In Linguistic, and more particularly in etymology, Linguistic Lexicology and compared, one names lexical loan (or, more often, loan ) the consistent process, for a language, to introduce into its Lexique a term come from another language. The loan can be direct (a language has borrows directly from a language B) or indirect (a language has borrows from a language C via a ─ or several ─ language-vector B). The loan belongs to the means available to the speakers to increase to them Lexique, as well as the Néologisme, the Catachrèse and the derivation. One will refer to the article Lexicalisation for other details.

What does one borrow?

The languages borrow especially words belonging to the lexical classes “opened”, i.e. precisely those which contain a variable stock of Lemme S: they are mainly the names, the Verbe S and the Adjectif S. the “closed” classes (Pronom S, conjunction S…) receive only very seldom additions.

It should however be noted that the classes which one speaks are those of arrival: indeed, it is not rare that a language borrows, for example, a pronoun with another language but to make a name of it. It is the case of quidam , borrowed from the Latin . It is, in French, a name whereas in Latin it is a pronoun. Better still, our drunk , common noun, is resulting from Latin, where it is only a Désinence (by hypostasis and unsuitable derivation).

Reasons of the loan

Several reasons explain the lexical loan. They are of course not excluded the ones the others.

First of all, a Meaning for one meant lately appeared can miss in the language borrowing the mot. Ainsi, when new animals or plants then unknown were discovered, their name directly was often borrowed from the languages of the countries which sheltered them:

  • lawyer comes us from the Nahuatl auacatl , via the Castillan abogado , “lawyer (auxiliary of justice)” and aguacate , “lawyer (fruit of the avocado tree)” (two words being crossed), the first lawyer exporters in relation to the Aztec ones having been the Spaniards;
  • puma , in a similar way, goes back to the Quechua, via the Castilian (for same the reasons);
  • coffee goes up with the Arab قَهْوَة qahwaʰ , transmitted to the Turkish in the shape qahve and passed in French by the Italian .

In the event of linguistic Interference, the loan becomes very frequent. Thus, the word floorcloth (floorcloth) used in French of the North of France is a loan with the Flemish wassching , these French areas being in ic contact Adstrat with countries speaking this language. In the same way, the superstratum Francique provided a great number of words to French, among whom, for example, war , heaume or raspberry . There is no there always real need to borrow a foreign term ( floorcloth and floorcloth , for example): the people in contact, however, do not exchange only goods or ideas. Foreign words are reproduced because they can be heard more often than the vernacular words.

In addition, the language of a country dominating , culturally, economically or politically, at a given time becomes very frequently donneuse words: it is the case of French of which the military vocabulary ( battery , brigade …) and the majority of the names of rank are found in all the European armies since the time when France was regarded as a military model of organization; it is also that of the Italian in the field of the Musique, which transmitted terms like piano or adagio . The English, currently, provides, because of its importance in this field, number of words concerning the vocabulary of data processing, like bug or bit , which does not have a preexistent French equivalent; this language feeds also the vocabulary of the management of company ( to manage , staff , marketing , budget , etc). The loan can also belong to a phenomenon of more general mode. It is only one of the manifestations of the will to imitate a more prestigious culture then felt. In this case, the borrowed word can be only a Synonyme with an already existing word: such loans will be felt, in a normative way, like or weakness errors of taste of expression. For example, to use poster instead of to publish in the discussion forums often passes for a Anglicisme. Indeed, the verb poster does not have, in French the same meaning as the verb to post in English (they are False-friends), and the verb to publish is appropriate very well. The French connected is enamelled such loans which, often, do not exceed the effect of mode and does not lexiconize not.

Foreign words adopted more or less well

Loanwords, although normally fewer than the words inherited the language-mother (except, naturally, in the creole S), are extremely current in the vocabulary of the languages: it is indeed an unconscious process which only normative entities (like the French Academy or the General delegation with the French language for French of France) can want to delay.

With time, borrowed words can be lexiconized and not be felt like loans more. For example, the word frock coat is well a loan with the English riding-coat (“coat to go to horse”). Its lexiconizing is explained by its French seniority (it is attested since the 18th century) and appears by his adaptation to the Orthographe and the phonological system of French. Number of words are old loans that only the specialists in etymology can identify like tel.

Another example: In English " year apron" (an apron) is a phonograph-morphological adaptation of French " a napperon" (small tablecloth), the loan is a priori recognizable neither by its form, neither by its pronunciation, nor by its direction, although all three are essential in the formation of the new English lemma.

As an indication, one can quote realities of the French loan (figures quoted by Henriette Walter in the adventure of the French words come besides ):

  • on 60.000 words of a usual French dictionary, 8.600 are of foreign origin (14,3%);
  • if one keeps only the 35.000 words of a current French dictionary, this figure is brought back to 4.200 (12%);
  • the source languages of these 4.200 loans are the following ones, for the principal ones:

It is obvious that the speaker lambda is not aware to so often use foreign words: all do not seem to him such because some, old in the language, were adapted. Those which, on the other hand, continue to seem foreign are the words which the language did not completely assimilate, either that their pronunciation remains too far away from the graphic practices, or because they remain of a too rare or limited use. Lastly, when there exists a vernacular synonym of a foreign loan, it is possible that both cohabit until one disappears or which one of both exchange of direction, so as to avoid the redundancy.

The popular expression “now, this word is in the dictionary” shows well that the speakers, during a time, have the intuition that such word is not legitimate (it “” still “sounds foreign”) and that one needs an external authority to declare of it the character French. In fact, the process is opposite: the dictionaries do nothing but sanction the use (whatever the definition that one gives in this term) and represent it. That a foreign word enters the dictionary does not mean that it was accepted by a qualified minority of grammairiens which would have the capacity to rule on the language (what is an image of Épinal: the language belongs to the speakers and no official decree can force them to change their uses of the whole to the whole) but which it became sufficiently current so that a dictionary announces it.

Adapted words

Phonological adaptations

While passing from a language with another, the words are likely to be adapted Phonétique lies, all the more when these words are borrowed indirectly. Indeed, the phonological systems of the various languages only coincide very seldom. However, the importation new Phonème S is a rare and, at least, very slow phenomenon. For example, the Arab word referred to above, قَهْوَة qahwaʰ , does not decide thus in French, language which knows neither it nor to it. The French-speaking people, borrowing the word, transformed into, which is relatively close for him for a not trained ear (being able to pass for a Allophone of /k/ in French, but not in Arabic). As for, it fell because no close phoneme exists in French. In the same way, in a word English like bug , the sound, absent from French, will be generally adapted in, the word being then marked.

The phonetic adaptations can make the word borrowed unrecognizable when the two implied phonological systems are very different. The Japanese, for example, borrows enormously from English. However, the syllabic structure of Japanese requires Syllabe S open (ending in a vowel; nasal is however also possible): for this reason, if sofā remains recognizable ( sofa ), sābisu ( service ) is already less. Worse still, it is necessary well to know Japanese phonology to recognize behind miruku the English word milk (Japanese not having a phoneme /l/, it replaces it by a /r/ which, in this language, can be regarded as an allophone). One can also announce the case of the loans to the Sanskrit made in Chinese and Japanese. These loans, moved by the fact that there did not exist terms preexistent to indicate realities suitable for the Bouddhisme, for example, had to undergo important adaptations to be lexiconized: the word Bodhisattva becomes in Japanese bosatsu and Chinese púsà (written 菩薩 in the two languages).

Generally, before a borrowed word is completely lexiconized, there exist often speakers to know more or less to pronounce it in a “correct” way, i.e. more or less near to its original pronunciation. There thus exists an undulation: the French word sweat shirt is generally marked but by the speakers knowing English. In any case, the word is a wobbly loan, since in the source language, same clothing is named sweater . With time, these divergences of pronunciations tend to grow blurred.

Lastly, it is necessary to take account of the C-W communication of the word: if, while adapting, a word keeps its original C-W communication (like sweat ), it is obvious that the speakers are likely to pronounce it while following the specific rules of reading to their language or those supposed of the foreign words. If, in French, one more often hears, it is well because the Digramme ea does not return to any rule of precise reading in this language (except after a G ). However, for a speaker lambda, ea , like ee , is decoded (by contamination with words passed in French or in addition known, like beach- (volleyball) , beatnik or teasing ).

Grammatical adaptations

In addition, while passing from one language to another, a foreign word is not any more morphologiquement analyzable. For example, the singular taliban is in fact a Persan Pluriel of an Arab word, that of طَالِب ṭālib . What can prove that lexiconizing functions is that the adopted word complies with the grammatical rules of the language borrowing: thus, taliban , which is supposed being a plural in Arabic, is written talibans in the plural French. In the same way, Tuareg is the plural of targui . However, to say a targui / Tuareg passes, at best, for a good knowledge of the Arab language, with the detriment of French grammar, for pedantry; a Tuareg / of the Tuaregs is much more current, all the more when it is known that other words, older, underwent a similar treatment: chérubin is a Hebrew plural in (in fact, the plural of this word ends in - im ) but it does not exist singular *chérub in French (contrary to the German or of English). However, so some protest that it is necessary to say a targui / Tuareg , any does not want to impose a chérub / of chérubin . The grammatical adaptation makes that a borrowed word becomes often unmotivated, inanalysable. In fact, it will be sometimes adapted in the language usherette starting from a form inflected or grammatically marked to give rise to a new term not marked.

In a similar way, the Castilian of South America, in ic situation Adstrat with English, does not hesitate to adapt its loans: to rent (“to rent”) becomes naturally rentar , to check (“to check”) gives checar to Mexico. Of kind, the borrowed terms can be easily bent. Besides one notices the prevalence of certain more regular types of inflections in the adaptation of foreign terms. For example, it quasi totality of the verbs imported in French are it while following the first group (verbs in - er with the Infinitif), easiest to combine: to kidnap or to grate is examples (and it is besides the same principle for the Castilian rentar ).

As one previously saw with the phonological adaptation, the loans which are not lexiconized yet perfectly will involve unfoldings: such foreign word could be bent in the respect of its source language (if it were it) or in that of arrival. One notes for example lists of irregular plurals in many languages of Europe (it is enough to read that, impressive, proposed by the article of the anglophone Wikipédia devoted to). Once again, if to respect the starting pluralisation is the mark of a certain linguistic culture, it is also an attack with the coherence of its language. The debates are very surging, for French, between holding of foreign or francized plurals. The small following list will show that the will to keep the foreign pluralisation is often a bad idea:

  • pluralisation Italian: scenario / scénarii , spaghetto / spaghetti or graffito / graffiti , etc, instead of the French pluralisation: scenario / scenarios , spaghetti / spaghettis or graffiti / graffiti , etc;
let us Notons that in Italian, of the remainder, the plural of scenario is not scenarii but scenari or scenarî .
  • pluralisation Latin E: maximum / maximum , papyrus / papyri , forum / drilled , etc, instead of maximum / maxima , papyrus / papyrus , forum / forums , etc;
  • pluralisation Greek that: topos / topoï , kouros / kouroï , korê / koraï , etc, instead of topos / topos , kouros / kouros , korê / korês , etc

The list could be lengthened with the envi because these “irregular” plurals are not only, far from there. It is however easy to plead in favor of a complete Francization. Indeed, if one wanted to be coherent, would also have to be considered the following pluralisations:

  • of Italian: a pizza pie / of pizzé , a chipolata / of chipolaté (actually the correct Italian C-W communication would be cipollata/cipollate ), a diva / of divine the , a raviolo / of the ravioli ;
  • of Latin: a opus / of the opera , a géranium/of the gérania , an abdomen / of the abdomina , a visum / of the visa , even a wash-hand basin / of the lavabimus and a distinction / of the distinguimus (these the last two words being verbs with the first nobody of the singular, a regular plural would make await first persons plural), a agendum / of the diary ;
  • of the Greek: a problem / of the problémata , a colon / of stuck , Titan / of titaniums , a narthex / of the narthekes .

It is seen: to keep the foreign pluralisation is done only whenever the rules allowing it are simple. As soon as she asks a better grammatical knowledge of the language concerned, she is abandoned. Moreover, the terms absorptive by French for a long time are lexiconized so much that they do not seem foreigners any more. If one wanted to be coherent, they would have also to be bent as they were it in the source language. Worse, than to say terms borrowed from exotic languages like the Nahuatl? Should it be required that the plural of coyote be cocoyoh ? In the same way for the insulating Languages: the / of the would be more coherent.

In short, grammatical lexiconizing makes it possible to avoid these pitfalls and these inconsistencies.

Semantic adaptations

While being borrowed, the words can change direction, all the more when the languages are genetically distant. If one takes again the example of the taliban French , one notes that the the Petit Robert defines it as a “member of a military islamist movement Afghan applicant to apply the Koranic law completely”. However, in Arabic, the term returns simply to the idea of “student in theology”. The word taliban was indeed imported in French when the events in Afghanistan made known this made up islamist movement religious extremists. In Arabic, the word does not connote however such negative concepts and does not limit itself to the Afghan nomination only. Sometimes, it is because the borrowed word evolved/moved in the target language which the original direction lost, exactly as do it inherited words (thus, Latin term inherited rem , “something”, one arrives at French nothing ). One can for example quote, among very many examples, the case of intermediary which, initially, meant “intermediate translator well being used as interpreter between two people”, direction which the Arab word in the beginning has well, that is to say تُرْجُمَان turǧumān . While evolving/moving in French, the term came from there, currently, to indicate mainly an intermediary, seldom human, in the expression by the means of .

In addition, much of False-friends find their explanation by a loan having undergone an adaptation Sémantique. Thus, the citronfromage Danish is not a cheese with lemon but a cream sweetened with lemon. Danish, by borrowing French terms which do not return to precise Danish equivalents, gave to cheese a direction which it does not have, except, perhaps, in soft white cheese . In a similar way, the journey English means “voyage”. It comes well from French day . It is necessary to include/understand “a voyage during one day” to seize the reasons of the adaptation.

It is also necessary to announce the case of the Calque S, which are not loans of lemmas but of directions alone, which are translated with the letter in the target language. Thus, the superman English is a copy of German Übermensch , which also provides, by copy always, the superman French . In both cases, it is about a literal translation, über meaning “on” and Mensch “man”.

In conclusion, one should not thus lose sight of the fact that a borrowed word arrives sometimes virgin of its connotations, even of his Dénotation starting: the language which borrows, seizing often only part of the Semantic field, it keeps to him (or gives) a Signifié sometimes very distant, specializing it ( taliban : studying in theology → islamist Afghan ) or reducing it to the one components of its denotation ( intermediary: intermediate translator → intermediate ).

It will be also noted that the words which a language (A) borrows from another (B) are revealing stereotypes that have the speakers of has on those of b: thus, they are mainly terms related to the love affairs and with the mode that the Japanese borrowed from the French-speaking people, which, when they took again words resulting from various languages of Africa, especially recovered terms indicating brutality, primary education character, music in what it has of rate/rhythm and of endiablant. It is, of the remainder, the subject of a dedicated work to this question, All Suédoises are called Ingrid , of Patrice Louis (Arléa, Paris, 2004).

Graphic adaptations

One will treat here cases in which a word is borrowed from a language using the same writing as that of the language which borrows: for the passage of an Arab word to French, for example, enters only in account the pronunciation and not the C-W communication. Indeed, these are the sounds that one has transcribed and not the Graphème S.

Two great types of languages are distinguished, during the loan:

  • the languages which, like French, keep the orthography of the foreign word (except the possible signs Diacritique S differing);
  • the languages which adapt the pronunciation of the word to its graphic practices.

The French belongs to the first type: the loans of Football (of the English) and of Handball (of the German ) were done in the respect of the original C-W communication. The speakers must thus learn the orthography and the pronunciation from these words, which do not respect the practices of the other words. Thus, the first will be known as /futbol/, the second /h ãdbal/. English follows the same principle, going even until preserving the signs absent from his alphabet: it is frequent that here are or already considering is written with their accents, whereas English does not use them normally. The languages of this types are generally those equipped with an old and little reformed complex orthography because. The graphic adaptation is quasi null there: the task of training of the orthography is all the more difficult. More alarming, of the phenomena of contamination appear: many French pronounce epizooty (normally /epizooti/) “with English”: /epizuti/, accustomed which they are so that the Digramme of English origin oo is returned by /u/ whereas, in this word, the radical zoo is borrowed from the old Greek ζῷον/ zỗion , which gives us zoological .

In the second type, one can count the Castillan and the Turkish . In the first language, the word football is returned in a transparent way by fútbol , in the second by futbol . In this case, the graphic adaptation makes it possible to the speakers to pronounce or write directly the word without having to know rules of pronunciation (after phonetic adaptation) of another language.

Return tickets and crossings

One could conclude by announcing that the term of loan is badly selected: a language does not borrow a foreign word but takes it. There is no restitution and the language which undergoes the loan does not lose anything. Its speakers are not even inevitably aware of the loans in question. However, there exist interesting cases of return tickets between the languages. Knowing how much the loans subject the words of the phonetic and semantic modifications important, these cases deserve examination.

One can illustrate such a return ticket with the French name budget , borrowed from the 18th century with English budget , who had taken itself it with the Former French bougette /bud ʒetə/, within the meaning of “small leather bag” (diminutive of moves), the name record , borrowed from English at the end of the 19th century, which had taken with French to retie (“to remember”, derived from heart , to bring closer “to learn by heart”) at the 13th century, or the word tunnel in French, borrowed from English at the 15th century, which language itself had borrowed it from French arbor with the Moyen-âge. In the first both cases, it is notable that neither bougette nor to retie exists more in the current French lexicon and that only the loans with English preserved there in an indirect way (all the more indirect as the record is a name which one cannot attach any more to a verb). flirter , which is false: < http://www.bartleby.com/61/85/F0188500.html > and < http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=flirt&searchmode=none > -->

As for the crossings, these are loans whose etymology is complex because it calls upon several different words which influence the ones the others, sometimes by popular etymology. For example, asticoter comes from an old form dasticoter (also tasticoter ; testicoter in Picardy), loan with German Das dich Gott… “That God you… ”, preparatory formula with a swearword. At the beginning, the word meant “German speech” then “to dispute” and “to swear”. It is by crossing with of maggot , of the same swearword origin obtained by Métanalyse, and to polish that one obtains the form without initial consonant, asticoter , perhaps also by influence of estiquer , of the Dutch steken “to prick”.

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