Borrowing

In linguistics, borrowing (also known as lexical

borrowing) is the process by which a word
from one language is adapted for use in
another. The word that is borrowed is called a
borrowing, a borrowed word, or a loanword.

In speaking or writing a speaker may use words from

another language. The words borrowed from
another language are called loan words.
English is said to be the greatest borrower. It borrows
words from French, Spanish, Arabic, Dutch, and
many other languages, including some words from
Indonesian.
Indonesian also borrows words from other languages
such as Arabic, Javanese, English, Dutch, and some
others. The words such as majalah, masalah,
sajadah, sholat, zakat, manfaat, sehat, and soal are
borrowed from Arabic.
We sometimes use the borrowed words without
realizing where they come from.

A speaker may use the loan words for prestige or

because of the absence of equal words in the
language being used.
In computer, for example, Indonesian borrows terms
from English although are some trials to translate
them into Indonesian. The words shutdown, log in,
 enter, download, upload, copy, file, scroll, keyboard,
and screen are used daily in Indonesian.
Not a single modern language does not borrow words
from other languages.
The advancement of information technology makes it
easier to have borrowed words from other
languages.
Computers, the Internet and social media make people
borrow certain terms from English.
In borrowing, some words are changed a little bit for
the sake of easy pronunciation. The English words,
for example, education, realization, pollution,
formation, organization, and gradation become
edukasi, realisasi, polusi, formasi, organisasi, and
gradasi.
Similarly, the words university, quality, probability,
quantity, and popularity become universitas,
kualitas, probabilitas, kuantitas, and popularitas.

Reasons for Language Borrowing

One language may possess words for which there
are no equivalents in the other language. There may
be words for objects, social, political, and cultural
institutions and events or abstract concepts which
are not found in the culture of the other language.
We can take some examples from the English
language throughout the ages. English has
borrowed words for types of houses (e.g. castle,
mansion, igloo, bungalow). It has borrowed words
for cultural institutions (e.g. opera, ballet). It has
borrowed words for political concepts (e.g. glasnost,
apartheid). It often happens that one culture borrows
from the language of another culture words or
phrases to express technological, social or cultural
innovations."

The following list is a small sampling of the loanwords that

came into English in different periods and from different
languages.
I. Germanic period
Latin
The forms given in this section are the Old English ones.
The original Latin source word is given in parentheses
where significantly different. Some Latin words were
themselves originally borrowed from Greek. It can be
deduced that these borrowings date from the time before
the Angles and Saxons left the continent for England,
because of very similar forms found in the other old
Germanic languages (Old High German, Old Saxon, etc.).
The source words are generally attested in Latin texts, in
the large body of Latin writings that were preserved
through the ages.
ancor 'anchor'
butere 'butter' (L < Gr. butyros)
cealc 'chalk'
ceas 'cheese' (caseum)
cetel 'kettle'
cycene 'kitchen'
cirice 'church' (ecclesia < Gr. ecclesia)
disc 'dish' (discus)
mil 'mile' (milia [passuum] 'a thousand paces')
piper 'pepper'
pund 'pound' (pondo 'a weight')
sacc 'sack' (saccus)
sicol 'sickle'
'street' ([via] strata 'straight way' or stone-paved
straet
road)
weall 'wall' (vallum)
win 'wine' (vinum < Gr. oinos)
II. Old English Period (600-1100)
Latin
apostol 'apostle' (apostolus < Gr. apostolos)
casere 'caesar, emperor'
ceaster 'city' (castra 'camp')
cest 'chest' (cista 'box')
circul 'circle'
cometa 'comet' (cometa < Greek)
maegester 'master' (magister)
martir 'martyr'
paper 'paper' (papyrus, from Gr.)
tigle 'tile' (tegula)
Celtic
brocc 'badger'
cumb 'combe, valley'
(few ordinary words, but thousands of place and river
names: London, Carlisle,
Devon, Dover, Cornwall, Thames, Avon...)
III. Middle English Period (1100-1500)
Scandinavian
Most of these first appeared in the written language in
Middle English; but many were no doubt borrowed earlier,
during the period of the Danelaw (9th-10th centuries).
 anger, blight, by-law, cake, call, clumsy, doze, egg,
fellow, gear, get, give, hale, hit, husband, kick, kill, kilt,
kindle, law, low, lump, rag, raise, root, scathe, scorch,
score, scowl, scrape, scrub, seat, skill, skin, skirt, sky,
sly, take, they, them, their, thrall, thrust, ugly, want,
window, wing
 Place name suffixes: -by, -thorpe, -gate
French
 Law and government—attorney, bailiff, chancellor,
chattel, country, court, crime, defendent, evidence,
government, jail, judge, jury, larceny, noble,
parliament, plaintiff, plea, prison, revenue, state, tax,
verdict
 Church—abbot, chaplain, chapter, clergy, friar,
prayer, preach, priest, religion, sacrament, saint,
sermon
 Nobility—baron, baroness; count, countess; duke,
duchess; marquis, marquess; prince, princess;
 viscount, viscountess; noble, royal (contrast native
words: king, queen, earl, lord, lady, knight, kingly,
queenly)
 Military—army, artillery, battle, captain, company,
corporal, defense,enemy,marine, navy, sergeant,
soldier, volunteer
 Cooking—beef, boil, broil, butcher, dine, fry, mutton,
pork, poultry, roast, salmon, stew, veal
 Culture and luxury goods—art, bracelet, claret,
clarinet, dance, diamond, fashion, fur, jewel, oboe,
painting, pendant, satin, ruby, sculpture
 Other—adventure, change, charge, chart, courage,
devout, dignity, enamor, feign, fruit, letter, literature,
magic, male, female, mirror, pilgrimage, proud,
question, regard, special
Also Middle English French loans: a huge number of
words in age, -ance/-ence, -ant/-ent, -ity, -ment, -tion,
con-, de-, and pre- .
Sometimes it's hard to tell whether a given word came
from French or whether it was taken straight from Latin.
Words for which this difficulty occurs are those in which
there were no special sound and/or spelling changes of
the sort that distinguished French from Latin
IV. Early Modern English Period (1500-1650)
The effects of the renaissance begin to be seriously felt in
England. We see the beginnings of a huge influx of Latin
and Greek words, many of them learned words imported
by scholars well versed in those languages. But many are
borrowings from other languages, as words from
European high culture begin to make their presence felt
and the first words come in from the earliest period of
colonial expansion.
Latin
 agile, abdomen, anatomy, area, capsule,
compensate, dexterity, discus, disc/disk, excavate,
expensive, fictitious, gradual, habitual, insane, janitor,
meditate, notorious, orbit, peninsula, physician,
superintendent, ultimate, vindicate
Greek (many of these via Latin)
 anonymous, atmosphere, autograph, catastrophe,
climax, comedy, critic, data, ectasy, history, ostracize,
parasite, pneumonia, skeleton, tonic, tragedy
 Greek bound morphemes: -ism, -ize
Arabic
 via Spanish—alcove, algebra, zenith, algorithm,
almanac, azimuth, alchemy, admiral
 via other Romance languages—amber, cipher,
orange, saffron, sugar, zero, coffee
V. Modern English (1650-present)
Period of major colonial expansion, industrial/technological
revolution, and American immigration.
Words from European languages
French
French continues to be the largest single source of new
words outside of very specialized vocabulary domains
(scientific/technical vocabulary, still dominated by classical
borrowings).
 High culture—ballet, bouillabaise, cabernet, cachet,
chaise longue, champagne, chic, cognac, corsage,
faux pas, nom de plume, quiche, rouge, roulet,
sachet, salon, saloon, sang froid, savoir faire
 War and Military—bastion, brigade, battalion, cavalry,
grenade, infantry, pallisade, rebuff, bayonet
 Other—bigot, chassis, clique, denim, garage,
grotesque, jean(s), niche, shock
 French Canadian—chowder
 Louisiana French (Cajun)—jambalaya
Spanish
 armada, adobe, alligator, alpaca, armadillo, barricade,
bravado, cannibal, canyon, coyote, desperado,
embargo, enchilada, guitar, marijuana, mesa,
mosquito, mustang, ranch, taco, tornado, tortilla,
vigilante
Italian
 alto, arsenal, balcony, broccoli, cameo, casino,
cupola, duo, fresco, fugue, gazette (via French),
ghetto, gondola, grotto, macaroni, madrigal, motto,
piano, opera, pantaloons, prima donna, regatta,
 sequin, soprano, opera, stanza, stucco, studio,
tempo, torso, umbrella, viola, violin
 from Italian American immigrants—cappuccino,
espresso, linguini, mafioso, pasta, pizza, ravioli,
spaghetti, spumante, zabaglione, zucchini
Dutch, Flemish
 Shipping, naval terms—avast, boom, bow, bowsprit,
buoy, commodore, cruise, dock, freight, keel,
keelhaul, leak, pump, reef, scoop, scour, skipper,
sloop, smuggle, splice, tackle, yawl, yacht
 Cloth industry—bale, cambric, duck (fabric), fuller's
earth, mart, nap (of cloth), selvage, spool, stripe
 Art—easel, etching, landscape, sketch
 War—beleaguer, holster, freebooter, furlough,
onslaught
 Food and drink—booze, brandy(wine), coleslaw,
cookie, cranberry, crullers, gin, hops, stockfish, waffle
 Other—bugger (orig. French), crap, curl, dollar, scum,
split (orig. nautical term), uproar
German
 bum, dunk, feldspar, quartz, hex, lager, knackwurst,
liverwurst, loafer, noodle, poodle, dachshund, pretzel,
pinochle, pumpernickel, sauerkraut, schnitzel,
zwieback, (beer)stein, lederhosen, dirndl
 20th century German loanwords—blitzkrieg, zeppelin,
strafe, U-boat, delicatessen, hamburger, frankfurter,
wiener, hausfrau, kindergarten, Oktoberfest, schuss,
 wunderkind, bundt (cake), spritz (cookies), (apple)
strudel
Yiddish (most are 20th century borrowings)
 bagel, Chanukkah (Hanukkah), chutzpah, dreidel,
kibbitzer, kosher, lox, pastrami (orig. from Romanian),
schlep, spiel, schlepp, schlemiel, schlimazel, gefilte
fish, goy, klutz, knish, matzoh, oy vey, schmuck,
schnook,
Scandinavian
 fjord, maelstrom, ombudsman, ski, slalom,
smorgasbord
Russian
 apparatchik, borscht, czar/tsar, glasnost, icon,
perestroika, vodka
Words from other parts of the world
Sanskrit
 avatar, karma, mahatma, swastika, yoga
Hindi
 bandanna, bangle, bungalow, chintz, cot,
cummerbund, dungaree, juggernaut, jungle, loot,
maharaja, nabob, pajamas, punch (the drink),
shampoo, thug, kedgeree, jamboree
Dravidian
  curry, mango, teak, pariah
Persian (Farsi)
 check, checkmate, chess
Arabic
 bedouin, emir, jakir, gazelle, giraffe, harem, hashish,
lute, minaret, mosque, myrrh, salaam, sirocco, sultan,
vizier, bazaar, caravan
African languages
 banana (via Portuguese), banjo, boogie-woogie,
chigger, goober, gorilla, gumbo, jazz, jitterbug, jitters,
juke(box), voodoo, yam, zebra, zombie
American Indian languages
 avocado, cacao, cannibal, canoe, chipmunk,
chocolate, chili, hammock, hominy, hurricane, maize,
moccasin, moose, papoose, pecan, possum, potato,
skunk, squaw, succotash, squash, tamale (via
Spanish), teepee, terrapin, tobacco, toboggan,
tomahawk, tomato, wigwam, woodchuck
 (plus thousands of place names, including Ottawa,
Toronto, Saskatchewan and the names of more than
half the
states of the U.S., including Michigan, Texas,
Nebraska, Illinois)
Chinese
  chop suey, chow mein, dim sum, ketchup, tea,
ginseng, kowtow, litchee
Japanese
 geisha, hara kiri, judo, jujitsu, kamikaze, karaoke,
kimono, samurai, soy, sumo, sushi, tsunami
Pacific Islands
 bamboo, gingham, rattan, taboo, tattoo, ukulele,
boondocks
Australia
 boomerang, budgerigar, didgeridoo, kangaroo (and
many more in Australian English)

Exercise :

1. Mention some English words which are borrowed

from other languages.

2. What are the reasons for borrowing words from

other languages?

(Write down your answers and save them to collected

later.)