Orthographical System of Contemporary Romanian ), LL ,
1:51-57.
147. Hristea, Theodor ( 1968 ) Probleme de etimologie (Etymology
Problems ), București: Editura Științifică.
148. Hristea, Theodor (1972 ) " împrumuturi și creații lexicale neologice in
limba română contemporană " ( Neologisms and Loanwords
in Contemporary Romanian ), LR , 3 : 185-198.
149. Hristea, Theodor (1973 ) " Criterii de diferențiere a formațiilor interne
de împrumuturi " ( Criteria for Differentiating Internal
Creations from Loanwords ), AU.BLLR , 1 : 143-154.
150. Hristea, Theodor ( 1974 )" Pseudoanglicisme de proveniență
franceză in limba română " ( Pseudoanglicisms of French
Origin in Romanian) LR, 1 :62-69.
151. Hristea, Theodor ( 1977 )" Contribuții la studiul etimologic nl
 27

frazeologiei românești modeme " ( Contributions to the

Etymological Study of Modem Romanian Idioms ), LR , 6 :
588-592.
152. Hristea, Theodor (1978 ) " Anglicisme reale și aparente " (Actual and
False Anglicisms ), R.Lit. , 50 : 8 .
153. Hristea, Theodor ( 1980 )" Americanisme internaționale " (Inter­
national Americanisms ), RJJt, 14:9.
154. Hristea, Theodor (coord.) ( 1984 a ) Sintezedelimba română
(Syntheses on the Romanian Language ), București:
Editura Albatros.
155. Hristea, Theodor ( 1984 b )" Termeni englezești in frazeologia
româneasca" ( English Terms in Romanian Set-phrases),
RJJL, 39 : 8.
156.lonescu-Ruxandoiu, Liliana and Chițoran, Dumitru ( 1975 ) Sooich
lingvistica.Qrientări actuale ( Sociolinguistics. Up-to-date
Trends ), București: Editura Didactica și Pedagogică.
157. Iordan, lorgu ( 1947 ) Limba română actuală. O gramatică a
"greșelilor” ( Current Romanian. A Grammar of " Mistakes "),
București:Editura Socec & Co., 459-511.
158.lordan, lorgu ( 1956 ) Limba română contemporană ( Contemporary
Romanian) București: Editura Ministerului învătămintului.
159.Iordan, lorgu and Robu, Vladimir ( 1978 ) Limbaromână contempo-
rană_(Contemporary Romanian ), București: Editura
Didactică și Pedagogică.
16O.Macrea, Dlmltrio ( 1982 ) Probleme alestructuriLșLevoluțiellimbiL
româno (Problem» of the Structure and Evolution of the
 28

Romanian Language), București: Editura Științifică și

Enciclopedică.
161. Maneca, Constant ( 1967 )" Structura etimologica a limbii române
literare contemporane in lumina frecvenței cuvintelor” (The
Etymological Structure of Contemporary Literary Romanian
Related to Word Frequency ),SCL , 2 : 121-138.
162. Mitu, Mihai ( 1983 )" Conceptul de M împrumuturi in serie "( cu referire
la polonismele limbii române )’’ (The Concept of "Chain
Borrowing" Related to Polish Loanwords in Romanian ),
SCL , 1 :12-15.
163.Orszâgh, Lâszlâ ( 1977 ) Angol eredetueJemek_a_magyar
szokâszletben ( The English Element in the Hungarian
Vocabulary ), Budapest: Akadâmiai Kiadd.
164. Pârlog, Hortensia (1971 )" Termeni de origine engleză in publicistica
română contemporană " ( Terms of English Origin in
Contemporary Romanian Press ), AUT : 55-59.
165. Păltineanu, V. ( 1969 )" Observații cu privire la cuvintele internațio­
nale in limba română" (International Words in the
Romanian Language ),SLUBJ3 2 : 50-54.
166. Popa Tomescu, Teodora (1970 )" Lexicul internațional. Definiție.
Criterii de delimitare" (The International Lexis. Definition.
Delimitation Criteria ) .AUBLLR , 2 : 137-140.
167. x x x ( 1971 et seq.) Ihe Romanian - English_Contrastive.Analysis
Eroject, Bucharest: Bucharest University Press.
168. Rosetti, Alexandru ( 1947 ) Melanges de linguistique_et_de philologie,
Copenhaga : Einar Mungsgaard, București: Institutul de
 29

Lingvistică Română.
169.
Rosetti, Alexandru and Golopenția-Eretescu, Sanda (eds.) (1978 )

1-2, București: Editura Academiei.

17O.Sajavaara, Kari (1986 ) " Aspects of English Influence on Finnish”,
Wolfgang Viereck and Wolf-Dietrich Bald (eds.) EnglishJn

171.Sala, Marius (1971 ) Phonătique et phonologie du judăo-espagnol de

Bucarest, The Hague. Paris : Mouton.
172.Sala, Marius ( 1975 )" Aspecte ale contactului dintre limbi in domeniul
romanic. II" ( Language Contact - Romance Languages II),
SCL, 1 : 3-12.
173.Sala, Marius (coord.) (1988 ) VocabularuLreprezentativ_allimbilor
romanice (The Representative Vocabulary of Romance
Languages ), București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică.
174.Scherabon Firchow, Evelyn, Grimstad, Kaaren etal. ( eds.) ( 1972 )
Studies by Einar Haugen (presented on_the-Occasion of_his
65th birthday April 19.-1971-), The Hague. Paris : Mouton.
175.Seche, Luiza (1971 )" Aspecte ale folosirii adjectivelor derivate din
nume proprii" (Aspects of Using Adjectives Derived from
Proper Names), PN , 9 : 39-41.
176.Seche, Luiza ( 1974 )" Englezisme terminate in Ing folosite in presă "
(- ing Ending Anglicisms Used in Press Language ), EN,
2 : 43-45.
177.Seche, Luiza and Seche, Mircea ( 1965 )" Despre adaptarea neolo-
gbmolor In limba română literară " (The Adaptation of
 30

Neologisms in Literary Romanian ) ,LR , 6 : 678-687.

178.Seche, Mircea ( 1959 ) "Despre stilul sportiv" (The Style of Sports
Language ), LR , 2 : 81-91.
179.Shuy, Roger, Wolfram, Walter and Riley, William ( 1968 ) Field
Techniques in an Urban_Language Study ,
Washington: Center for Applied Linguistics.
18O.SIama-Cazacu, Tatiana ( 1968 ) Introducere in psiholingvistică
(Introduction to Psycholinguistics ), București: Editura
Științifica .
181.Slama-Cazacu, Tatiana (1971 )" Probleme de metodă in socio­
lingvistică" ( Methods in Sociolinguistics )ln Eonetică_și
Dialectologie .București: Editura Academiei, 233-244.
182.Slama-Cazacu, Tatiana (red.) ( 1973 ) Cercetări asupra comunicării
(Research on Communication ), București: Editura
Academiei.
183. Șerban, Felicia (1979 )" Analiza cantitativă a neologismelor limbii
române" (Quantitative Analysis of the Romanian
Neologisms ), CL ,1 : 29-31.
184. Șerban, Vasile and Evseev, Ivan (1978 ) Vocabularul românesc
contemporan ( Contemporary Romanian Vocabulary),
Timișoara : Editura Facla.
185. Teodorescu, Vasile ( 1975 )" Citeva aspecte ale constituirii terminolo­
giei fotbalului in limba română " ( Romanian Football
Terminology ), LL , 1 : 22-26.
186. Tiugan, Marilena ( 1977 ) " Soclollngulstlc Analysis in a Phonological
Variablo", RRL , 4 . 431-444.
 31

Tiugan,
187. Marilena ( 1979 )" The Pronunciation of the Diphthong [ {a ]
in the Speech of Bucharest City Community ". RRL 5:491-
498.
Ififl.Tiugan, Marilena ( 1980 a ) ”The Usage of e in Neological Words
when in Hiatus Position. A Sociolinguistic Examination ",
RRL , 1 : 45-52.
1B9.Tiugan, Marilena ( 1980 b)" Passive Bilingualism in an Urban
Community", CLTA 1 : 27-35.
190. Trofin, Aurel ( 1967 )" Observații cu privire la adaptarea terminologiei
sportive de origine engleză in limba română " ( Remarks
Concerning the Adaptation of Sports Terminology of English
Origin in Romanian ), StUBB , 2 : 125-130.
101 .Ulivi, Anca ( 1980 ) " Teste de percepție privitoare la relația dintre
sincopă și debitul vorbirii in limba română" ( Perception
Tests Concerning the Relationship between Syncope and
Speech Rate in Romanian ), SCL , 1 : 35-44.
102. Ursu, Despina and Ursu, Nicolae (1966 ) " Observații privitoare la
adaptarea neologismelor in limba română" (The Adapt­
ation of Neologisms in Romanian ), LR, 3 : 245-250.
103. Viereck, Wolfgang and Bald, Wolf - Dietrich (eds.) (1986 )_English in
Contact with Other Languages. Stiidies in honoijrof Brodor
Carstensen on the occasion oLhis SOth birthday. Budapest:
Akadămiai Kiadb .
194. Weinreich, Uriel ( 1968 ) Languages in Contact, The Hague. Paris :
Mouton.
 Terminological Explanations

Before we proceed, it is necessary to introduce som<

terminological remarks. Our main guide in this respect was the bool
written by Rudolf Filipovid on the theory of languages in contac
(Filipovid, 1986 c).

Our principal concern is the study of Romanian words of English

origin. In general, literature on languages in contact refers to words
transferred from one language into another as loanwords or borrowings

Dictionaries define a loanword as a “word adopted into one

language from another*(PED) or a “word taken from another language’
(OALDCE II). We consider the English element and Romanian words ot
English origin are also possible equivalents for the concept under
consideration.

In discussing words transferred from one language into another we

also have to consider the following distinctions:

loanwords (loan-words / loan words) are “those borrowed words which

in the course of phonological adaptation by means of substitutions
have been completely integrated into the phonological system of
 33

the receiving language and do not show any foreign element at

all”(Filipovid, 1972:149);
foreign loans are borrowed words which have started their_adaptation
and assimilation;
foreign words are terms which remain unassimilated.
Intermediary and direct borrowing are terms of current usage in
< ontact linguistics. Intermediary borrowing takes place “when the contact
between two languages is established through an intermediary, which can
ho either a language or the mass media"; direct borrowing occurs “by
direct contact between a speaker of the giving language and speakers of
the receiving language”(Filipovid, 1986 b:334).

Two more terms deserve special attention: Anglicism and

Americanism. In Romanian linguistics their usage is quite restricted;an
Anglicism is defined as “a phrase specific for the English language; word
<»!' English origin borrowed into another language uselessly, not integrated
in the receiving language" (DEX), while an Americanism is defined as a
phrase specific for Americans” (DEX). For a number of years, in many
countries these terms have been unanimously accepted as having a much
more general meaning; thus, an Anglicism is “every word borrowed from
I nglish denoting any thing, idea or concept that belongs to the English
civilization; it need not be of English extraction but it must have been
adapted in English and integrated in the English vocabulary” (Filipovid,
199o: 17).Americanisms are “words and phrases having their origin in the
I Initod States, as well as those senses of previously existing words or
phrases that first came into use in this country* (WNWD.p.lX).
 34

Besides the above mentioned specific terms, we use the genera

terminology accepted in the study of languages in contact, that is, term
such as: giving (lending, donor) language, receiving language, linguist*
interference, language borrowing, language acquisition, language losi
(shift), and others (Filipovid, 1986 c).
 I.Stud ies Dealing with the English Element
In Romanian

The Romanian linguistic research works dealing with the English

««loment in Romanian are relatively recent and not very numerous. They
may be grouped as follows:

1) studies dealing with phonetical. morphological, lexical and

semantic problems concerning the Romanian words of English
origin;
2) studies concerning the adaptation of neologisms in general, the
integration of international words into Romanian, tendencies in the
development of present-day Romanian, articles dealing with correct
linguistic usage, which, though not mainly interested h the English
element and its integration in the Romanian language system,
approach - directly or indirectly - this problem as well.
For practical purposes, the chapter will observe the chronological
older of the works to be analysed. Our selection of papers has as a
H«h«rence background the titles of all Romanian linguistic research works
printed after 1945.
 36

The starting point of our research consists, first of all, in turning into
account previous contributions.

Many of the papers dealing with the adaptation of Romanian words

of English origin mention as the primary reference source the remarks of
lorgu Iordan concerning Romanian sports terms of English origin
(Iordan, 1947).There is reference to the English origin of most Romanian
sports terms and to the contribution of French as an intermediary in
preserving the Anglo-Saxon word shape; lorgu Iordan considers direct
loans are only exceptional cases, French being almost always the
intermediary. The above mentioned work also includes a list of such terms,
their usage and attestation.

Later Romanian linguistic studies quote rather frequently Iordan's

viewpoint concerning the capacity of the Romanian language to assimilate
quite easily words borrowed from other languages, especially due to its
rich and varied phonetic system, as well as to the morphologic one
(Iordan, 1956); in his opinion, adaptation is, by right, a gradual process,
occurring quite slowly,involving in the borrowing process initially a few
people, and, then, spreading among more and more speakers, with
increasing chances for each new element to be accepted and even
generalized.

The 6o’s witnessed an increase in the number of Romanian words

of English origin entering more and more fields of activity. Consequently,
there was an increase in the number of papers dealing with English
loanwords in Romanian. Researchers paid special attention to fields with
IIh» groatost number of loans. Moreover, studies referring to English
 37

loanwords in a certain field outlined peculiarities of the adaptation process

in certain vocabulary sections.

First, we mention an article of Mircea Seche (1959) concerning the

style of sports language. Besides classifying sports terms according to
usage, the author also underlines the clear tendency of Romanian to
absorb, integrate and adapt rather quickly English loanwords. The author
supports this statement by showing certain correlations between
orthography and phonetic aspects. Conclusive remarks result from
analysing the stages of orthographic adaptation: “The etymological writing
has gradually been replaced by the phonetic writing, a sign of the
integration of sports terms into the Romanian system"; “ with very few
exceptions, the press and sports publications make use of one single
spelling form for each sports term, generally the phonetic one" (Seche,
1959:89). The article also includes various details concerning some
features of sports style as related to other styles of literary Romanian.

The remarks of Ion Gheție (1957) offer additional details related to

Hports terms borrowed from English into Romanian. The author suggests
lhe following main stages in the adaptation process : first, the borrowed
words appear in their original phonetic shape; later, a few speakers
preserve the original pronunciation, while the overwhelming majority of
wpeakers start to ignore the English pronunciation. The phonetic aspects
ne correlated to those of orthography, and the examples he discusses
represent arguments for the interdependence between orthography and
pronunciation. There are also some hints at hypercorrect forms, misusage,
loantranslations, innovations, as well as some stylistic peculiarities.
 38

Analysing some Romanian nautical terms of English origin, Mihai

Bujeniță (1966) attaches special importance to establish etymologies,
estimates the age of words, gives definitions, mentions words which are
not recorded in dictionaries, being also concerned with *he phonetic
aspoct of the borrowings. The author draws some interesting conclusions,
such as : the presence of an early direct English influence, the existence
of some rather recent nautical slang words, as well as ceriain changes
occurring in the borrowing process - generally insignificant changes at the
phonetic level and quite few semantic modifications.

Some of the borrowing problems are tackled as well in an article

written by Aurel Trofin (1967) - the first study dedicated mainly to the
adaptation process. Defending the existence of a direct English influence
on the Romanian sports vocabulary, the author tries to outline tendencies
in the adaptation process of English borrowings, having permanently in
view the interdependence between orthography and pronunciation.
According to Trofin, among others (e.g.l. Gheție, M. Seche, M.Bogdan) a
minority of sports fans, knowing English, gave the borrowed words a
pronunciation close to the English one. In general, words were adopted on
the basis of their oral form; the great majority of speakers, not knowing
English, adapted the pronunciation of these terms to th a Romanian
phonetic system. The author suggests a classification of the English
borrowings according to the way they were adapted to the Romanian
phonetic spelling : Romanian spelling corresponding to the English
pronunciation; Romanian spelling corresponding to the English spelling;
Romanian spelling and pronunciation involving slight changes imposed by
the Romanian articulatory system; compound words lacking the first or the
 39

•eoond element of the corresponding English word; compound words

whose first part reproduces the English written form, and whose second
part corresponds to the oral form.

Analysing the Romanian sports terminology of English origin,

Alnxandru Graur is - for example, in his article Limbajul sportiv(1967 b) - in
favour of a pronunciation adapted to the Romanian pronunciation rules,
•lifforent from the one reproducing the English graphic form; the author
i lmitifies two clear tendencies in the adaptation of the words borrowed
if nni English: either a change of the spelling of English words or a change
m their pronunciation.

One of the studies written by Mircea Gheorghiu (1968) refers to

nome peculiarities in the adaptation of Anglicisms in present-day
i f< mianian press; the main feature characterizing these terms is their 'raw*
lofin, i.e. a lack of adaptation. The author quotes some lexical innovations
recorded in everyday press.

Further, we mention an article whose author is Mihail Bogdan

11'ifO) - a study dealing with English loanwords in general. The author has
•i • view the development of these words in different fields (the examples
M selected from Romanian dictionaries). Besides etymological
• iterations, he also hints at some morphological featureș.There is an
interesting conclusion concerning the English loanwords related to the
(jnneral Romanian vocabulary: with few exceptions, they “lie on the
periphery of everyday vocabulary" (Bogdan, 1970:744).

A study of Hortensia Pâriog (1971) presents some characteristics

on lhe adaptation of English words in the contemporary Romanian press;
 40

the author emphasizes as a striking feature the fact that “terms are used
<tale quale> without any attempt to adapt them to the system of our
language* (Pâriog, 1971:56). The analysis is earned out upon about 55o
words and phrases selected from newspapers. Comments on the
examples under analysis concede the first signs of integrating Anglicisms.

Also dealing with press terms, Luiza Seche (1971) analyses the
category of adjectives derived from proper names. Recommending a
flexible approach, the author tries to point out some trends concerning
these adjectives: most often, the derived form, the adjectival attribute,
preserving the spelling and pronunciation of the proper name, shows lack
of integration; the derived forms are sometimes preferred, being more
synthetic; integration is quite often favoured by the use of some endings
common to Romanian adjectival attributes, namely, -ianr -ean, resc,-ist.

Sports vocabulary continues to remain a favourite topic for

analysis; the series of three articles written by llinca Constantinescu (1972-
1973) represents a thorough research on the English element in
Romanian sports vocabulary. Convinced of the direct English influence on
Romanian sports vocabulary, the author starts by analysmg previous
contributions to the topic; her analysis is based on an extended corpus
aimed at drawing as general conclusions as possible at the end of the
third article. The sources, as well as the methods of selecting the terms,
reveal the preoccupation for analysing a rich material and including the
most diverse sources possible, both written and oral; the sources are
sports publications (old and new), the texts of regulations for various
sports of English origin, radio and television broadcastings, and
information obtained from different speakers.
 41

To treat terms in a differentiated way the author classifies the

h|>orts terms into three groups, according to usage: common terms of
< urrent usage, specialized terms of a more restricted usage, and
Anglicisms of a very restricted usage (used by pressmen).

Each entry in the word inventory includes a lot of data:

morphological category, etymology, spelling variants, stress vacillation,
•Inrived words etc.; detailed explanations are offered within the
• ommentary for each entry, especially for variants, fluctuations, stress
transfer and hypercorrect forms, as well as their causes. Among the
. mises of these phenomena we may mention a few: the influence of
•polling on pronunciation, the role of the borrowing medium in stabilizing
various forms, the role of contamination between oral and written forms in
imposing a certain pronunciation, the correlation between Romanian
I iienunciation rules and the preference for a certain variant, the influence
of hypercorrection on different variants, the role of analogy in choosing a
• artain variant, the importance of word length in generalizing certain word
forms.

Besides the outstanding documentary value of the rich corpus

under analysis, we have to point out the valuable conclusions of a very
umieral nature.

First, we must mention the remarks that concern phenomena

•pacific to borrowing English words in Romanian, occurring regularly
..qiiivalents for certain sounds, loss of vowel quantity,
monophthongization, palatalization of certain consonants, adaptutw»*
TVMtd’i borrowed via written sources) resulting in an oral fonn d
 42

reading the words according to the Romanian phonetic rules, fluctuations

(2-3 parallel forms), hypercorrect pronunciations.

The article also outlines conclusions concerning phonetic

adaptation on the whole, with reference to the English element in
Romanian such as : phonetic phenomena are approached as a
combination of elements often manifest within one single word; adaptation
is considered a gradual process, with each word having its own evolution;
terms are treated differently whether received via written or oral media (the
former characterized by a pronunciation adapted to Romanian orthoepy
rules, the latter resembling the pronunciation of the donor language).

Understanding the value of any linguistic phenomena at a given

time, the author analyses a rigorously selected corpus, appreciates the
chances of generalization of certain forms, and suggests as
recommendable certain word forms, allowing the further development of
language to confirm or deny her suggestions.

One study among the Romanian linguistic works, written by

Mariana Gruiță (1974), approaches exclusively the problem of phonetic
adaptation in Romanian words of English origin.

One of the main qualities of this article is the effort to systematize

in a rigorous way the main tendencies occurring in the phonetic adaptation
of English words in Romanian. The analysis of the adaptation process
involves on one hand English words that have been changed phonetically
when taken over by Romanian speakers, and, on the other hand, English
words that have remained unchanged; in its turn, the former category is
subdivided into the group of words whose adaptation starts from spelling,
 43

•nd the group of words whose adaptation is based on pronunciation. This

(Irmsification is natural, as it corresponds to the main tendencies present
in the actual utterance of Romanian words borrowed from English. The
lnHt two categories are, in their turn, subdivided.

The paper does not include any reference to the corpus of words or
in the sources of the examples under discussion.

The explanations given for each item are clear, the examples
ntfored as arguments are numerous and rigorously selected. Additional
explanations refer to the causes that have produced changes in the
-.polling, as well as in the pronunciation of the English words borrowed in
Romanian.

The author includes the explanations of causes concerning various

phenomena in a larger context, such as: differences due to the distribution
of consonants in English and Romanian, differences in the quality and
quantity of vowels, and the presence of doublets. In addition to phonetic
•irguments, the author also uses other arguments: morphological (e.g. the
influence of the formal opposition between singular and plural),
etymological (e.g. the influence of an intermediary language, the effect of
multiple etymology), lexical (e.g. the influence of the international word
ntock). Sometimes, the author even introduces extralinguistic arguments
(e.g. the recent introduction of certain words in everyday usage, the
restricted usage of some terms familiar to few specialists of various fields,
•md Anglomania).
 44

The attempt to present a synthesis of adaptation tendencies results

in establishing certain systematic phonetic correspondencies; their list, as
well as the list of non-systematic phenomena is not complete.

Starting especially with the early 7o’s, due to the quick increase in
the number of words borrowed from English, some of the newest terms
could not be recorded in the general explanatory Romanian dictionaries;
these words became a subject of analysis for different linguists.

For instance we can mention the class of ring ending Anglicisms

used in press pages, analysed in an article written by Luiza Seche
(1974).The examples under discussion are selected from various fields
(economy, sports, science, culture), present in diverse publications; the
author is mainly interested in the adaptation to the Romanian language
system. Since certain forms are not fixed in spelling and pronunciation,
and because of morphologic, semantic and extralinguistic reasons, there
are no real chances for these English borrowings to survive and join the
current word stock.

There also exist some studies on the morphological adaptation of

English loanwords that deserve special attention.

An article of llinca Constantinescu (197o), on the English suffix ness

and the possibilities to render it in Romanian, can be considered a
model in approaching adaptation problems at the morpholcgic level.
We think the most important quality of the article is the typological
approach, the effort to place the problems of linguistic contact (in our case
the adaptation of the English suffix rness in Romanian) against the
 45

analytic and synthetic peculiarities of the two languages under analysis,

English and Romanian.

The first part of the article is a thorough analysis of the English

suffix diess among the substantival suffixes, with special emphasis on its
abstract character. The second part outlines - in a very systematic way -
the possibilities of rendering it into Romanian; the author brings very clear
oxamples for each of the three main possibilities of rendering -ness in
Romanian.

Also, we mention an article on inflections used for certain foreign

words in contemporary Romanian (Mioara Avram, 1975); analysing
l>orrowed nouns, the author succeeds in establishing various patterns in
the morphological adaptation, emphasizing the role of certain inflections
that contribute mainly or only to the declension of loanwords. Most of the
oxamples under discussion are words of English origin.

Problems of morphologic adaptation are also tackled in a study

published soon afterwards (Băncilă - Chițoran,1976). After a brief
Introduction, related to the contribution of the English language to the
enrichment of the Romanian lexis, there is an outline of several general
• haracteristics of the morphological adaptation of English loanwords in
Romanian. The analysis is focussed on the noun category with main
emphasis on gender assignment.

Considering carefully the corpus of English loanwords under

analysis, the nouns are classified according to the gender assigned in
Romanian; the analysis results in a rigorous classification (including clear
examples).
 46

The final conclusions synthesize dearty the characteristics of the

adaptation process: gender assignment is mostly dependent on the
semantic features of sex and animateness; the process of gender
assignment is realized at the morphophonemic level by addition of
characteristic endings In the case of feminine nouns and by the indusion
in specific inflectional classes in the case of masculine and neuter nouns.

Dealing with the morphological problems of Romanian neologisms

of English origin, Maria Bota (1978) points out various tendendes in the
adaptation process. We consider the approach in the artide deserves
special attention: the adaptation process is tackled as a complex
phenomenon - phonetic and orthographic changes are correlated to the
morphologic changes as interdependent elements of a single whole.

Due to the developing complexity of the adaptation of English

words in Romanian, there is a growing tendency to approach this process
as a whole system of changes taking place at various language levels,
reflecting the actual development of language phenomena.

In this respect we have to mention the comprehensive paper of

Andrei Bantas (1977) - ’a bird’s eye view’ on various adaptation problems
concerning the English element in Romanian. Against the general
background of analysing foreign words in Romanian, the paper is
concerned mainly with the corpus of English words identified in
contemporary Romanian and with the different ways of incorporating
English words into Romanian - lexicological, lexical-semantic, grammatical
phenomena, as well as phenomena connected with pronundation and
spelling. There is a separate section dealing with mixed or combined
 47

phenomena, proving the author’s clear understanding of the actual

i Hinges occurring in the borrowing process. We can also find a detailed
'ItiMcription of objective and subjective factors causing the impact of
i nglish words on the Romanian vocabulary, as well as several of the
'oixlencies characteristic of the infiltration of Anglicisms in the Romanian
luMiH We consider quite useful the list of errors at the end of the article
«mociated with explanations aimed at correcting the errors.

Progress in the research work of the Romanian-English Contrastive

Analysis Project - especially between 197o-198o - contributed to clear up
various problems of languages in contact. The research results achieved
by lhe Romanian linguists on the two languages in contact (English and
Romanian), the increasing international interest in problems of langauges
in contact, the complex changes occurring in the contemporary Romanian
linguistic system, have influenced the decision to qualify our language
(together with other 21 languages) for inclusion in the European Research
Project "The English Element in the European Languages" directed by
Rudolf Filipovid.

The first results have been included in an extended study

<<incoming phonetic and morphologic adaptation, printed in the second
volume of the Project (Băncilă-Chițoran,1982). The problems involved in
the adaptation are analysed within a larger context against the general
background of the language borrowing process. Corpus problems -
untackled in previous papers, such as word selection, relationship with
international words, corpus size, diversity - are analysed carefully. The
integration of the English element is viewed against the general
development of various borrowings in Romanian. Besides problems such
 48

as chronology of borrowings, etymological sources and multiple

etymologies, the influence of extralinguistic factors is considered as well -
mass media, knowledge of English varying according to age groups, and
cultural strata. Due emphasis is given to the interrelationship of writing and
pronunciation and the decisive role of written forms as a basis for the
pronunciation of many borrowings.

A great part of the study presents the most typical changes

occurring in the adaptation of the English loanwords to the patterns of the
Romanian sound structure. Particular attention is paid to follow rigorously
the logical stages involved in such an analysis, namely, the identification of
the most striking areas of contrast between the phonological systems of
English and Romanian, the phonetic realizations of the phonemes in the
two languages keeping in mind the close interrelationship of the written
and oral codes in shaping and reinforcing the pronunciation of English
loanwords in Romanian.The greatest importance is attached to the vowel
system, involving major differences. As to consonants, attention is
focussed mainly on the elements that create special difficulties. The
discussion for each sound unit under consideration is minutely completed,
and supported by as clear examples as possible.

The last part of the study deals with the adaptation process on the
morpho-phonemic level. Emphasizing, by right, the importance of the rich
system of morphological marking in Romanian, realized mainly by
inflectional endings, due attention is paid to word final segments.The main
principle governing the morphological adaptation is the tendency of
borrowed words to be assimilated by the inflectional classes existing in
Romanian; for segments foreign to the morphological structure patterns of
 49

Romanian words, two procedures are available: suffixation and spelling

pronunciation.

A quantitative analysis of the corpus from the morphological

viewpoint is followed by a qualitative one, with special emphasis on the
noun.

The main idea about morphological adaptation of English

borrowings to the Romanian noun system is the means of expressing the
conceptual categories of sex and animateness.

Most of the discussion is based on gender assignment, on the

station between gender and the inflectional classes of Romanian nouns.
I he various classes are analysed in turn. The analysis performed points
mit the general tendencies within each class; examples are introduced to
Mipport the explanations. The discussion of special situations, such as
<» u "nomina agentis" in -er, the lexical unit zman, free variation in the
•«lection of inflectional subclasses of neuter nouns (sJ run), <he tendency
Io develop masculine alongside neuter gender with some nouns, help in
• mating a picture of the complex problem of gender assignment
approached as a process involving both semantic and morpho-phonemic
features.

Some of the ideas presented in the above mentioned study have

boon developed in a later paper (Chițoran, 1986).

In this case study special attention is paid to the main

• luiracteristics of Romanian as a "receiving language" - able to assimilate
mid integrate foreign elements into its structure, and, simultaneously,
pi «serve (and even enrich) its fundamentally Latin character.
 50

To complete the general ’background’ of the analysis, next follows

a brief outlook on the development of the borrowing process of English
words into the Romanian vocabulary.

There is also an attempt to classify the spheres of influence of

English on Romanian, namely, the sphere of social and political activities
and institutions, including also social communications, and the sphere of
science, technology, industry and trade.

The linguistic analysis of the borrowing process refers to the

phonetical and phonological level, the grammatical (mainly morphological)
level and the semantic one.

As far as the phonetical and phonological analysis is concerned,

many of the additional data included in this study result from two studies
written after 1982: a synthetic contrastive analysis of English and
Romanian at the phonetic and phonologic level (Chițoran et al., 1984) and
an analysis of the main phonetic changes of English words in the process
of adaptation to Romanian (Ciobanu.1983).

The elements of the vowel and consonant systems are examined in

turn, with reference to ways of adapting to the Romanian sound pattern.

The remarks related to adaptation at the morphologic level are

quite brief; they are based on previous Romanian articles on the topic.
One of the important aspects about the morphological adaptation -
emphasized more than ever before - is the necessity to rely in many cases
both on semantic and on morpho-phonemic factors.

Pointing out the inherent difficulties of any study dealing with the
semantic level, there follows an outline of the contribution of English
 51

iMKTowings to enrich the semantic structure of Romanian. A classification

horn the semantic viewpoint is attempted, the borrowings failing into two
imiin categories: true English loans and loan-translations or linguistic
< ilques.

We consider of outstanding importance the (flexible) approach to

Iho semantic contributions as a means of enriching existing neologisms
•md increasing their frequent use.

There is also reference to cliches and phraseological caiques

nwHimilated by the Romanian language from English.

Lately, most of the papers concerned with Romanian words of

i nglish origin are articles dealing especially with the great number of
recent borrowings, which are insufficiently assimilated and often misused.
 Il.The Representative Corpus of Romanian Words
of English Origin

Our analysis of the corpus of Romanian words of English

origin - the lexical level - involves :
- a description of the borrowing process of English words into
Romanian against the general background of modem borrowings in
contemporary Romanian , and
- a presentation of the criteria developed to establish the
representative corpus of Romanian words of English origin.

i .bifah Words in the Romanian Leris

The English language has had and continues to have an impact on

ninny of the languages spoken today. This influence is the result of a great
number of factors, such as : colonial domination over a vast area of the
globe, the military presence particularly during and after the Second World
War, intense economic and cultural relations etc. It is important to note
ihtil even in cases where such factors do not exert a direct influence, there
mi» indirect routes for the penetration of English elements, particularly
 54

based on the role English plays at the moment in the formation of so-
called international vocabulary of science, technology and culture in its
most general sense.

Romanian, as well, in spite of relatively sporadic direct contacts

with English speaking communities, has borrowed a number of words from
English.

Throughout the centuries, due to its geographical position,

Romanian has been influenced directly by various languages belonging to
different genetic types - Slavic, Germanic, Romance, Finno-Ugric; this has
turned Romanian into a generous receiver, a heterogeneous language,
with an international mixed background, able to assimilate words from
various languages. The impact of various linguistic influences has
favoured the ‘openness’ of our language to borrow foreign words, English
words included. In the case of Romanian, its lack of resistance to
borrowing - developed throughout the centuries - has proved to be helpful,
favouring the integration of English elements.

There is one peculiarity we want to emphasize : as distinct from

other Romance languages, Romanian has been isolated from western
Romance for quite a long time, and, yet, the essential elements in the
structure of Romanian have remained Romance; moreover, it has
succeeded to preserve and even enrich its Latin elements.No language
influencing Romanian has succeeded to alter its Romance character; the
same characteristic holds true for the English elements borrowed in
Romanian. The English language has enriched the Romanian language
with Latin elements, contributing, alongside other languages e.g. Italian,
 55

I rench, Russian, German (Hristea, 1984 a),to the re-Latinization of

contemporary Romanian.('Re-Latinization* (Alexandru-Ciobanu, 1987 c) is
Itio term we use to label the process of modernizing the Romanian lexis by
assimilating a great number of Latin-Romance elements. As far as English
borrowings are concerned, re-Latinization refers to the presence of Latin
dements, respectively Neo-Latin, borrowed from English into Romanian by
means of words belonging to the international pool of words, considering
those words contain Latin elements. The term Neo-Latin, commonly used
m Romanian linguistics, corresponds to ‘New Latin’ in the English linguistic
i«»rminology).The Latin elements that have entered our language by
moans of English borrowings penetrated especially through the written
medium; as opposed to the inherited Latin elements - which refer to
everything that is connected to man’s social and individual existence in his
natural environment, belong to the general vocabulary and are used
frequently (Șerban-Evseev,1978), the Latin elements present due to the
I nglish borrowing name concepts of science and technology, art and
culture, they do not belong to the general vocabulary and are not
frequently used. They usually belong to the class of learned, cultivated
words.

Considering the presence of the Latin elements in Romanian, as

well as in English, linguists realized the presence of the Latin stock in both
languages could be considered a similarity between English and
Romanian: "contemporary English and contemporary Romanian share
( )the strength of the old vocabulary, of the element which existed in the
primary form of the language, before either Romanian or English was
actually shaped; (...) we are not referring to the earliest stock = the
 56

autochtonous / vernacular element ... but to the Latin stock"

(Bantaș,1977:119). In the same article, the author, Andrei Bantaș, adds :
"Another point which the Romanian lexis has in common with the English
one is the recurrent nature of the Latin impact upon if (Bantaș, 1977:119).

Speaking about the Latin elements in present-day Romanian,

Alexandru Graur underlines the following peculiarity:’ The Latin influence
is being exerted in a concentric manner at the present moment : we
receive international words not only directly from Latin and other Romance
languages, but also from Russian, English etc.’ (Graur, 1967 e:62).

Since different European languages share a set of Latin elements,

this phenomenon has partly contributed to let various languages have in
common elements of the international vocabulary (lexis), commonly
termed as international pool of words. As some of the Latin elements
'spread ’ in various languages by means of the English borrowings, we can
consider these Latin elements - provided via English words - have also
contributed to let various words join the international pool of words (also
often called European pool of words (Filipovi6,1972) or European common
vocabulary (Filipovid, 1966).

Naturally, it would not be fair to overestimate the importance of this

factor and underestimate the essential criteria that are decisive to include
a word in the international pool of words. Most of our linguists (e g. Popa
Tomescu, 197o) observe as main criteria: the presence of a word in al
least three important European languages; if possible, the three languages
should belong to three different language families. When we tried to
establish the corpus of words of English origin present both in the
 57

Romanian language and in the international vocabulary, we examined the

existence of the respective words in French, German and Russian, and
looked up the etyma of the corresponding words in French, German and
Russian up-to-date dictionaries (see general Bibliography). According to
our count, not less than 65% of the Romanian corpus words under
examination were present in French, German and Russian as well,that is,
(hey belong to the European pool of words involving the Romanian
Language in the international circuit of languages; it is important to
emphasize the Romanian words have their present status in the
international pool of words partly due to the Latin element, be it inherited
or transferred from other languages by means of borrowings, English
borrowings included.

Considering our main dictionaries, linguists estimate present-day

Romanian has about 5o,ooo neologisms (Hristea,1984 a) (without taking
into consideration specialized scientific terminology). There is a general
agreement in Romanian linguistics upon defining neologisms mainly as
words borrowed from westem-European languages or directly from
loamed Latin (Hristea,1984 a:5o). Chronologically, the first main influence
was due to learned Latin and then followed the Italian influence; next was
German. The principal modem influence was due to French. Russian as
well contributed to enrich Romanian. Last, but not least, English has also
brought its contribution to increase the number of neologisms in
contemporary Romanian

Considering the above mentioned definition given to a neologism,

nil the words borrowed from English into Romanian are neologisms.
 58

The English elements were introduced into Romanian mainly by

cultural borrowing or intermediary borrowing, beginning with, the second
half of the nineteenth century; the first clear contact occurred at the
beginning of the twentieth century and continued until the First World War.

The period the first words were borrowed from English coincides
with the wave of numerous French borrowings. Statistical counts
concerning the Romanian vocabulary revealed a very high percentage of
Romanian words of French origin, e.g. Candrea and Adamescu - 29.69%
(1926-1931), Macrea - 38.42% (1958). French and German - mainly - were
intermediaries for the borrowing of English words into Romanian and many
other European languages (Filipovi6,1972). Some Romanian linguists (for
example, lorgu Iordan, Luiza Seche) tended to consider many English
loans in Romanian have been adopted through the mediation of French.
Consequently, they say, at the beginning of the borrowing precess we can
speak only of an English indirect influence, while the direct influence was
manifest only later on. Researchers have admitted the existence of a
direct English influence upon Romanian first of all in studies concerning
sports vocabulary (Ion Gheție (1957), Mircea Seche (1959), llinca
Constantinescu (1972) ; the best proof to support this idea consisted in
mentioning terms of the sports vocabulary that have no equivalent in
French, their etyma being exclusively English words.

Very often the structure of a word shows the participation of both

an English source and its French counterpart in the shaping of the
Romanian equivalent. Adopting the concept of multiple etymology, we
favour the possibility of simultaneous borrowing of the same terms into
several languages, therefore, the problems of mediation are paid
 59

•ibsidiary attention. (The concept of multiple etymology, now generally

«accepted by Romanian linguists, shows that very often the phonetic form,
Hie morphologic structure and the semantic contents of a word are the
•ilcome of several convergent foreign influences that may, have acted
••ilhor simultaneously or at a certain interval of time).

It was especially in the post-Second World War period that English

• « «buttons to European languages were “more numerous and
linguistically more interesting and important" (Filipovi6,1966:1o4);
Romanian was not an exception to this trend either. In Romanian the post­
war period, and especially the last two decades, were the ’background’ for
., direct contact characterized by the presence of numerous English
^growings. (Belonging to the latest borrowings in Romanian, the terms of
i nglish origin are also referred to - in Romanian linguistics - as “recent
Ihgrowings" (Șerban - Evseev, 1978:252).

We illustrate the development of the borrowing rate by the following

figures:

The statistical data offered by Dimitrie Ms-crea (apud

i. gdan, 1956:58), established on the basis of Dicționarul limbii române_d in
hacul și de astăzi (The Dictionary of Old and Contemporary Romanian),
Ilin first part of the dictionary of I.A.Candrea, DicționaruL Enciclopedic
ihibtrat Cartea Românească (The Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary)
11926-1931), demonstrate that the words borrowed from English ( some
40 words) represented 1.1o% among the words of various origins.

According to Dimitrie Macrea (1982), in Dicționarul limbii române

uontemporane_( The Dictionary of Contemporary Romanian) printed about
 60

two decades later (1958) we notice a slight increase in the number o'
words of English origin: 73 words, i.e. 0.15% of the 49,649 dicționar)
entries; from among these 73 words, 6o are actual loanwords, while the
remaining 13 have been created in Romanian, being considered interna
creations.

Examining Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române ( The Explanatory

Dictionary of the Romanian Language ) printed two decades later (1975)
alongside an increase in the number of words borrowed from varioui
languages, we also notice a change in the number of English borrowings
according to our count, the words of English origin make up 1.41% of the
total number of words (56,568) (cf. Felicia Șerban (1979) indicated 1.2¾
for words of English origin - count based on 10,610 entries of DEX).ln thit
case it is important to underline the fact that this dictionary records wordt
of current usage in standard Romanian and is considered a thesaurui
among the Romanian dictionaries, including words well established in the
language.

Considering one of the recently printed dictionaries, Dicționarul de

cuvinte lecente ( The Dictionary of Recent Words ), 1982, we notice i
rapid increase in the number of English borrowings in less than a decado
about 12% of the 3,733 entries originate in English words.

One of the recent lexicographic sources under analysis, Supliment

la Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române (Supplement to the Explanator)
Dictionary of the Romanian Language), 1988, has 835 words with English
etyma - either single or multiple etymology, English being one of th»
source languages; relating this figure to the 11,000 entries of DEX-S, the
 61

resulting percentage (c.8%) represents quite a considerable number of

words.

The very recent dictionary of neologisms,Neologisme

(Neologisms), 1994, the second revised edition of Mic dicționar de
neologisme(MDN) ( Little Dictionary of Neologisms) ,1986, includes 312
words of English origin.

Adding to the above mentioned percentages the great number of

I nglish loanwords present in Romanian recent press pages, not yet
recorded in dictionaries, as well as the numerous English technical terms
that have enriched the Romanian technical vocabulary, we realize the
number of English words borrowed into Romanian represents a large
figure.

Moreover, we also have to take into consideration the English

words entering Romanian via oral sources, with the help of mass media in
particular.

Thus, we can conclude the borrowing process of English words into

Romanian is a dynamic one, with an increasing rate over the last years.

Lately, literature (Hristea,1984 a) mentions the presence of

Americanisms in the Romanian vocabulary, but there is no thorough
analysis concerning this problem. We are going to discuss the problem of
Americanisms borrowed in Romanian in a special unit (“Americanisms in
Romanian ") within this chapter.

To get a clear picture of the status of the English borrowed words,

besides the borrowing rate, it is important to relate these elements to the
rost of the Romanian vocabulary (lexis).
 62

Being neologisms, the English borrowings belong mainly to what is

traditionally called the passive vocabulary. Neologisms first enter the
passive vocabulary and afterwards - some of them - enter the active
vocabulary; this transition is not obligatory, and, consequently, some
neologisms never enter the active vocabulary, they keep a peripheral
place in the system, or even disappear completely (Iordan - Robu,1978).
There is no clear-cut borderline between the two sections of the
vocabulary, active and passive, as words 'move' permanently from one
section to the other and vice versa. It is impossible to ‘measure’ the exact
amount of words belonging to the active and passive vocabulary of the
speakers in a language, as their use of vocabulary is influenced by a
number of factors, such as : cultural level, life experience, linguistic
experience, environment a.o. In our terms, we encounter the same
difficulties in establishing the number of English borrowings belonging
either to the active or to the passive vocabulary of a speaker, as the same
above mentioned factors interfere, differentiating individuals. To our
estimation, involving the subjective factor inherent to this type of
judgement, about 200-250 ( out of the 1200 corpus words) might be
considered active vocabulary. Rather less,but not more than half of these,
make up the nucleus of the corpus, the representative (basic,
fundamental) core, words known and used by an average Romanian
speaker; as examples we can mention words like: bob, box, bridge» cec,
club, cow-boy, dolar, finiș, fotbal, gentleman, gol,__goif, hochei, interviu,
ionatan, jaz, lady, laser, lifi,_lord, meci, miting, mixer, motel, nailon,
OK,pickup, pocher, polo, pulover, radar, sandviș, seif, serial, shop,
 63

«picher, spray, standard, stop, stres, șerif, șort, tenis, tichet, tramvai,
video, volei, western , whisky.

Our selection was based on the model worked out by Romanian

linguists to establish the representative vocabulary of Romanian and other
Romance languages (Sala coord., 1988).The choice of words included in
Iho representative vocabulary of present-day Romanian was based on the
Inllowing criteria: semantic richness, derivative power, usage (Sala coord.,
1088:19).

The list of English borrowings forming the representative core was

• hocked experimentally by the method of direct informal enquiries as well
indirectly whenever any of the words underwent experimental checking.
I ho results of the testing proved our choice was confirmed in 92% of the
• nnos

We consider it is worth mentioning that - as expected - the words

belonging to our corpus are not present in the representative corpus of the
Romanian language (considering the Romance character of our language)
with two exceptions, camera and studio; the two words represent 0.07% in
Iliff representative corpus of Romanian ( both have multiple etymology,
i nglish being one of the source languages).
 64

The Representative Corpus of Romanian Word» of English Origin

Having in view the above mentioned considerations, the corpus

under analysis - made up of 1200 entries - was selected from written and
oral sources covering approximately the last three decades (Our choice oi
the last three decades is based on the following:

a) this period has been witnessing the highest rate in borrowiny

English words in Romanian;
b) linguists agree in considering usually a decade as an interval lonu
enough to record representative changes in the lexis of a language
(apud Dimitrescu, 1982:6).

Previous literature referring to the English element in Romanian

does not include any detailed description concerning the procedure <><
establishing the corpus of Romanian words of English origin.

As literature does not provide the detailed methodology necessary

to establish the corpus, we had to develop our own criteria (Ciobanu
1987 a ) as described below.

Our study is based first of all on the Romanian dictionaries. Sine*

the important general Romanian explanatory dictionaries printed until 1960
(DLRC, DLRM) record few words of English origin, the first source of maj(*
interest is Dicftonarulde.neologisme ( Dictionary of Neologisms ): DN1, the
first edition, then DN2, the second edition, and especially DN3, the third
edition.
 65

We also obtained valuable data from Dicționarul explicativ al limbii

lurnâne and Dicționarul limbii române (Dictionary of the Romanian
i inguage). These sources record words of current usage in general
iilorary Romanian (standard Romanian), in popular speech, in literary
writings, in other words, in standard everyday usage.

Though Vasile Breban’s Dicționarul limbii române contemporane

(Dictionary of Contemporary Romanian ) is not as extensive as the two
unneral dictionaries mentioned above (DEX and DLR), the data it provides
ITS useful, considering it deals with current Romanian.

One of the rather recent general explanatory dictionaries used as

wall to select the words for our corpus was Dicționarul general al..limbii
luinâne (General Dictionary of the Romanian Language) printed in 1987.

Besides the above mentioned general dictionaries, a series of

words were selected from Dicționarul sportiv poliglot (The Polyglot Sports
Dictionary) and from Dicționar de marină (The Dictionary of Nautical
twins), since numerous borrowings belong to sports terms and nautical
itxmlnology.

To gather up an up-to-date corpus we also used Dicționar de

Hivinte recente, which records recent words in current Romanian, the
million of DN presented in a concise form as Mic dicționar de neologisme ,
Un» supplement to DEX, and the most recent edition of MDN; revised and
•npnnded, entitled Neologisme .

Alongside the effort of updating the contents of the corpus, it was

iimxissary to update the form as well in agreement with the spelling rules;
ii»p. difficult task was solved by using Dicționarul ortografic, ortoepic și
 66

morfologic al limbii române ( Orthographic, Orthoepic and Morphological

Dictionary of the Romanian Language ).

For the same purpose we made use of Dicționar al greșelilor de

limbă (Dictionary of Language Errors ) which proved to be helpful by
suggesting correct forms for various Romanian words of foreign origin.

It was possible to enrich the corpus by adding English borrowings

present in newspapers, magazines, and almanacs printed in the last 5-6
years. These terms represent about 10% of the total number of the corpus
entries. We insisted on resorting to newspapers and magazines, to various
publications, because, selecting these words, we had in view that press
language is receptive to everything that is new in language, being a mirror
of up-to-date linguistic reality. It is among these recent words, hardly
adapted to Romanian, that we may find some interesting linguistic
phenomena, typical of the initial borrowing stage, when words are felt as
foreign elements, and have not yet undergone changes.Analysing such
cases as well helps - by contrast - to get a clearer image of the general
regular trends involved in turning a foreign word into a replica.

Since it is impossible to record the actual usage of each word or to

establish criteria for separating words used only to offer ‘distinction’ in the
process of communication, we tried to include in the corpus - as much as
possible - terms recorded in several publications - as many as possible.

The corpus does not include specialism terms of restricted usage

occurring in various publications, such as e.g.microwriter, lidar, digitizor,
teletype.
 67

A lot of words of English origin present in various publications have

• Romanian equivalent as well, rendered in Romanian by one or more
words. For example: E drive-in was rendered by the Romanian equivalent
• inoparcaj (Cinema, 1970), while the Romanian term drive-in was not
•Mcluded, remaining in Romanian as a borrowed word of English origin;
•imilariy, E spin_> R spin, and the parallel equivalent translation moment
• iiiutic dejrotație (Magazin, 1980).We consider that some equivalents are
mil considered as 'quite suitable’ by Romanian speakers who prefer the
h»r«»ign word to the translation; consequently, this implies a necessary
uil«tction of these terms for the corpus, involving, at the same time, a risky
hefficient of subjectivity, implicit in such a choice. Thus, we consider
imnge has imposed the Romanian word spin < E spin and not its
equivalent, the translation moment cinetic de rotație.

If a word was present both in newspapers, magazines, almanacs,

hi ii I in dictionaries, we referred only to the form recorded in dictionaries;
wn had in view that general explanatory dictionaries record ( using
•Hiiiierous sources) words having already a certain ‘age’ in a language,
«nd oven the recording of recent words (e.g. in DN3 or DCR) is based - as
•i rule - on 2-3 sources and only rarely on a single source.

The studies and articles concerning English borrowings (analysed

•. IIio chapter “Studies Dealing with the English Element in Romanian")
I a somehow similar role : analysing the origin of the borrowed words,
mentioning variants, incorrect or even anomalous forms, and
■commending certain forms, these sources prove or deny some of the
ilalu gathered from dictionaries or publications.
 68

Oral sources were not neglected - words transmitted orally by

native speakers individually and over the radio or television, this being a
rather recent peculiarity in the development of English borrowings into
Romanian, with an overwhelming influence on the process or adaptation.
The oral route of linguistic borrowing is a more ' natural * situation of
language contact, and, consequently, it throws a clearer light on the
typology of borrowing between the languages under consideration.

All the above mentioned sources offered the possibility of

establishing a corpus that we consider representative for significant
generalizations concerning contemporary Romanian; at the same time, we
can label the corpus list as an 'open' list. We are aware of the fact that it is
impossible to compile a wordlist including all English loanwords in use at
the same time; the situation was very well characterized by Einar Haugen
in one his articles written in 1978: such a job would be “ a task for
Sisyphos and can never be completed, since new words are constantly
appearing in response to current trends” (see Filipovid, 198o t»:34o).

The representative corpus with the Romanian bonowed words

arranged in alphabetical order is to be found in Appendix 1.

Due to space constraints the elements of the representative corpus

are only listed. A complete corpus with phonetical, morphological and
semantic information is to be found in " Anglicisme in limba română "
(Ciobanu, 1996 ).

In our initial study, the Ph.D.thesis, each corpus entry had the
following structure : Romanian word of English origin, phonetic
transcription of the Romanian pronunciation, Romanian lexicographic
 69

'"Hirces that record the word ( mentioned in chronological order), English

wtyinon, phonetic transcription of English pronunciation, other etyma in
««no of multiple etymology (if more languages were sources for a certain
••rilry).

Later on, we approached the morphological and semantic levels as

well, and added the corresponding data to each entry.

Consequently, when analysing each corpus item in turn, we had to

• i insider and process all the data that could help us keep or exclude the
mipus entry from the inventory .Therefore, the following information was
available for each corpus entry :

Each entry was spelt according to the most recent source of

inference, with due priority to the DOOM forms that confirm the official
•l foiling standard.

Next followed the morphological class each word belongs to.

We also considered the English etymon for each entry; and added
tiio other languages that have contributed to shape the word in case of
multiple etymology.(It was necessary to record the full forms of the various
■ources because of the many inaccuracies present in some Romanian
dictionaries concerning the etyma of Romanian borrowed words).

The corpus includes both words having a single etymology ( two

thirds of the corpus words), and words having multiple etymo'ogy - one of
Ihl source languages being English (one third of the words).

Examples:

cameraman [kamera’man] m.n. (masculine noun) DN3,DCR,MDN,DGLR <

 70

E cameraman [’kaemaraman], F cameraman

slop [slup] n.n. (neuter noun) DN2,DN3,DM,DCR,DOOM < E sloop [slurp]

taxLgiri [’taksigarl] f.n. (feminine noun) DN3 < AE taxi dancer /

girl [’taeksiga:!], F taxi-girl

(‘AE’ stands for the American variant of the English language ).

Besides the single words, the corpus list also includes set phrases
Considering the very rich bulk of phrases existing in Romanian, we are
mainly interested in contemporary language. Most of them have French as
the source language; lately, we can also speak about " an increase in the
number of international set phrases of English origin” (Hristea, 1984
a: 151).Discussing the etymology of these phrases , Theodor Hristea,
adds: “they usually have a multiple etymology, more exactly: English and
French”(151). Further on, discussing some examples, Hristea considers
five o’clock and high life originated in the last century; from among the
most recent examples he mentions: all right, Foreign Office, gentlemen’s
agreement

Naturally, among the sources we have resorted to, dictionaries

supplied the most numerous data.

For most of the words, the lexicographic sources offered

indications concerning pronunciation. For a very few words, there was no
hint concerning pronunciation, their number representing a negligible
percentage as compared to the total number of the corpus elements. By
'indication concerning pronunciation’ we mean the phonetic transcription of
 71

lhe pronunciation in dictionaries, as well as the pronunciation resulting

from a given spelling.

Considering that dictionaries are to be used by all sorts of people,

most of them not familiar with the phonetic alphabet or the phonetic
transcription, our lexicographers mark the pronunciation in dictionaries by
means of a simplified phonetic transcription; the signs they use are similar
Io the signs of the Romanian alphabet.

The Romanian pronunciation was marked after each corpus entry

by means of the symbols of phonetic transcription (the International
Phonetic Alphabet). This pronunciation was based on dictionaries and on
lhe spoken language, it resulted from our experimental investigations, and,
4it the same time, represented our view of the correct form, i.e. the
recommended one; in marking pronunciation, we agreed with the opinion
generally accepted in Romanian linguistics of admitting a maximum of two
pronunciation variants, for example: [flaf], [fief]; [’broker], [’breaker]. To
justify this choice we can state at least the following: “To observe linguistic
reality and to come to an agreement with the overwhelming majority of
npeakers, it is recommendable in the case of some words to admit, in
literary language, two pronunciations at the most, until usage will decide
on one form” (Hristea, 1979:8).

We took advantage of the situations when various dictionaries

record pronunciation or spelling variants, using this information for the
analysis. These variants provided important data concerning the stage of
phonetic adaptation. It was a good occasion to show the compromise
nlage (and its sub-stages) of each foreign word accepted in a given
 72

language. We can mention, for example, the word seif: DN1 (safe [seif]),
DN2 (safe [seif]), DEX (seif), DN3 (seif, safe, safeu, sef), DGL (safe [seif]),
DOOM (seif) < E safe[seif]. Any example of the sort proved nothing but a
generally accepted rule of linguistic borrowing, namely,"a loanword is likely
to provide evidence of its foreign character by appearing in two or more
forms, thus illustrating the variability of the basic phoneme"
(Filipovid, 1967:662). An examination of these variants resulted in the
choice of a Romanian pronunciation reflecting the English one, and it
showed the primary changes, namely, the parallel existence of the English
spelling, which caused the word to remain ‘foreign* in Romanian for a
while; the marking of a stress, safe, brought about the pronunciation
[safe], and was later followed by secondary changes: the inflection -u was
added as a sign of integration in the class of neuter nouns.Out of this set
of variants, the form seif [seif] gained ground.

Romanian dictionaries also provided data concerning the

morphological category of each word, indicating - occasionally- even the
plural form of some nouns, plural doublets, variants. For some nouns there
was no reference to gender, especially with recently borrowed words. We
tried to solve these cases as well, with the help of informants - by
experimental investigation - and contributing with our own judgement.

For some of the words that had no gender label in dictionaries, or,
simply, were not recorded in dictionaries, magazines and newspapers
quotations provided -through the context - the missing morphological
information related to gender, for example, “... azi este considerata o <has
been >, o fostă” (Cinema, 1970) (the quotation reveals the noun is
feminine).
 73

Dictionary definitions helped in identifying the meaning(s) of each

borrowed word.

For some of the corpus words it was essential to mark in

parentheses the meaning since:
In some cases, only a certain meaning of that term originated in an
English word. For example, for a word like R modul only the sense ' fiecare
din părțile detașabile ale unei nave cosmice ' (a lightweight manned
spacecraft earned by a larger spacecraft and detached while in lunar orbit
no that it may land on the surface of the moon) (DNE) was taken over from
AE (lunar)module.
In some other cases, one of the meanings might have a single
etymology, while the other meaning(s) might have a multiple
etymology. For example, for the word R startfiEDN1,DN2,DEX,DN3
indicated French and English etyma. At a closer check-up we
discover ed the following: R starter as a masculine noun, has two
meanings with two different etymological sources, namely,
'persoană care dă semnalul de plecare într-o cursă sportivă’ ( a
person who supervises and signals the start of a race) is connected
to English starteL(Coll) and French starteL(PR), while the meaning
'persoană care dirijează plecarea avioanelor, trenurilor,
autobuselor* ( a person who organizes the timely departure of
buses, trains, etc.) (Coll) is related only to the English language. A
similar situation occurred with the same word as a neuter noun,
that is, each meaning has different etyma.
Even if newspapers and magazines did not always give definitions
of words, we had no (serious) difficulty in establishing word meaning with
the help of the context in most of the cases.
 74

At the same time, we indicated for each entry its etymology. Our
main dictionaries indicate the etymon or etyma for most of the corpus
entries; hence, the bulk of etymological reference was supplied by
dictionaries.

First, we tried to find the corresponding English word in at least one

English dictionary. In order to establish the etymon we observed for each
word the criteria imposed by etymological research work, considering as
decisive the “two basic criteria, the formal and the semantic one"
(Coteanu-Sala, 1987:153); the other important criteria - geographical,
chronological, functional - were not neglected either.

The English words representing the sources of borrowing were

selected from the most important English dictionaries (see Bibliography);
priority was given to the English dictionaries mentioned in the bibliography
of Romanian dictionaries.
Further on, for words having more than one language as borrowing
source, we checked the respective terms in the main dictionaries of the
corresponding languages.

We performed this operation with all the corpus words, considering

that reference to other languages helps to reveal various useful details.

Moreover, benefitting from the printed results of the International

Project “The English Element in European Languages" (see Bibliography),
we tried to relate each word to as many languages as possible (function of
the available data). Thereby, we aimed at:

- obtaining a clearer picture about the development of each word;

 75

- relating the corpus of Romanian words of English origin to the

international pool of English words present in the main European
languages in order to find out peculiarities of the borrowing process
typical for Romanian, as well as the contribution of the Romanian
language to the universalla present In the contact of English with
other languages. Since it is for the first time that by means of the
above mentioned Project languages in contact are approached
against the international background of European languages
receiving elements from English as a donor language, following a
similar line in our research we attempt as well a new approach in
tackling the English element in Romanian.
Our analysis was performed by confronting lexicographic sources
considering for each case the phonetic, grammatical and semantic levels.
I IBf
We did not include in the corpus all the words marked in Romanian
dictionaries as having an English origin:

First of all we excluded the words whose English sources - as

marked in the Romanian dictionaries - do not exist in any of the consulted
English dictionaries (see general Bibliography). After dictionary checking,
we also asked native speakers to confirm the presence or absence of
these terms in the English language.

1) The most confusing cases were the words having an

English form, compatible with the English linguistic pattern and yet
inexistent in the English language as defined in the Romanian
 76

dictionaries; the following list includes such words present in

Romanian dictionaries related to inexistent English words ( some of
the words below have multiple etymology, but we marie down only
the presumable English etymon ):
autoservice (DN3.DGR.DEX-S) < WE auto-service
fonoabsorbant ( DCR.DEX-S) < *E phonoabsorbant
hidrolocator ( DN3.DEX-S) <*E hydrolocator
psihotronică (DN3.DEX-S) <*E psychotronics
radiooperator (DCR.DEX-S) <*E radio operator
sonagraf_(DN2,DEX,DN3) <*E sonagraph
aberoscop (DN2.DN3) <*E aberroscope
aeroscuter (DN3) <*E aeroscooter
aeroiopografie (DEX) <*E aerotopography
anionit (DN3) <*E anionite
antifază (DN3) <*E antiphase
autobrec_(DN1,DN2,DEX,DN3 ) <*E autobreak
bradt (DEX) <*E bradt
fonQCQnforL(DN3>DCR) <*E phonocomfort
kilod_(DCR) <*E kilod
longset(DN3) <*E long-set
magnacard_(DN3) <*E magnacard
mus (DN2.DN3) <*E mus
rotallt (DN3) <*E rotalite
sinfazic (DN3) <*E sinfazic
spiratron (DN3) <*E spiratron
tetă_(DN2,DN3) <*E tete
 77

The above mentioned examples were selected out of a list containing

about 100 similar cases.

2) For some of the words discussed under I, the corresponding

English sources are - in our opinion - quite different from the words
mentioned as etyma in Romanian dictionaries; considering all word levels,
in some cases we succeeded in identifying the actual English equivalent.
As examples we can mention:

drivelob (DN3 < E drivelob) vs. E drive

jetsociety (DCR cuv. engl.) vs. AE jet set
station service ( DN3 < E station service) vs. E service station
3) In some of the circumstances the Romanian word is similar
in form to a certain English word, and, therefore, formally there is a
perfect correspondence between the two terms, but meaning makes
the etymological correlation incompatible; from among such cases we
can mention:

R dres (DCR) ‘ ciorap-pantalon ’ (panty-hose) cf. E dress ' a one-piece

garment for a woman; complete style of clothing; the outer covering or
appearance, esp. of living things *

Rbob 2 (DN2.DN3) * elevator cu turn...’ (lifting device) cf. E bub ’ a feeding

device...’

R driling.(DN3) * armă cu trei țevi’ (type of gun) cf. E drilling * a coarse

twilled linen or cotton fabric; perforation; training in military evolutions ’
(SOED)
 78

R intersecting_(DN3) ’ laminor cu cîmp dublu de ace, pentru lînă

pieptănată’ (textile device) cf. E intersectingț arcade) * a
Romanesque arcade having interlacing arches* (W)

R jama (DN3) ‘ puț carstic sau aven de mari dimensiuni’ (geology) cf.

E jama * the long cotton gown worn by Hindoos’ (SOED)

R long line (DN3) * minge la tenis plasată în lungul liniei *( tennis) cf.

E longline * a long heavy fishline with numerous baited hooks’ (W)

R trustier (DEX< E; DN1.DN2.DN3 cf. E) * al unui trust, de trust’ (referring

to a trust) cf. E trustier - comparative of trusty

4) For some of the terms mentioned under I, a comparison

with other languages English has come in contact with proved to be very
helpful, providing details that could clear up various aspects of borrowing
present in our language. For example, R recordmarLshould be considered
a pseudoanglicism; its similar status in French (PR) and Hungarian
(Orszâgh, 1977) confirm it belongs to the category of false Anglicisms or
pseudoanglicisms. Similarly, the explanations given for the German word
der Matchball in German dictionaries (GF) indicates R medbol could be
considered a pseudoanglicism created with the help of German.
Checking up French dictionaries, we realize that a word like R
sonagraf should be related to French sonagraphe ( PR ), although
Romanian dictionaries consider it a word of English origin, there being no
similar word in English dictionaries.
In checking the English etyma, priority was given to the English
dictionaries mentioned in the bibliography of Romanian dictionaries.
 79

The main explanatory dictionary of current usage, DEX, does not

Indude any bibliography, so it was impossible to check a certain English
lexicographic source.

We consider DEX is too generous in indicating French etyma for

many borrowed words; at the same time it favours multiple etymology -
with French and English as source languages - even when the respective
words do not exist in the main French dictionaries.

The authors of an article analysing the way Romanian dictionaries

record words of English origin ( Bantaș et al., 1983 ) point out some
characteristics of DEX emphasizing the fact that this dictionary " often
prefers to establish an English etymology via French intermediary” ( 544 ).

- Neither does the supplement to DEX, DEX-S, include any

reference to the dictionaries used in order to establish etymologies. It aims
at recording words present in Romanian after 1975, the year DEX was
printed. This time, special attention is paid to technical and scientific
terminology. Again, there are words marked as having English etyma and
lhe respective terms are not present in the English dictionaries ( e.g.
dermopunctură, paraflau, qiiasag, setboL).

While DEX was quite generous about French etyma, DEX-S seems
to overestimate the contribution of the English language to the
development of the Romanian neological vocabulary.
 80

- As far as DN is concerned, the bibliography present in the third

edition includes some English dictionaries, only, these lexicographic
sources printed in the 40’s, 50's 60's could not record many of the words
present in DN3 - printed in 1978 - referring to ’ realities ' invented in the
70's.

- In DCR, besides the many words marked as having English

etyma that we could not find in the main English dictionaries, for some
words reference was made to a certain English dictionary and the
respective word was not recorded in the indicated English dictionary e.g.
freon ( CO ), karting ( BD ), biodegradabiL( BD ), hipobaric ( WT ). ( The
parentheses include the abbreviations for English dictionaries as used in
DCR).

Occasionally, the author of DCR suggests a comparison with the

English language, marked ' cf. ' , relating the Romanian terms to words
non- existent in English e.g. R bioinginer cf. E* bioengineer , R fluidizare cf.
E*fluidization.

II

We were very careful to differentiate internal creations from

borrowed words observing the criteria accepted by most linguists: the
existence of the same inflections in the donor and the receiving language;
the existence of a similarity in meaning; formal resemblance; identical
 81

loxical-grammatical class; the chronological criterion ( Hristea, 1973 ).

I rom among such words - that we consider internal creations as compared
Io dictionaries that mark them as words borrowed from English and other
languages - we can give as examples: microparticulă ( DCR < E, DEX-S <
I ,E), fictional ( DN3 cf. E ), imagistic ( DN3 cf. E,F; MDN<E ), magneto-
< .irdiogramă ( DCR cf. E ), parohialism (DCR <E), supertanc ( DCR<E, F),
vuter (DN2,DN3<E).

Ill

Literature on pseudoanglicisms in the Romanian language (Hristea,

1974) does not consider such words as borrowed elements proper, since,
though formally they are words that might be considered English words,
they do not exist in English and have been created in other languages
(usually French) by combining word roots with inflections of English origin.
Bosides the examples quoted by Hristea in the above mentioned article -
lunisman, teniswoman, recordman, recordwoman. rugbyman, cupman,
davis-Cupman, yatman, we add a few more: autoservice, autostop,
coolman, ghemaveraj, golaveraj, golgheter, happy-end, jet-society,
i nedboJ, setaveraj, setboJ.
 82

IV

Caiques were not included in the corpus either, but the English
words the Romanian caiques can be related to brought their contribution
to the structure or meaning of the Romanian words.Besides the words
marked as caiques in dictionaries, we consider the following cases could
enter the same category: bloc turn (cf. E tower block), expandat ( cf. E
expanded), fidelitate (cf. E fidelity),lentilă de contact (cf. E contact
lens^pastilă (cf. E chip),cablu buster (cf. E booster cable) descaladare (cf.
E deescalate ), masă rotundă (cf. E round table), navă mamă (cf. E mother
ship), oiTLsandviș ( cf. E sandwich-man), oraș^atelit (cf. E satellite town),
pemă_de_aer (cf. E air cushion).

It is necessary to mention that - with caiques as well - there are

cases when dictionaries relate the Romanian caiques to inexistent English
models such as : meteoinformație (DOR probabil după model englezesc -
'probably after English model'), microecran (DCR după mode: engl. after
English model'), minicatdiograf_(DCR după model engl.),minipilă_(DCR
după model engl.), pretensionare (DEX după engl. pretension), supraucide
(DCR probabil după model engl.), yocefon (DCR după model engl).

There is a special class of words originating in various languages

Malay, American Spanish, Dutch, Afrikaans, Australian English, Hindi,
 83

Portuguese, Icelandic, Persian, Japanese, Siouan, Polynesian,

Algonquian - which have entered the Romanian language via English; in
other words, the English language ( sometimes together with French )
favoured and helped the introduction of such words into Romanian. But,
since these words do not have an English form', they do not reveal the
genuine English influence upon our language, and, therefore, they were
not included in the representative corpus. As examples we can mention
wordslike:gecko(DN3rDEXS)frodeo(DN3),yucca(DN3,DEX), afrikaans(DEX)
apartheid(DN2,DEX,DN3,DCR,DGL,MDN),_bumarang(DN3,MDN), capoc
(DN2, DEX, DN3),chinQQk(DN3),coir(DN3),GQ(Q)iie(DCR),favelâ (DCR),gavial
(DN3),ghaizer(DN2,DEX,DN3,MDN),gilă (DN3),_iută (DN3J, jacaranda
(DCR),kenaf_(DCR),mahagonL(DCR), mangrovă (DN3), maâiana (DCR),
mesa(DN3),mesoalină(DCR),mustang(DN2,DN3),pahlavi(DN3),pijama

(DN3),ricșă(DN1,DN2,DEX,DLR,DN3,MDN),rupie(DN1,DN2,DN3,MDN)
sahib_(DN3), sari_(DN3), sepoy_(DN3), sodoku_(DN3), șampon (DN2.DN3),
șerpaș (DEX.DCR), tepae(DN3), tobogan(DN3), tomahawk
(DN2,DEX,DN3), tsunamL(DN3), ukulele (DN3), wampum (DN3), wigwam
(DN3), yen_(DEX,DN3), sapan(DN3).

VI

Our discussion has to include as well the group of terms that label
English realia, i.e. words referring to realities typical of the English
speaking world. Some of these are ordinary common nouns, such as
 84

gaion, laburist, anglican; some others are common nouns derived from
proper names e.g. newton - named after Sir Isaac Newton, English
physicist,.raglan - named after T.J.H.S. Raglan, English field marshal,
rutherford - named after Ernest Rutherford, British physicist; there is a
special class of trademark labels, including names of products
manufactured initially in the English speaking world e.g. claxon, dictafon.

Strange as it may seem, for some of these words Romanian

thesaurus dictionaries indicate non-English etyma, mostly French, e.g.
anglican <F (DEX),biftec_<F (DEX),.newton <F,G (DEX,DLR). We do not
totally agree to this judgement. Therefore, even if, considering Romanian
dictionaries, such examples may not be included in the representative
corpus, these cases are to be analysed, as they may reveal interesting
characteristics in the adaptation process. Moreover, these words are
present as words of English origin in many other languages, belonging to
the international pool of English words.
<
We tried to take into account the above mentioned remarks with
each word under analysis.

The first stage of our analysis consisted in examining all the words
of English origin in DN1, printed in 1961, the first lexicographic source of
major interest . The etymological data given for each word, as well as
spelling, pronunciation, morphological structure, meaning, were compared
to the similar indications from all the other dictionaries printed later (in
chronological order), namely, DN2, DEX, DLR, DN3, DLRCB, DM, DOR,
DOOM, MDN, DGLR, DEX-S, N. This analysis was performed by
 85

considering - at the same time- the English dictionaries for each corpus
word, as well as French, German, Russian, Italian dictionaries, since these
languages are the main sources of neologisms in Romanian, and,
theoretically, the most possible sources of multiple etymology. Whenever
available, we considered the presence of a certain English word in other
languages as well.

Next, we repeated the same* juxtapositioning 1 procedure for each

word in each of the dictionaries printed later.

Observing the chronological order we could also trace the changes

occurring in a word from the borrowing moment to the form of a replica.

For example, to illustrate the change in the spelling and

pronunciation of a word we can take the following case:

DN1(1961) cdctail. DN2(1966) cdctail, DEX(1975) cocteil, DN3(1978)

cocteil DOOM(1982) cocteil

A clear case of semantic development in time is, for instance, the

word impact:

DEX(1975) neuter noun <F,L (livr.)' Ciocnire a două sau mai multor
corpuri'
i
DLRCB(198o) neuter noun ' Ciocnire; incidență'
 86

DCR(1982) neuter noun <F,E

1. Fenomenul de intrare în contact a două corpuri dintre care cel puțin

unul este în mișcare

2. Ciocnire (neprevăzută)

3. Relație, întîlnire

4. Șoc, surpriză

5. (în limba vorbită, greșit) Conflict

6. Contact

7. Influență, efect

8. Prezență

9. Importanță

After contrasting dictionaries, we could keep words for the corpus

as follows (expressed in percentages):

DN1 - 72% (192 words) from the total number of words whose origin is

marked as English;

DN2 - 73% ( 290 words );

 87

DEX - 95% ( 379 words ); -

DN3 - 68% ( 794 words );

OCR - 65% ( 281 words );

N - 77% ( 240 words )

The supplement to DEX, DEX-S, deserves a special remark : out of

the terms added to DEX, most of the words - as mentioned in the
supplement preface - belong to the field of science and technology. As the
previous dictionaries did not include such terms, there would have been
lack of unity to compare lexicographical works of a different 'nature'.
Therefore, we preferred to leave aside DEX-S from our statistical counts
(see above), but included DEX-S words in our analysis whenever relevant

Due to the word selection, we believe the corpus suggested offers

a representative pool of words for the analysis of changes occurring in the
English words borrowed in Romanian.

At the same time, making up the corpus list we contribute to the

field of lexicology as well, establishing the Romanian words of English
origin - an unsolved problem until now.

The entries of the representative corpus of Romanian words of

English origin, as well as the Anglicisms and Americanisms borrowed in
Romanian -with information on their pronunciation, morphological class
 88

and meaning -are to be found in our book " Anglicisme in limba română "
(Anglicisms in the Romanian Language).

Judging the borrowed words in the lexis of our language, we have

to consider the spheres of influence of English on Romanian; these can be
grouped mainly under two headings, corresponding to those domains of
British and American culture and civilization which have been exerting a
strong international influence:

1) The sphere of social and political activities and institutions,

including also social communication, and

2) the sphere of science, technology ( Ciobanu, 1981,1982),

industry and trade.

Words under 1) are very typical of British and American customs,

ways of life and institutions, and, consequently, preserve a particular air of
"Englishness” about them, even after their more or less stable integration
into the Romanian language. Many of the terms in this category were also
among the first to make their way into Romanian:

- political life and instituions

- social life, customs and habits

- sports and games

- arts and culture

 89

Words in category 2) are mostly words of an international

character, sometimes more difficult to analyse and ascertain as true
English borrowings.

If we compare the above mentioned classification with the general

classification of English words in various European
languages(Filipovid,1966 ) we find similarities; according to the area in
which they generally occur, the richest groups are:

- food and drinks

- sports and games

- science and natural science

social life

trade and economics, banking, measures and money

- philosophy and religion

politics and law

- transport etc.

When we discuss borrowed words we also have to consider that in

various languages the words borrowed from English are represented
numerically in various ways in the different sections of vocabulary; at the
name time there are differences among the various sections.
 90

Thus, for instance, in Romanian " most of the words borrowed from
English belong to sports terminology” ( Hristea, 1984 a:5o ). 13% of the
corpus words are sports terms ( according to our counts )( Ciobanu -
Burdescu ,1986 ).Among them one third (33% ) are frequently used, and
have already been integrated in the Romanian phonetical and
morphological system. A high percentage (42% ) is represented by less
frequently used terms, as well as by some recent borrowings, partially
adapted to the Romanian phonetic and morphological system. As to the
rest of the Romanian sports terminology of English origin , (25%), these
words have a very restricted usage and most of them still preserve a
pronunciation similar to the English one.

If we refer, for instance, to music terminology borrowed from

English - 7% of the corpus words, a lot of these words have preserved
both the English spelling and a pronunciation similar to the English one,
most of them being familiar to very few speakers, mostly to the
connoisseurs.

The same situation holds true for the terms used in press pages,
including very many words rarely or never used by speakers of standard
Romanian; usually, newspaper people use such words quite rarely
themselves. Most often these words preserve their English 'shape' in
Romanian.

Literature dealing with borrowing phenomena mentions the

presence of 'chain-borrowing': terms attracting each other, within a given
semantic field when borrowed through a similar medium ; the concept was
 91

developed with reference to Polish loanwords in Romanian ( Mitu, 1983 ).

We consider we can speak of a similar situation in some cases of English
loanwords in Romanian; for instance, chain-borrowing occurs with :

- some of the recent musical terms

o g. hard rock, acid_rock, country rock,

luizrock;

• fl. country,Jiillbilly, rockabilly, bluegrass;

- some of the terms referring to space flights

•»g. skylab, shuttle, module

(
The analysis of chain-borrowing shows these words are attracted
wilhin the same field, they are motivated temporally and used temporarily
(Mitu,1983).

As far as temporal aspects are concerned, the words under 'recent

musical terms', for instance, are related to the impact of various musical
trends, a diversification of musical styles and manners. Since most of
these trends are in fashion for a limited period, the moment they stop to
bo in fashion, the corresponding words are no longer in use either.Such
terms usually have a short life.

We also have to consider that some of the borrowed words are

adopted for their informative function ( a real need is felt in the adopting
language for a foreign term that appears to have no counterpart in the
vernacular), while other words are adopted because they are felt to be
imbued with cultural and social prestige, or, to put it more bluntly, there is
a good deal of snobishness involved in such preferences. Consequently,
we can also distinguish various degrees of snobishness among the
different lexical compartments; although it would be impossible to produce
a classification according to this criterion, we could - subjectively - judge
the ' amount' of Anglomania present in various fields; thus, for instance,
musical language could be located rather high in ' the charts of snobbism

As mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, among the

borrowings there is a group of words requiring a separate
discussion,namely,theAmericanismspresentinRomanian.
 93

Americanisms in Romanian

Literature on modem influences upon the Romanian lexis refers to

American influences ( Hristea 1984 a : 5o ); yet, until now no thorough
analysis has been done related to the corpus of Americanisms present in
Romanian.

Hristea ( 1984 a ) is aware of the difficulty involved in differentiating

Anglicisms from Americanisms; he points out some features characteristic
of Americanisms mainly : they are more recent and usually belong to the
international vocabulary. The examples of Romanian Americanisms he
quotes are :._bluf, blugi, boss, campus, cowrboy. dacron, drugstore,
escalator, hoLd-up. hamburger, jazz, mass-media, motel, O.K., radar,
stagflafle, tobogan ( all in all 17 words ). In our opinion the above
mentioned criterion is somehow vague.

Under the same heading Hristea mentions some more words

borrowed from English without labelling them as Anglicisms or
Americanisms.

We also consider of interest the author’s concluding remark :" Very

many Anglicisms and Americanisms have not yet been introduced in our
recent dictionaries, but they are present in press pages and in scientific
writing" ( Hristea 1984 a : 5o ).
 94

Examining the English element in the Romanian literature used to

establish the representative corpus, we could identify quite a number of
Americanisms, a much larger figure than the one mentioned above.

In order to establish the right items to be included in the corpus of

Americanisms present in the Romanian language, after we had selected
the entries marked in Romanian dictionaries as having English / American
English etyma, we confronted them with the main American dictionaries
available (see Bibliography ); we paid special attention to " Webster's New
World Dictionary of the American Language. Second College Edition"
(WNWD) as it is the first dictionary (WNWD,p.VIII) recording and indicating
clearly every Americanism. The words selected from press pages
underwent checking and confrontation as well.

As a result of this analysis we could make up the following list of

Americanisms present in Romanian : aculturație, adyentism, adventist
afro, alivei. badlands, baseball, beatnic, behaviorism, berkeliu, best-seller,
bionica, blizzard, blue-jeans, bluff, bob-scat, f

booster (buster), bootleg. (be_-)bop, bos, brainstorming, bubble-gum,

bul(l)dozer, cafeteria, cakewalk, califomiu, campus, cart, carting._(karting),
charts .chewinggum, clambake, clipping, cloning, coach, columnist, comics, con
gresman, consulting, (a) containeriza, cool, comer, cover=giri, creek,
crionică, dacron, derrick,-disc-jockey,_disco, dolly. downtown, driverin,
drugstore, dunit. duplex, editorial, escalator, eurodolar, fan. ftftyrfifty_C_fifti-
fifti), firsLlady, flashback, flowchart, foxtrot freezer, gagman, gangster,
gentlemen's_agreement, geosincron, gilbert, half-lime, hamburger, hard­
top. hicori, hijacking, hillbilly, hippy, holdrup, hotrdog, hula hoopjam -
 95

session, jaz(z), jaz(z)man, jeans,jeep Juke-box Jumbo -jet know how,

laser, lay-out, lie-detector, living-room, lobbyism, lobbyist, LE, mascon,
maser, maxi, middle of the road, minibus, modul (lunar/ moron, motel,
nylon—(nailon), napalm, norther, CL_& op-art, oscar, panty, parking,
Pentecostal, pick-up_truck, pin-up. pin-up_giri, pipe-line, pocher, pool, pop­
art, pop-com, press-agent, psihedelic, pullman, punk, pusher, quark,
quasar, racket, racketeer, racon, radar, ragtime, ranch, rancher» ranger,
riff. rift, ring, rockabilly, rock ancLroll, rummy, saloon, (a)sanforiza, scat
schilift, scunăr, scotch, sea bee, sedan, self service, serpeniarium, show
business, skeet, skylab. slapstik, sofar, speed, speeder, sprinkler,
stagflație, station—wagon. stock_jcar, stringer, strip-tease, stunt_man,
supermarket, superstar, synthesizer^.. shimmy, time-out, teenager, tee-
shirt, teleplay, tepee, tranzistor, traul, U F Q, underdog, underground,
video, vidicon, vocoder, volei, walkie-talkie, water aki. western,.wigwam,
xerox,yankeu.

The corpus of Americanisms present in Romanian includes the

following three categories of words: *

1) Words marked as Americanisms both in the Romanian and in

the English dictionaries e.g. R acuiturație, blue-jeans, boom, bos, campus,
drugstore, duplex, freezer, hamburger, hold-up, hoL-dog, Q_K, pop-corn,
punk, ranch, sex-appeal, skylab. supermarket, underdog, underground;

2) Words marked as Americanisms in the Romanian dictionaries

but not in the English dictionaries e.g. R angulație, beefalo, blue-note,
brain-drain, ( a )kidnapa, kidnapper, kidnapping, sexy, stagflație, video;
 96

3) Words marked as Americanisms in the Romanian dictionaries

but not recorded in the main English dictionaries e.g. R dixielander,
planetreru quasag.

The Americanisms of our corpus belong to two groups from the

etymological point of view :

(1) unique etymology, i.e. American English is the only etymological

source - 70% of the cases under analysis ;

(2) multiple etymology, i.e. a word was borrowed from more

languages and one of these sources is American English - 30% of the
corpus of Americanisms present in Romanian.

Considering the ' moment ' Americanisms entered the Romanian

language, even if in most cases it is difficult or impossible to establish the
date of borrowing, the examination of Romanian dictionaries, namely, their
date of publication, as well as the analysis of newspapers and magazines
printed lately, results in the following :

1) a moderate rate of borrowing between 1960-1975 ( about 20%

of the corpus under analysis);

2) a dynamic rate of borrowing between 1975-1980 (about 60%);

3) an average rate between 1980-1989 ( about 20%);

 97

4) a significant numerical increase after 1989. The latest

Americanisms have entered the Romanian language mainly via oral
media.

If we examine the fields of activity Americanisms belong to, they

are present in various domains, such as :

- music : blues, bop, clambake, crooner, hillbilly, LE, psihedelic;

- sports : baseball, skeeU

- psychology : behaviorism, brainstorming^;

- science, technology : booster.

convertiplan, crionica, maserj

-economy : boom, know-how, ring_;

- navy :liner, norther, racon, sofar;

-cinema : dolly, eastmancolor, flashback, western ; (

- space flights : modul, shuttle, skylab.

As compared to the corpus of Anglicisms present in the Romanian

lexis, with an overwhelming majority of sports terms, from among the
Americanisms most of them are musical terms, as well as terms related to
science and technology.
 98

To get a better picture of the American influence among other

recent neological influences upon the Romanian present-day lexis it may
be useful to relate the Romanian Americanisms to the international pool of
Americanisms.

In one of the Romanian magazines, "România literară”, we could

find an article entitled "Americanisme internaționale” ( International
Americanisms) (Hristea, 198o, : 9). We consider of interest the following
idea mentioned in this article:” A lot of Americanisms are of interest as
they gain ground both in Romanian and in other languages, standing clear
chances to become international elements” (Hristea, 1980: 9). The
example given in the article is jazz, as well as other terms of the same
word family, respectively, jazzband, hot-jazz

The article also tackles the problem of certain words whose

borrowing was favoured by American English e.g. banjo, tobogan, ranch
In other words, Romanian did not have direct contacts witn the source
languages of these words, and American English provided the liaison
factor, the bridge for borrowing through these carrier-words.

There is an agreement among Romanian linguists ( e.g. Popa

Tomescu,1970 ) as far as the definition of an international term is
concerned: the respective word should be used in at least three important
European languages ; if possible the languages referred to should belong
to three different language families.

I
 99

For our checking we compared the Americanisms present in

Romanian with Americanisms existing in French, German, Russian, Dutch,
Italian, Hungarian; our comparison was based on lexicographic sources
published in the previously mentioned languages and various linguistic
articles as present in the bibliography.

This analysis resulted in the following list of Americanisms present

both in the Romanian vocabulary and the international pool of
Americanisms: beatnic, behaviorism, berkeliu. blizzard, blue-jeans, bluf,
boogie-woogie. boom, bootleg, bos, buldozer, campus, drive-in, drugstore,
escalator, freezer, gangster, hamburger, hijacking, hippy, hold-up, hot-dog,
hula.hoop,jam-session Jaz, jean , juke-box, jumbo-jet, megatonă. modul,
motel, Q K, oscar. popream. pulsar, quasar, racket ranch, rancher, șimi,
underdog, underground, walkie-talkie, western, wigwam, yankeu.

These words represent about one third of the corpus items and are
an additional proof to the validity of our corpus selection. Also, sharing
elements with the international pool of Anglicisms and Americanisms, the
Romanian language has been involved in the international linguistic circuit.
 Ill.The Methodology of Studying jhg

English Element in Romanian

There is no systematic survey on the methodology of studying

English borrowings in any of the previous Romanian studies ( analysed in
the chapter "Studies Dealing with the English Element in Romanian ").

In general, the studies referring to the Romanian words of English

origin deal with the following : group the borrowings according to certain
criteria; analyse phonetical, morphological, lexical and semantic
peculiarities; include certain conclusions concerning the adaptation
process, without insisting on the methodology.

One of the three articles on sports vocabulary, written by llinca

Constantinescu (1972), hints at general methodology problems and
sketches the procedure applied in gathering examples : the selection of
sports terms from cun-ent sports newspapers, old and recent sports
 102

publications, sports rules for games of English origin, radio and television
broadcasting, and from informants.

Discussing some aspects of English borrowings into Romanian,

Florica Băncilă and Dumitru Chițoran (1982) explain they selected the
corpus to be analysed - some 400 words ( most of them listed in the
second edition of the Romanian Dictionary of Neologisms ,1966),
considering the majority of the entries as having reached a stage of
relative stability in the language.

We consider the specific nature of the topic under research implies,

first of all, methods that are applied in linguistics in general,
simultaneously, it involves the careful use of methods and procedures of
psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and of social sciences in general, in
other words, a combined interdisciplinary approach ( Ciobanu. 1987 b).

The ideal situation, consisting in the possibility of a live check-up of

all the words borrowed from English into Romanian from the very
beginning to the assimilated form is, unfortunately, impossible to achieve
Consequently, we have tried to use methods and procedures that enable
us to obtain results as close as possible to the above mentioned
desideratum.

As our analysis aims at establishing the corpus of Romanian words

of English origin and at revealing adaptation phenomena at various
language levels, our experiments are conceived to satisfy our purpose. In
most cases ’ multi-purpose' methods and procedures have proved to
 103

supply the best results ; for example, in one of the questionnaires, words
written as answers to the definitions suggested aim at checking knowledge
i

at the semantic level, and, simultaneously, supply information referring to

word spelling. At the same time, some of the experimental procedures are
rather specific, and are used for one single purpose; as an example we
can mention word stressing. Simultaneously, our experiments are adapted
to the specific problems of each level.

The analysis of various language levels has to consider the

peculiarities of intermediary borrowing : " an analysis of intermediary
borrowing is limited to those linguistic levels at which the subject of
research is the word"; " our research up to now has shown that the
analysis of these processes of borrowing and adaptation can be limited to
four levels : the phonological, the morphological, the semantic and the
lexical levels" ( Filipovid, 1986 b :334 ). Our analysis confirms our
agreement with the above quoted principle.

The first stage in analysing the borrowings consists of establishing

the corpus of Romanian words of English origin. The criteria applied for
this purpose are described in the chapter entitled " The Representative
Corpus of Romanian Words of English Origin".

In order to identify the main changes occurring in the structure of

Romanian words of English origin, the next stage implies an examination
of the problems brought about by the contact between English and
Romanian. The works of the Romanian - English Contrastive Analysis
*
Project (1971 et seq.) provide valuable theoretical data in this respect For
 104

our research we are mainly concerned with the difficulties generated by

certain elements of the English language system for Romanians; we
assume the Romanians face the same difficulties when they take over in
their vocabulary words of English origin. In selecting the theoretical
information, we have considered the following hypothesis : some of these
data may become redundant elements when contrasted to the corpus; at
the same time, the confrontation may offer elements to complete the initial
information, adding new elements to the results of contrastive analysis.
The next step involves, logically, a keen analysis of the information
provided by dictionaries for each word of the corpus - pronunciation,
morphological class, derivatives, variants, meaning, etymology - and a
comparison with the theoretical data mentioned in the previous stage. This
comparison aims at pointing out certain constant phenomena which, due
to their frequency, become rather regular, revealing several general
tendencies. The results of this analysis have been checked up
experimentally.

The choice of various methods and procedures was based on

diverse models: the principles applied by Einar Haugen in studying
bilingualism (Scherabon Firschow et al. eds., 1972), the fundamental ideas
of Uriel Weinreich (1968 ) concerning languages in contact, the papers
published by Rudolf Filipovid (1958 et seq.) for the International Research
Project " The English Element in European Languages ", some of the
papers concerning the contact of English with various European and non­
European languages included in the volume " English in Contact with
Other Languages" printed in honour of Broder Carstensen ( on the
occasion of his 60th birthday) (Viereck - Bald eds., 1986), field techniques
 105

used in urban language studies by the Center for Applied Linguistics in

Washington (Shuy et al., 1968), the interdisciplinary research work
accomplished or supervised by Tatiana Slama-Cazacu (1968, 1971 b,
1973), methodology procedures presented in the articles of Marilena
Tiugan (1977, 1979, 1980 a, 1980 b) referring to the speech of Bucharest,
the methodology applied by Anca Ulivi (1980) in the perception tests ( on
syncope), the experiments on intonation carried out by Laurentia Dascălu
(1977, 1981), the methodology used by Marius Sala concerning the
Judeo-Spanish of Bucharest (1971), the methods Anca Belchiță-Hartular
made use of in examining the Romanian language spoken in the United
States (1976), aspects connected to linguistic investigations (Conțiu-
Marinescu, 1973, 1975).

A useful guidebook was the extensive research performed by

Gheorghe Doca (1981), an example of using contrastive analysis
principles in an interdisciplinary approach; the study is related to language
contact in the process of learning a foreign language, namely, teaching
Romanian to Frenchmen.

Yet, the models were not appropriate for some of the situations we
have been confronted with in studying the contact between English and
Romanian. For a lot of situations we had to devise our own methodology,
ns no previous model was satisfactory.

The analysis of changes is a gradual process and implies a

simultaneous permanent intercorrelation of the data obtained within each
stage.
 106

The experimental checking involved an average of at least 20

informants for each experiment ; some of the experiments required more
informants. As to the informants, we have to mention the following:

-the Informants were selected on the basis of age

1) up to 25 years old

2) over 25 years old

The former group was given priority, as it is the age group most
'permeable' to anything new, language included; moreover, in studying the
impact of one language upon another, informants are usually chosen from
among adolescents and young people, as they are thought to represent
best the tendencies which will have an impact on future developments of
the receiving language. This procedure was also applied to other
languages English came in contact with, such as, for instance, Finnish
(Sajavaara, 1986: 72).

Discussing the relationship between language and age groups

Mioara Avram affirms : " it is natural that the young be more attracted by
innovations, linguistic innovations included" (1987 :10).
a
-the educational level was also taken into consideration

1) graduates of 10 (12) school years

2) faculty graduates
 107

sometimes 3) other categories (for example graduate ♦ post-graduate

special course )

In our present analysis knowledge of English was taken into

consideration.

In order to have a clear record of the informants, we completed a

data sheet for each informant with the following background information :

- name

-age

- nationality

- mother tongue
I
- birthplace

- educational level; school ( schools ) attended

- occupation

- proficiency in English

- other foreign languages known by the informant

- special data (if necessary)

 108

To give a motivation, the informants were told they were supposed

to collaborate in checking up certain words.

The experiments started in 1977-1978 and have been going on for

ten years. This provided, on one hand, thorough, long-term checking, and,
consequently, pertinent results, while on the other hand, in many cases a
comparison in time revealed interesting data related to the dynamics of the
adaptation process. Thereby, we could follow the development of a certain
tendency, and realize, in certain cases, even the possible trend for the
future development of a given phenomenon.

The following lines contain a brief description of the experimental

methods and procedures.

Before the investigation proper, we tested a control group to check

the efficiency of our general methodology with the help of 8 informants.
This pre-investigation proved, among other things, a permanent
preoccupation of the speakers to know the meaning of the terms under
discussion; their interest in the meaning of each word was generally prior
to their interest in other word aspects.

Before we started to analyse the changes present in the adaptation

process, we had, first of all, to check to what extent our informants were
familiar with the borrowed words. Knowing the corpus list, we started from
the following hypothesis : some of the words are used by quite many
Romanian speakers ( in writing and in speaking - in particular ), while
many other borrowings are used by a limited number of speakers; the
 109

latter category includes terms restricted to special uses, most of all

recently introduced in our language. Logically, for the less familiar
loanwords we could not expect relevant answers concerning the
adaptation process.

Knowing a word, being familiar with it, implies a rather spontaneous

answer of the informant, especially a spontaneous utterance in an enquiry.
It was highly important for us to be able to select for our further
experimental procedures mainly common words, familiar to most of the
speakers.( In the lines to follow ' Exp. ' is the symbol that stands for
experimental method / procedure ).

Exp 1

For the beginning, the following procedure was applied : a great

number of informants ( 112 ) were given lists of words included in the
corpus; each informant had a list of 55-6o words with the following
instruction : " Indicate in the list below the field (s) the words belong to
and/or a short definition. ( Note : the words are selected from Dicționarul
, Dicționarulde
cuvinte recente , other Romanian dictionaries, Romanian pub!:cations)M.

Examples:

ace after hours alofon

acultu rație afterpic alomorf

 110

adventism after-shave aloxan

adventist aisberg ampex

afanit aisfild anglistică

The correct answers, namely, the words whose meaning/meanings

was/were familiar to the informants, were compared with the words
selected by ourselves for the investigation ( considered as words familiar
to the informants ).

Exp 2

Some of the corpus words were included in lists handed over to the
informants, who were asked to do the following : "Read the following
words recently borrowed in the Romanian language".

Examples :

best seller pipe-line mass-media

cameraman psihedelic motel

barman poster jeep

design policeman marketing

computer skylab jogging

 111

serial iahtman snack-bar

show disc-jokey shcp

schilift designer trailer

The answers were tape-recorded. ( Even if the method ensures

spontaneous answers and helps to obtain a lot of information on word
pronunciation, it involves - inevitably - the influence of spelling on
f
pronunciation).

Exp 3

To check pronunciation, rather conclusive results were obtained by

means of defining first the words; simultaneously, word meaning was also
under observation. The informants were given the following instruction:
"Which are the Romanian words corresponding to the following
definitions? " The definitions were copied from the Romanian dictionaries
and were partly abridged.

Examples :

- mijloacele modeme de comunicare în masă a informațiilor ( mass-media)

-disc mare de 33 de cm ( LP )

-ecranizare nouă a unui film turnat mai demult ( remake )

 112

-probă, întrecere sportivă (event)

-carte, disc etc. cu mare succes de vînzare ( best-seller)

The selected words were, in our opinion, representative examples

necessary to verify the conclusions presented when dealing with the main
phonetical changes. For the word selection, the following procedure was
applied : we made up an inventory of all the words containing a certain
phonetic phenomenon for each phonetic aspect under analysis; for
example, we made up the inventory of all the Romanian words in the
corpus containing the Romanian sound [ i ] resulting from the English
sound [ i: ] ( R [ i ] equivalent of E [ i: ]). Then, out of this list, we selected
the most frequently used words. Thus, out of the total of 73 words that
contain the above mentioned substitution, E [ i: ] > R [ i ], we chose the
words : blue-jeans, feedback, mass^media, speech, team, teenager,
keyboards, week-end, eastmancolor, pedigri, tee-shirt LE, goalkeeper.In
the list used for the experimental checking we mentioned the.definitions of
words like blue-jeans, andjnassjnedia, in our opinion common words, i.e.
possible spontaneous answers for the informants who were asked to
mention the words after listening to or reading the corresponding
definitions. Several examples (minimum 3 ) were selected for each type of
phonetic change; inevitably, there occurred the possibility of analysing a
certain phonetic phenomenon as well when present in other words
undergoing experimental checking. Consequently, that helped to check
various phonetic changes by means of additional occurrences.
 113

Both the definitions and the answers given by the informants were
tape-recorded.

Exp 4

The same principle was applied to a second list including different

words; the list included mainly recent words present mostly in DCR and
recent newspapers and magazines.

Examples :

-instituție, grup de persoane puternice care își apără privilegiile și

-secvență intercalată într-un film pentru a introduce un episod anterior

(flashback)

-cameră, cabină într-un vagon de dormit, ocupată de o singură persoană

(single)

This time the informants were asked to give written answers; they
had to observe the same instruction as above : " Which are the Romanian
words corresponding to the following definitions ?"

Given no time limit, the informants had more thinking time than in
the oral procedure.
 114

Besides the word meaning ( our main concern in this case ), the
written answers also provided information about spelling.

A part of the tendencies present in the adaptation process ( for

example those referring to consonant clusters ) occur in very few words,
and, moreover, these terms are not common in everyday vocabulary.
Thus, we cannot expect spontaneous answers when the informants hear
the definitions corresponding to these words; we might get an answer
different from the expected one, i.e. an Anglicism, or even no answer at
all.

Exp 5

For some of these less frequent words, containing certain

interesting phonetic phenomena, definitions were associated with the
terms they define; the informants were asked to read for themselves the
definitions and utter only the corresponding words. Knowledge of word
meaning gave a 'comforting feeling', and attention was focussed mainly on
the final key term.

The instruction to be observed was expressed as follows : " Utter

only the words marked in capitals corresponding to the definitions given
below ”

Examples :

-"bufet expres" (restaurant at which customers collect their meals on trays

at counters and carry them to tables) CAFETERIA
 115

- "secretară de film /de platou "(a secretary to a motion-picture director

who records information about the photographing of each scene,
prompts actors, and writes a synopsis for advertising the movie)
SCRIPJL-J31RL

Exp 6

Owing to the fact that we selected from various publications only

recent words, nonexistent in Romanian dictionaries, and, therefore, absent
in the current speech of many Romanians, these press terms were
included in a larger context to help the informants understand their
meaning and utter them as any other element of the context. The
suggested instruction was : "Read the following lines ",

Examples :

” In revistele muzicale se dezbat măsuri de antipiraterie muzicală

( <pirateria > ) fiind editarea ilegală de înregistrări muzicale, așa numitele

<bootleg >)".

" El vine seara la Gilley, un saloon din Pasadena, la volanul unui pick-up
truck, camionul ușor, cu cabină și platformă, care a înlocuit calul epopeilor
hollywodiene".

Such examples, recorded with the help of the informants, offered

the possibility to check up the pronunciations of words chosen for the
 116

corpus from newspapers, magazines, almanacs ; this provided a great

help, considering these words do not exist in dictionaries yet, that is, we
have no written indication ' suggesting ' their pronunciation.

Exp 7

Next followed repetition tests; the informants were invited to repeat

the words and indicate which of the terms are frequently used. The
purpose of testing was mainly to compare the second series of
pronunciations with the first pronunciations, as well as to estimate the
frequency of words. The repetitions were tape-recorded.

Examples :

Eirst recording Second-recording..corresponding

to the repetition

[ brem’skena ] [ 'brejn'skenar ]

[ 'blekhaul ] [ 'blekhayl ]

Exp 8

From among the dictionaries we made use of to find out the

pronunciation of English borrowings, we consider Dicționarul ortografic,
ortoepic și morfologic al limbii române represents the standard in
pronunciation ( DOOM usually indicates one form and only occasionally
 117

variants in pronunciation); as other dictionaries - Dicționarul_ de

neologisme, Dicționarul limbii române. Serie nouă . DicționaruLlimbii
române contemporane ( de uz curent) , Dicționarul greșelilor de limbă -
indicate more pronunciation variants, we made up a separate list of these
borrowed words with various forms.

Examples

blazer, broker, flash, show_

Taking into consideration that" some speakers are more conscious

of the linguistic standard than the others " ( lonescu - Ruxăndoiu and
Chițoran, 1975 : 85), we made use of the method generally called the test
of linguistic uncertainty ( the informant has to choose the form he
considers correct out of two variants ) The informants were given the
following instruction: " Which pronunciation variant do you consider correct
for each word on the list below ? (Note : the pronunciation variants are
marked in brackets ; underline the variant you consider correct) ".For most
of the cases, we indicated two variants with a simplified phonetic
transcription. The informants also had the right to mention variants
different from those suggested by ourselves if they did not agree with the
pronunciation marked on the list.

Examples :

ace (tennis ) [ as ] [ eis ]

heading.(sports ) [ 'hiding ] [ 'heding ]

 118

draw (sports ) [drau ] [ dro ]

broker (finance, navy) [ 'brokăr ] [ 'brăukăr ]

The list also included words mentioned in various dictionaries ( DN,

DCR, DLRCB, DGL ) with doubtful pronunciation (in our opinion). Applying
the test of linguistic uncertainty, we marked as one of the variants the
'doubtful' solution suggested by dictionaries, and as the second variant the
solution we consider recommendable.

Examples :

court [ kurt ] (DN3), [ kort ]

pusher [ pâșer ] (DCR), ('pușer ]

For some borrowings, dictionaries make no reference to

pronunciation, and the unadapted spelling does not help in identifying their
pronunciation either, e.g. blizzard, manifold, home rule. We marked
variants for such words as well - each variant representing a possible
pronunciation, and the informants were asked to stick to one form, i.e. the
one they considered correct.

Exp 9

The pronunciation of the words mentioned in the previous list was

checked as well with the help of another group of informants by means of
a perception test. The words to be checked were tape-recorded in
 119

advance with two pronunciation variants. The informants were handed the
lists of words with numbers preceding each word, and 'a', 'b'
corresponding to the pronunciation variants.For example, the first word on
the list was preceded by figure 'T; the first pronunciation variant, [ as ],
became ’a’, and the second variant, [ eis J, was marked as 'b' ( cf. E ace
[eis ] 'service which opponent cannot return'). Listening to the two variants
(preceded for each word by a figure to indicate order), the informants were
asked to circle the letter corresponding to the variant they considered
correct.

Exp 10

Some of the pronunciation variants mentioned by dictionaries were

analysed by direct informal enquiries with each informant in turn; the
informants were asked to mention for each word all the variants they had
heard and mention the form they considered the most correct one.

Example:

"Cum este denumit în mod obișnuit un scurt discurs ocazional ?"

" [ to - ast ] am auzit pronunțîndu-se ( subiectul repetă cu voce tare pentru

a avea certitudinea că nu greșește ) [ to - ast ], numai așa l-am auzit."

Example :

"(...) Eu am auzit, ți-am spus, [ 'lejdi ], am auzit și [ 'ledi ]. Dar [ 'lejdi ] cel
mai des."
 120
t
Exp 11

As dictionaries do not mark stresses for all the words, and

publications offer no possibility to identify word stress, such words were
typed on separate sheets; the informants were given such lists and asked
to mark a vertical line (*) above the stressed syllable. Mostly polysyllabic
words were included in the lists. The following instruction was to be taken
into consideration : "Mark the stress by means of a vertical line above the
stressed syllable ( Note : the terms mentioned below are Romanian words
recently borrowed from English and the Romanian dictionaries do not
indicate the way they could be stressed)".
w

Examples :

șalanger, mi , bicon, superstar

Exp 12

In order to avoid very long lists, a part of the words were mentioned
on different lists; we indicated two possibilities of stressing words and the
informants were asked to underline the correctly stressed word. The
following instruction was placed at the top of the list : " Underline the
correctly stressed word in the following list of Romanian terms recently
borrowed from English". The list includes mostly disyllabic words.

Examples :

hi-fi2hi-fi
 121

pop - com / pop- com

Exp 13

The procedure presented next was based on the preference for a

certain spelling reflecting a certain pronunciation, this equivalence (letter -
sound ) revealing at the same time the relative degree of adaptation of the
respective word ; the informant's choice of a certain spelling form
represented, simultaneously, his option for a certain pronunciation. The list
of words handed over to each informant was preceded by the following
lines : "The Romanian words of English origin marked below have spelling
variants. Which is the wrong one ? ( Note : cross out the wrong variant)".

Examples :

aisberg /iceberg (a) containerize

aut /out clubman /clubmen

r
bechend /backhand compound /compund ‘

baipas /by-pass bovindou /bow-window

If, for example, analysing the forms brocăr and broker ( two
spellings of the same word ), the informant considered the first form as the
 122

most recommendable one, this preference represented his choice for a

Romanian-like pronunciation.

Exp 14

One more procedure was based on the contribution of spelling to

reflect pronunciation: the following questionnaire contained sentences with
blanks to be filled in ( Instruction: "Fill in the blanks in the sentences
below")

Examples :

Stimularea dirijată a creativității individuale este o tehnică psihologică

cunoscută sub numele de......... ( brainstorming )

Pentru a înceta lupta, boxerilor li se adresează comanda.........( brec)

Unui teren amenajat pentru campare i se spune în mod obișnuit

.............(camping)

The blanks stand for words borrowed from English. The way they
are spelt reflects the preference of the informants for a spelling that
imitates the English pronunciation or the tendency to pronounce the words
according to the Romanian pronunciation rules. Thus, for example, if in a
sentence like " Perioadele de avînt economic (...) sunt denumite ..." (' A
sudden increase in trade activity (...) is called boom') the informant filled in
the blank with the word spelt bum < E boom [ bu:m ], this meant he would
pronounce the word similarly, that is [ bum ] ( according to the Romanian
 123

correspondence graph - sound ). Checking of word meaning was also

aimed at.

Exp 15

The same methodological principle was applied to a different set of

words aiming mainly at checking word meaning for recent words -
recorded in DN3, DCR ( in particular ), in recent press pages. We do not
consider them frequent words and do not believe many Romanians are
familiar with them. Obviously, the blanks stand * ideally - for Anglicisms.
The instruction was identical to the one given above.

Examples :

(consulting ) este termenul prin care se desemnează furnizarea de

consultații, de informații etc. cu privire la organizarea și rentabilizarea
întreprinderilor.

(bionica ) este știința sistemelor al căror principiu este sugerat de

sistemele naturale.

în Anglia persoana care încheie tranzacții pe cont propriu la bursă se

numește (jober); în Statele Unite, unei persoane cu funcție similară i se
spune ( dealer).

The group of informants was different from the previous one; once
again we tried to observe one of the main aims of our experiments - the
 124

effort to include as many of the corpus words in the checking process as

possible.

Exp 16

An additional questionnaire concerning word meaning was based

on the following instruction addressed to the informants : " Which are the
synonyms that may replace the words below ?( Note : Replace the words
of a line by one single word )". Again, ideally we expected the answers be
Anglicisms.

Examples :

"fundaș la fotbal " (' a primarily defensive player with a position nearest his
own goal'): (bee)

" navetă spațială " (' a vehicle carrying men and materials to space
stations ’): ( shuttle )

The context suggested was limited to as few words as possible,

each line looking like an oversimplified definition, occasionally reduced
even to 1 - 2 words.

Exp 17

For polysemantic words we made up a separate list, containing

only terms with at least two meanings.
 125

In order to find out if our informants were familiar with these

meanings ( considering the words are not used frequently ), we tried to
'guide* them by suggesting the fields of activity our examples are used in.
Thus, each word in the list was followed by parantheses including the field
reference.

Examples :

boom ( economie ) ( economy)

(sport) (sports )

drive ( sport) ( sports )

(muzică ) ( music)

The following instruction preceded the word list : "What meanings

have the following words in the fields marked in parentheses ? ”

The answers were compared with the dictionary definitions,

respectively, the meanings mentioned in the dictionaries.

Exp 18

Indirectly, the informants' familiarity with various corpus words was

also checked by means of the list to follow; still, this questionnaire was
primarily designed to clear up gender problems.Consequently, the
instruction to be observed was : " What gender do the following nouns
 126

belong to ?(Note : mark ‘m’, 'f or 'n' -standing for masculine, feminine or
neuter- after each noun)" . There were short explanations (in parentheses)
after each word , presented as simplified definitions or synonyms, aimed to
help the informants concentrate their attention upon gender, not upon
word meaning.

Examples :

ace_( în tenis, punct obținut prin serviciul adversarului) (’ a winning serve

that the opponent failed to reach')

controler ( aparat electric ) ('the equipment concerned with controlling the

operation of an electrical device')

After marking gender, the informants had to solve an additional

task, namely, place an asterisk in front of each word they have heard
before.

The list included :

1) words not mentioned in Romanian linguistic dictionaries;

2) words having no gender specification in the Romanian linguistic

dictionaries;

3) words with - in our opinion - doubtful morphological specification in the

Romanian linguistic dictionaries;
 127

4) special cases.

Exp 19

One more means of establishing the gender of the borrowed nouns

was achieved indirectly when the informants were asked to mark the plural
form of a number of given nouns. The list consisted of' difficult' cases, i.e.
terms somehow similar to those grouped in the previous list; obviously, the
words were not the same. Each list started with the following instruction :
"Mark down the plural of the following nouns". Again, each word was
followed by brief explanations referring to meaning.

Examples :

bazooka ( armă antitanc portativă ) (' a portable tubular rocket-launcher1)

jam-session ( reuniune de jaz ) (' a jazz concert, especially one in which

music is improvised ’)

The informants' answers were compared with the gender

assignment we have established ourselves initially. The most numerous
answers given for each word in the list expressed the gender attributed to
each word by our informants.

Moreover, the way the plural was spelt by the informants reflected
various phases in the adaptation of these words, supplying,
simultaneously, valuable information related to spelling.
 128

Exp 20

Even when the informants were told the gender of the noun (in the
following experiment) it was not always an easy task to mark the plurals.
The only instruction suggested was : "Turn the following singular nouns
into plurals

Examples :

hold-up neuter noun ( atac armat) (' a robbery, especially an armed one')

medley neuter noun ( piesă muzicală alcătuită din fragmente de melodii)

('a musical composition consisting of various tunes arranged as a
continuous whole ’)

remake neuter noun ( re-ecranizare ) (' something that is made again,

especially a new version of an old film ')

As the list contained some of the least adapted borrowed words,

spelling problems were involved as well.

Exp 21

A special questionnaire was devised for the neuter nouns - as

there are no rules (in Romanian ) in deciding whether -e or =uri is the right
ending with very many of these words. An easy procedure to verify neuter
plurals was to suggest the two possibilities ( and -uri ) for each item on
the list, and let our informants choose the form they considered the
 129

appropriate one. The list started with the following instruction : "Which is
the correct plural form of the following nouns ? "

Examples :

iteme / itemuri (element constitutiv al unui ansamblu ) fa thing or unit,

especially included in a list or collection')

radare / radaruri ( dispozitiv de detectare și de localizare a unor

obstacole, obiective etc.) (' the equipment used in detecting the position
and velocity of a distant object, such as an aircraft ’)

Here again reference to word meaning was briefly suggested ( after

each noun ) to give the informants the possibility to concentrate upon the
correct plural form.

Exp 22

Some data concerning the English borrowings were also gathered

by means of rapid anonymous enquiries in the manner used by William
Labov through conversation : the purpose of the enquiry was hidden to the
informant (lonescu-Ruxăndoiu and Chițoran, 1975 : 8o ).

Accepting the viewpoint that " systematic data may be supplied as

well by radio and television broadcasts " ( lonescu - Ruxăndoiu and
Chițoran, 1975 : 81), we could find out or check various English
borrowings with the help of oral mass-media. Even if we did not totally
agree on the systematic character of data obtained in this way, and even if
 130

we did not consider recommendable all the pronunciations mentioned

during the broadcasts, the information provided represented a valuable
aid, especially in comparing variants and in recording peculiar
pronunciations.

On the whole, the experimental checking procedures were

designed having in view the peculiarities of the adaptation of loanwords,
and provided valuable data.
 Q<?n<?lu?jpnș

The analysis carried out in the previous chapters results in the

following conclusions:

The preocuppation to study the Romanian words of English origin

is relatively recent.The mere mentioning of the problem turned soon into a
research topic.

Although at the beginning lexical problems were given priority, later

on the phonetical and morphological aspects were not neglected either.
Logically, an increase in the number of borrowings involved an increase in
the number of problems to be tackled, and implied a greater number of
studies dealing with these problems.

Among the problems approached in previous studies dealing with

the Romanian words of English origin we mention : penetration media,
borrowing stages, fluctuations, different degrees of adaptation, systematic
tendencies in the adaptation process.

The present research started from turning into account the previous
contributions, aiming, at the same time, at enriching them.
 132

Having in view that previous studies did not include any systematic
description of the methodology necessary to approach the English
element in Romanian, we tried to solve this by establishing as systematic
methodological principles as possible. Consequently, we were able to
draw the following conclusion : an interdisciplinary approach offers the
most varied possibilities to obtain conclusive results. Thus, we made use
of the results of the Romanian - English Contrastive Analysis Project, of
the International Project The English Element in the European
Languages", analysed the theoretical data concerning the Romanian and
English linguistic systems, and tried to overcome the ' in abstracte ' stage
by contrasting the theoretical data to the concrete information obtained
from dictionaries and then checked them experimentally. A general
characteristic was the effort to create for each experiment a natural
situation, a real context, in order to obtain spontaneous information. The
procedures were varied, diverse, and suitable for the concrete purpose of
each experiment, being applied in a certain gradual order, function of the
specific purpose of each type of experiment. They were meant to supply
data concerning as many aspects of the adaptation process as possible.
They aimed at including under analysis as many corpus words as possible;
the selection of terms for each investigation did not exclude the possibility
of checking one word by more procedures. The experiments took place
under identical conditions for all the informants.

We consider that using numerous and varied sources to select

words for the corpus - the main Romanian dictionaries, and printed matter,
being careful and prudent in judging the etymologies indicated by variou?»
sources, comparing the etymological data marked for each dictionary
 133

entry, we assured a rigorous selection for a representative corpus. Quite a

number of English loanwords have entered the Romanian general
vocabulary; only a part of the borrowings belong to the active vocabulary.

The borrowing process of English words is favoured by the

'openness ' of our language to receive foreign words; at the same time it is
influenced by the peculiarity of Romanian to keep its Latin ( Romance )
character unaltered. The penetration of English elements into Romanian is
a dynamic process.

The elements of the corpus could be established only considering

all word levels. We believe our corpus may be considered representative
for significant generalizations.
 Appendix 1

The Representative Corpus of Romanian

Words of English Origin

ace, aculturație, adventism, adventist, afanit, afidavit, afro, afterbeat, after

hours, afterpic, after-shave, aisberg, aisfild, ALGOL, alivei, all right, alofon,
alomorf, aloxan, ampex, anglistică, angry young man, angulație, antacid,
antiviral, apic, appeal, asdic, Assembler, aut, avenue

baby, background, backhand, bacon, badge, badlands, badminton

baipas, bait, bandleader, bandy, bantam, bar, bare, bnrchnntlnA, Immloi
barion, barman, baschet, base-ball, BASIC, Bash I nglmh, himn
batman, bazooka, beat, beatnic, bec, boohilo, bnhnvlnn*m banding
benzpiren, berkeliu, best-seller, bicicombor, bi< <»n. big band Mg bang big
crunch, bikini, bil, biomedicină, bionică, biophiid, bioiiim hi..««iH|g bipa<
bit, bitter, black hole, blazor, blimp, bli/nud bio* k < holds inaagiaas htna
jeans/blugi, blue note, blues, bhi<’’.innn, bhil blnin blunting «•••!•
bobslei, bodicec, boghead, bolmd, bongiw woogiw I««h4 mafcW laaan
booster, bootleg, bop, bos. bovlndon, bowling boa I...-a Ihhi nffiiai
 136

boy-scout(s), brachet, bradford, brain drain, brain-scanner, brainstorming,

brandy, brass, breakfast, brec, brie, bridge, broker, browning, bubble-gum,
budincă, bufeting, buggy, buglă, building, buldog, buldozer, bull-finch,
bully,bum, bungalou, business, businessman, buster, bușel, butt, buzer

cab, cainozoic, cakewalk, calcitonină, califomiu, cameraman, camping,

campus, cancelling, can(n)abis, canter, caprolactamă, caravaning,
carboloy, cargo, cargobot, cargoplan, cart, cartel, carting, cartism, cartist,
casetă, casing, catch, caterpillar, catgut, cauper, cec, cedar, cent,
charleston, charter, charts, chec, chembrică, cherry-brandy, chewing-gum,
chiblă, chicinetă, chief, chip/dp, chips, chop, chorus, dbemetică,
dnerama, city, dambake, deaner, dind, clincher, dinker, diper, diping,
diring, clistron, don, doning, doset, dovn, dub, dubman, cnocaut,
enoedaun, coach, COBOL, coca-cola, cocher, cockney, cockpit, cocteil,
cod, coferdam, eolderemă, (a) colida, eoloevial, colorization, colt, columbiu,
columnist, combină, combo, come-back, comics,commonwealth, comodor,
compailer, complianță, compound, computer, (a) computeriza, comsat,
concatenare, concern, congresman, consulting, container, (a)
containerize, contrastiv, controler, conveier, convenient, conversiune,
convertiplan, convertor, cool, copyright, cord, comer, com flakes, coroner,
cottage, country, country rock, court, covercot, cover-girl, cow-boy, crack,
erată, craul, creek, creep, crichet, crionică, crooner, cros, erasing,
crossbar, crossing-over, crown, cuarterdec, cuter, cvasiparticulA,
cvasistelar, cyan
 137

dacron, dancing, dandi, dangarezi, darling, deadweight, deadwood,

dealer, deck, deeptank, delco, derbi, derelict, derrick, design, designer,
deuce, diafon, digest, digger, digit, digital, dinghi, dioxină, dirt-track, dirty,
dischetă, disc-jockey, disco, disconfort, discoteca, dispecer, display,
dixieland, doc, docar, docher, dogger, dolar, dolby, dolly, doping, dorking,
downtown, dragster, draw, dreadnought, dribling, drifter, drill, drink, drive,
drive-in, driver, dropgol, dropshot, drugstore, drummer, dry, dudaim,
duglas, dumping, dunaj, dunit, duplex, durham, dyke

eastmancolor, ecosistem, editorial, electronografie, electron v« »11

engineering, entertainment, environment, escalator, oscuipiniii mikwi
establishment, etnolingvistică, eufuism, eurodolar, «vonl. «tMolilnhiglM
extragalactic, eye-liner

fabian, fading, fair, fairplay, fall-out, fan, fur wont. hiiiionehll (mIIihih
feedback, feeling, fellow, feribot, ferry cwi. h«h»t MH mil • »*•
filibuster, finiș, first lady, fit(t)ing, five o'< l<>< 1« AmImi in»«t»
flop, floppy disk, flow-chart, flutter, lolk f. H ».•« fc i.w
forcing, forecasting, forechecking, fmeigi» "lhi< MM
forum, fotbal, fotofiniș, fox ( foxlmilte ) tualn«l I
futurologie
 138

gadget, gag, gagman, gai, gang, gangster, garden-party, gameta,

gastritis, geac, gem, gentleman, gentlemen's agreement, gentry,
geosincron, getter, ghem, gig, gilbert, gin, girl, glamour, glamour girl,
globe-trotter, goalkeeper, godevil, gol, gold point, golf, greder, green,
greenhart, grepfrut, gril(l), grill-room, grizzly, grog, groggy, grom, ground,
guest-star, guinee, gulfstream, gunman, gută

hadron, hadrosaur, hailaif, half, half-time, hamburger, hammerless,

handicap, handling, happening, happy, happy-end, hardback, hardpan,
hard-rock, hard-top, hardware;, has-been, hat-trick, heading, neavy metal,
heder, hedgehog, henț, hereford, hicori, hidroplan, ()i-fi,^high fidelity, high
society, hijacking, hillbilly, hipi, hippysm, hit, hit parade, hobby, hochei,
hogback, hogshead, hoi, holding, hold-up, home-rule, homespun, hon,
hornpipe, horror, horror film, hot, hot dog, hot jazz, hovercraft, hula hoop,
hully-gully, hummock, hunter, hurdler, hurican, hurling »

iahting, iahtman, iard, impact, implant, (a) implementa, impuls,

imunodifuzie, imunoelectroforeză, inch, indoor, informal, informațional,
input, instant, intelectronică, intelsat, interactie, interferon, interlock,
interpol, interviu, introgresiune, (a) involva, ionatan, iregular, item
 139

jab, jac, jamboree, jam-session, jaz, jazband, jazman, jear.și, jeep, jet,
jigher, job, jobber, jocheu, jogging, joker, joule, juice, juke-box, jumbo,
jumbo-jet

kamă, ketch, ketering, keyboards, (a) kidnapa, kidnapper, kidnapping,

killer, kiln, kilt, know how, K.O., krill

label, lady, lancasterian, landlord, landras, laringofon, laser, laserium,

lastic, Iatice, lawn-tenis, lay-out, leadership, leasing, led, lețhom, loping,
leveller, lider, lie detector, lift, (a) lifta, liftboi, lifting, liner, lii.ks, lint, live»
living(-room), lob, lobby, lobbying, lobbyism, lobbyist, lock-oi :, long diInk
lord, love story, LP, lugher, luminofor, luping

macferlan, magnitudine, make-up, -man, maniigoimml, man mai mangal

manifold, marcher, marketing, mascon, mmmi m............. tin imul mm<
medley, megatonă, metalin, motanohmtnih» iiihi'-i............... nhldia •
road, midi, milady, milor, milord, mini, mini ..... Um ml....... . mtunoaMa
mioelectric, misfit, miss, Mr (mial'U), Mm (miMi...... millnu mi»m .
mod, modeler, moderator, rnodoin »dyl«» modul .. ......i hi mo «•...<
moron, motel, motocros, motoNcutm, muppnt mimh al mi ml* ‘lali
 140

nailon, napalm, navicert, neck, netbol, neț, neuritis, new wave, niplu, no
man's land, nonstop, norther, nursă, nurserie, nutrient

ocupațional, off, ofsaid, OK, oligozaharidă, one man show, one-step, op­
art, open, open market, operațional, orienteering, orion, omitopter, oscar,
out, output, outsider, over, overdrive, overlock, oxford

pace-maker, pacher, pack, padoc, panty, paperback, parching, parka,

parton, party, pasă, passing, passing-shot, pedigriu, pediment, peletă,
penalti, peni, penticostal, pepsi-cola, performer, picker, pickles, pick-up
truck, piclu, picup, pin, ping-pong, pint, pin-up, pion, pipe-line, piperment,
pitchpin(e), piting, pixel, placebo, play-back, play-boy, plotter, plumcheic,
plunger, Plymouth, poanter, pocher, policeman, polistiren, poll, polo,
pomato, pool, pop, pop-art, pop-com, pop-music, pop-rock, porridge,
porter, poster, pound, predictabil, preprint, presing, press-agent, pro,
probelă, proctor, psihedelic, psiholingvistică, puc, puding, pulman, pulover,
pulsar, puncer, puncheon, punching-ball, punci, punk, pusher, push-pull,
puzzle, PVC

quaker, quakerism, quarc, quasar

 141

rack, racket, racketeer, racon, radar, radiolocator, radiolocație, radiosondă,

radom, ragtime, ranch, rancher, (a) randomiza, ranger, raș, reactant,
reactanțâ, recording, referee, reggae, rem, remake, replay, reprint,
rezistor, ridger, riff, rift, ril, ring, riolit, ripple-mark, roadster, rober,
rockabilly, rock and roll, rosbif, rotary, rugbi, rummy, rush

saloon, sandviș/sandvici, (a) sanforiza, (a) scana, scanner, scat, sched,

scheleton, scheting, schif, schilrft, schip, schiper, schooner, science-fiction,
scor, scorching, scorer, scotch, Scottish-terrier, scrabble, scratch,
screening, screper, script, script-girl, scrub, scruber, scuar, scuter, sedan,
segmental, segregație, seif, seiner, select, self, self-, selfactor, self < ontml
self-defence, self-government, self-made man, self-service, selmn wimi
serial, serpentarium, set, sex-appeal, sexy, shaker, shod. shelter de« k
shetland, shocking, shoddy, shop, shortening, show, t»h »w Hisineas
showman, shuttle, sidecar, silan, silfon, sill, sincrofa/nlrHn shigln
singleton, sir, sit-in , skeet, skylab, slang, ship, nhipslk k slemlng >i>«'Ihh
slice, slick, sling, slip, slogan, slops, slow, sluta slum ship sma| si»w«y
snack-bar, snaip, soccer, sociobiolog io him idlingvisth a W'lst
software, solifluxiune, solvont, sonar, song ’ • ........ • spalatM
sparringpartner, speech, spend, Kpnlnoliiinrt Hpi* •ydd*» spiiM
spin, spinacher, spining, spinor, spiritual ••!•!••• «i " •fHsd •
sponsor, sport(s)man, spot, spray «•piedm ''pHnkhe, HMMV’
sprue, squatter, stabilivolt, shift hlugll.ili»* *<»•••• I •Underd, MatwHlg
 142

star-system, start, startbloc, starter, station-wagon, steeple-chase, stek,

stem, step, sterlină, steward, stewardesă, stoc, stock-car, stop, stopă,
stoper, story, stres, strimer, stringher, (a) stripa, stripping, strip-tease,
stroke, stud-book, stunt man, sulky, sunder, supercargo, superconductor,
superlong, superman, supermarket, supersonic, superstar, supervizor,
suporter, surfing, suspans, sveter, sweet, swing, synthesizer

S
T

șalanger, șalanj, șeic, șeping, șerif, șever, șiling, șimi, șort, șpring, șunăr,
șunt, șut, (a) șuta

tab(s), tabloid, tackle, taim, taim-aut, taliman, tanc, taxi-girl, team, tea
room, teenager, tee-shirt, teleoperator, telerecording, tender, tenln
terminal, termistor, test, tester, test meci, (a) textura, think tank, thinsulaln
thriller, tichet, tidal, tie-break, tifon, tilbury, till, timer, time-sheet, timing,
toast, top, top-spin, top twenty, toron, tory, tract, trade-union, trains
tramcar, tramp, tramping, tramvai, transceiver, transfercar, transnațional
tranzistor, tras(s), traul, trauler, trading, trailer, trend, trend, tromly
trening, trial, tribologie, trigger, trimer, trocar, troleibuz, troleu, -tron, hui *
trudgen, trunc, trustman, tuil, tuner, turf, tweed, tweeter, twist

UFO, ulaj, ulster, underdog, underground, upercut, up-to-date, utorimi.i

 143

vampă, van, varactor, video, videocasetă, videodisc, videofon,

videorecorder, videotelefon, vidicon, vindrover, vist, vocoder, vocoid, voloi,
vorticism

walkie-talkie, walkman, walk-over, warant, wash-board, watertalast, water-

closet (W.C.), waterpolo, water-ski, watt, week-end, welter, western, whig,
whisky, white-spirit, wild, wilow, wing-car, wit, wonderboy, woofer,
workshop, wyandot

xeroserie, xerox
*

yankeu, yawl, yearling, yeoman, yesman, york

/egism, zoom