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Loanwords
Eating lunch in a working man's restaurant in Hong Kong I hear mostly Cantonese but with occassional English words, "passion," for example. Borrowed words or loanwords surely tell us something important about ideas or concepts that the first language lacks. Most loanwords are for things (e.g. mouse for a computer device), it's pretty easy to explain the adoption of such words. But what about words for which the thing has always existed but not the word? Chinese speakers tell me that there is a word for love but passion is more difficult to translate.
What are some of the major conceptual loanwords? What do loanwords tell us about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis? What loanwords does English need? There appears to be a large literature in linguistics on the adoption and evolution of loanwords but less on the cultural significance of loanwords. Comments?
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on June 28, 2008 at 08:54 AM in Science | Permalink
Comments
"What loanwords does English need?"
Well, we all know that French is lacking in one or two. For example, as we've been told, they have no word for "entrepreneur".
On the more basic subject of loanwords, you can quite neatly track the globalisation of metallurgy and chemistry by looking at the roots words for the elements. Iron and copper, for example, have different root words in most languages (for example, Russian, zhelezhnyi and medh respectively although I wouldn't trust my spelling) while those metals discovered in more modern times (tantalum, the rare earths etc) use the same roots in all languages.
Posted by: Tim Worstall at Jun 28, 2008 9:13:52 AM
To some extent it's true: the fact that English had to borrow Schadenfreude from German perhaps tells us something about Germans. But often words are borrowed just to be fashionable or snobbish: Japanese already had a perfectly good word for milk before they borrowed English miruku.
The fact that one language may have had a word for "privacy" before another language did probably simply reflects the fact that privacy is a luxury, which a more technologically advanced society can afford sooner than a poorer society. "Passion" probably falls into this same category, because marrying for romantic love rather than for practical reasons is also a luxury. So if one language had to borrow the word from another, this tells us less about cultural differences than about historically uneven technological and economic progress.
On the other hand, the fact that English has never had a word corresponding to the Russian авоська (avoska, just-in-case string bag) tells us more about one of the 20th century's more tragic failed experiments than about the Russian character. On the other hand, the fact that Russian has the word собутыльник (sobutilnik, someone you share a bottle with) probably does tell us something about the Russian character :)
Posted by: at Jun 28, 2008 9:14:50 AM
In italian there is no word for "politically correct". So they use the english term. I think that is very telling of italian society.
Posted by: pontus at Jun 28, 2008 9:21:29 AM
This is off-topic, but once upon a time, some coworkers in Toronto were talking to each other in Cantonese at lunchtime, and the English word "mortgage" kept coming up. I couldn't help but notice it, since it stood out in the otherwise incomprehensible conversational flow.
During a lull in the conversation, I turned to them and asked, "So, you guys are thinking about getting a mortgage?". Their jaws dropped: "You understand Cantonese???"
Posted by: at Jun 28, 2008 9:26:31 AM
English desperately needs to borrow the word "doch" from German. It's meaning is a bit hard to define, but basically it's the easiest way to tell someone they're wrong or to contradict someone. You can only do it when they're making a negative assumption. "You didn't go to the play?" "Doch." = I did. Or, more importantly, "That isn't true!' "Doch."= Yes it is and you are WRONG!
There is no way to counteract the doch. I've tried. It's an argument ender.
Posted by: Rochelle at Jun 28, 2008 9:28:17 AM
What I miss most in any language is the Italian diminutive. "arabi", "arabozzi"; "svizzeri", "svizzerotti" and so on.
Posted by: Hans Suter at Jun 28, 2008 9:36:45 AM
Foreign words can outcompete the native word for the concept if the native word is taboo or just unfashionable. Or they can coexist and eventually acquire different shades of meaning. If English adopted so much vocabulary from Norman French due to lexical gaps in Old English, it would be amazing that the Anglo-Saxons managed to communicate at all.
Posted by: Cyrus at Jun 28, 2008 9:41:47 AM
Posted by: MattF at Jun 28, 2008 10:05:59 AM
Obviously "Faux pas" and "lingua franca" are major conceptual loanwords in English. The first of which is quite surprising, given the attention to manners of the English and American upper classes. The second of which.... well, perhaps it only outshone "common language" because it's more fun to say.
Posted by: at Jun 28, 2008 10:17:31 AM
While locals have borrowed words (e.g., "cute" and "cool") for which there aren't well-known Cantonese equivalents, they also use English for words like "friend" and "feel/feeling" for which there are. "Date" is rather interesting too. It's used as a term for "hanging out," but there's a Cantonese term for when you're actually going out with someone. Interestingly, "mouse", "keyboard" and "virus" haven't been translated (AFAIK), but "website", "computer" and the "internet" have been. I'm not even going to try and explain "add oil," which is now the official Olympic cheer. There's also widespread usage and understanding of certain simple Japanese terms, possibly related to the spread of anime, manga and hentai.
On the flip-side, there are Cantonese terms for which I haven't been able to find English equivalents. If I can remember what they are, I'll post again.
Enjoy the rest of your time here!
Posted by: Sundeep at Jun 28, 2008 10:18:45 AM
Words spread among languages for a variety of reasons. The sweeping generalization that these changes "tell us something important about ideas or concepts that the first language lacks" is a bit misleading. For instance, Old English already had a word for a residential dwelling (house) but adopted an additional word (mansion) through contact with the Normans. In French, "maison" is just any old house. The transfer between languages had more to do with prestige than missing concepts.
The same principle should hold true between English and Chinese i.e. Chinese speakers are using English loanwords to make their speech sound more exotic or cosmopolitan. The Chinese can certainly express "passion" within Mandarin, a language with far deeper roots than English. There are in fact many choices about how to express passion, one of which happens to be the English. As an economist, maybe it would be better to ask what costs and benefits drive this word choice at the margin, and thus drive language change.
Posted by: J.K. at Jun 28, 2008 10:42:39 AM
The Danes have "hygge" which means the comfortable and pleasant feeling of being together with friends and/or family. They don't have "please" which leads to some elaborate substitutes that I'm not qualified to explain.
Posted by: john schafer at Jun 28, 2008 10:43:52 AM
A good number of the words for Western scientific and philosophical concepts in Chinese were translated from English and German into Japanese using earlier Chinese terms with slightly different meanings. These terms then came back into Chinese in the early 20th century with their new meanings. E.g. 民主 minzhu, for "democracy" and 科學 kexue for "science." The Japanese, of course, are also kings of the transliteration.
Posted by: wugong at Jun 28, 2008 10:46:51 AM
"What loanwords does English need?"
From Español: picante and caliente. Or spicy hot and temperature hot.
Posted by: Dave Barnes at Jun 28, 2008 10:49:28 AM
Also interesting to note is the English words that Chinese living in an English speaking country often use even when speaking Chinese to each other. One of the oddest is "care" as a verb. I've often heard the phrase "我不care" ("I don't care") in the US among native Chinese speakers.
Of course native English speakers living in China do the same thing with certain words. I've found that 厲害 lihai, which means a range from "intense" to "formidable" and so forth (and I've heard applied to everything from a teacher's demeanor in class to the size of a man's penis), is a term often used when English speakers in China who know Chinese are speaking English to each other.
Posted by: wugong at Jun 28, 2008 11:04:19 AM
"What loanwords does English need?"
One that stuck with me from a year in Japan is 'natsukashii.' It's a popular exclamation of an overwhelming feeling of nostalgia, having been reminded of something from your past. I didn't realize it was a fundamental emotion until I had a word for it.
Posted by: Scott at Jun 28, 2008 11:12:47 AM
"Te Quiero", in Spanish. There is an enormous difference between "querer" and "amar", whereas in English you only have "love." For example, one would never say "te amo" to a family member.
In my experience, the closest thing to "te quiero" in english is "I love you", whereas the closest thing to "te amo" is "I'm IN love with you." Still, it's fairly sloppy.
Posted by: Linkt at Jun 28, 2008 11:21:24 AM
The adoption and spread of "OK" amazes me.
My mother always said the there is no go English word for simpatico.
I like "hay" in Spanish not because we do have word for it but because the contraction "there's" is often used for both "there is" and "there are" which grates on me.
Posted by: Floccina at Jun 28, 2008 11:34:32 AM
Russian apparently lacks lots of basic concepts that are familiar to English speakers. Thus there is no easy way to say "enjoy" or "fun".
Posted by: Andy at Jun 28, 2008 12:21:39 PM
The concepts often are present, but not a single word embodies it in a language. Take the word mentioned above, schadenfreude, as an example. The concept has, no doubt, a long history in English speaking culture, but the culture never settled on a single word to name it until it borrowed the German.
Posted by: Yancey Ward at Jun 28, 2008 12:24:56 PM
The Turkmen language uses one word, ajy, to cover all strong flavors except for sweet and salty -- bitter, minty, spicy hot, sour -- all ajy. This from a people sitting on a major hub of the silk road! (It's also interesting that after 70 years in the Soviet Union, they have borrowed Russian words for everything related to government, business, and technology, but not flavor).
On a related note, I wonder if there are languages that have more nuanced terms for smell than English, and if so, why don't we borrow them? It seems that when describing smells we have little to rely on other than simile.
Posted by: Ben Graham at Jun 28, 2008 12:45:29 PM
Oh, I always liked the latin dimunitive of ending words with "-ino" (italian) or "-ito/inho" (spanish/portugese). Small elephant is simply elephantino. I think it's cute. (works well for nick name too; little ronaldo=ronaldinho, lil' kim = kimino ... or maybe not ;))
Posted by: pontus at Jun 28, 2008 12:46:54 PM
"What loanwords does English need?"
From Swedish: Lagom. Meaning "just the right amount". Maye it could be translated as "average" or "sufficient", but these words suggest some degree of abstinence, scarcity, or failure, while "Lagom" carries the connotation of perfection or appropriateness.
You've already loaned words like "ombudsman" and "smorgasbord" from Swedish, by the way :)
Posted by: jakob at Jun 28, 2008 12:53:27 PM
English needs an equivalent to the Portuguese word saudade.
Posted by: Michael A. Cleverly at Jun 28, 2008 12:58:30 PM
I like the picante/caliente distinction, and I've noticed that since getting reasonably familiar with Spanish, I now always use "spicy" instead of using "hot," and my kids seem to be picking up the same usage.
Although it's not a word, exactly, being able to put things in the subjunctive is something else we've mostly lost in contemporary English, and which communicates something useful.
A lot of languages use the same word for security against attackers (good locks) and safety against disasters (good smoke detectors). Similarly, English uses "security" to mean both actual resistance to attack, and the feeling of being protected from attack--it would be nice to have separate words for those two.
Posted by: albatross at Jun 28, 2008 1:05:24 PM
Minor quibble: It isn't true that there're no words for passion in Mandarin or Cantonese. Phrases like 热忱 (say 're chen') are used to describe people with a passion for something. Many Cantonese/Chinese speakers pepper their speeches with English words or phrases to emphasise a point or to seem trendy. It's like how English speakers say a person has a certain je ne sais quoi about them when they're trying to describe someone with an inexplicable, attractive aura.
And as for missing words in the English language, there's one Chinese phrase I find impossible to translate for people from Western countries. 人情味 (say 'ren qing wei'). It's a phrase you use to describe a situation which is filled with the milk of human kindness so to speak. And that's only an approximation of its meaning.
Posted by: June at Jun 28, 2008 1:29:43 PM
I always like "GuanXi" from Chinese. It means connection or relationship, but when used with people, it can generically mean family relationships, cronyism, relationships cultivated through bribery, etc.
In China, it's often used even when speaking English, and quickly becomes one of the standard loanwords used by English-speakers living and doing business in China.
Another one is "ri nao": meaning a crowded, busy, but generally fun environment.
Posted by: Foobarista at Jun 28, 2008 1:59:24 PM
"Add oil!" is nearly identical in context and meaning to "Hit the Gas" or "Floor it!" (ie, hit the accelerator, go for it, etc).
Posted by: Foobarista at Jun 28, 2008 2:08:19 PM
Barzun says "hsin" from meaning mind-and-heart.
Posted by: JH at Jun 28, 2008 3:01:20 PM
We really, really need something akin to the Japanese phrase "otsukaresama" in English.
It roughly translates to "You have done hard work" in English but the connotation is that the speaker is recognizing the target's efforts and is sort of congratulating or (sometimes, but not always) thanking them. A good example is when a family member gets home from a particularly long day at work - saying otsukaresama succinctly conveys your appreciation for their hard work even though they weren't doing anything specifically for you.
This probably isn't a very good explanation - I found it a little hard to wrap my head around while living in Japan on a highschool exchange, because most dictionaries take the easy way out and translate it only as "Thank you for your hard work". I couldn't understand why on earth my fellow students would constantly "thank" me for doing things completely unrelated to them. However, once I figured it out I loved it and can't figure out why there isn't a commonly used and succinct expression for this in English.
Posted by: Reilly at Jun 28, 2008 3:14:52 PM
Passion has a ready correspondent in Chinese. It's "Jiqing" (激情）. I guess people in that restaurant use the English word passion just because it's more fashionable rather than there is a lack of Chinese equivalent.
Posted by: wz at Jun 28, 2008 3:36:56 PM
Wuqong,
in Egypt I've heard a similar phrase. To form verbs in Egyptian arabic, one adds "b" to the beginning of the root; to negate, one adds "ma" at the beginning and "sh" at the end. So people often say "ma bagivadamnsh" (I don't give a damn) instead of the arabic "ma bamathamsh."
Posted by: jb at Jun 28, 2008 4:58:33 PM
Russian apparently lacks lots of basic concepts that are familiar to English speakers. Thus there is no easy way to say "enjoy" or "fun".
In Russian, the concepts of "enjoy" and "fun" can only be communicated by pantomime: waving an imaginary bottle of vodka and doing that dance where people squat on their heels and kick alternate legs forward, accompanied by Quest for Fire grunting. You're right there's no easy way to say it; it's exhausting.
Posted by: at Jun 28, 2008 5:34:22 PM
The strangest loan word I heard on my recent trip to Syria was when man A borrowed Man B's motorcycle, following an entirely Arabic conversation, and as A took off, B yelled, "Careful!"
Posted by: James Hanley at Jun 28, 2008 5:51:23 PM
In French, l'esprit de l'escalier. It means thinking of a witty comeback too late after the moment to use it has already passed.
I guess the French are wittier than the English.
Posted by: LZ at Jun 28, 2008 5:56:29 PM
English's biggest need is a 2nd person plural. I recommend y'all, but 'vous' ca va aussi.
Posted by: dk at Jun 28, 2008 6:49:57 PM
Foobarista--
Just for the record, the pinyin is "re'nao" 熱鬧 with an "e" rather than an "i." But a great example, as is "guanxi."
Posted by: wugong at Jun 28, 2008 8:00:52 PM
There is a word in Tamizh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_language) called Rasi (used as asverb "rasichundriken") which is used to describe the pleasure of all senses while experiencing of sensing something (for example: listening to someone sing, watching someone dance, etc). Maybe I am putting it badly, but there is no equivalent word in English that I know of.
Posted by: Divya at Jun 28, 2008 8:50:39 PM
Here in Taiwan, I've been amazed at the amount of English that pops up in conversations on talk shows here. So often, normal every day words that exist in Chinese just come out in conversation. I don't particularly understand why this is.
Recently, for instance, when then-Presidential candidate Ma Ying-Jiu went down south to stay and campaign, it was called his "long stay." Everywhere (on the news, talk shows, etc.) they were calling it his "long stay."
Moreover, certain words are taken from English and then take on different meanings. Unfortunately, I can't think of many good examples. The first thing that comes to mind is the abbreviation "NG," which is used to define a scene blooper in a movie where an actor messes up his lines. This, obviously, comes from "no good," but we don't actually say that. We call them bloopers.
Chinese has actually picked up a lot of English slang, like "好cool!" ("cool" in this case usually sounds like "coo" and there is a Chinese character that corresponds to it, but I don't know what it is). Before I could speak any Chinese but knew that they had adopted a lot of English slang, I also suspected that 那個 and 這個 (pronounced quite similar to "nigga" and "jigga"*) were also sino-ized forms of American slang from listening to rap music. I said to my girlfriend, "You know, you might not want to say those words if you come to the US," to which she responded, "What, 'this' and 'that'?"
* in the US, when songs had the word "Nigga," it was often changed to "jigga" on the radio and TV. I don't know if that's still the case.
Posted by: Robert at Jun 28, 2008 10:20:08 PM
Along the same lines as wugong's mention of 厲害, there's also 無聊, which has a range of meanings from boring to stupid, or just about anything that makes you roll your eyes and say, "你好無聊!"
Also, back to the talk about passion, I'm wondering if the English term might be used because it lacks the negative connotations that the Chinese term might have. I basing this solely on the assumption that passion, until recently, would be frowned upon by most Chinese, in the belief that one should maintain his composure and moderate his emotions.
Passion, to a Chinese speaker, might not carry the negative connotations that the Chinese terms do. I'm not sure about that though.
Posted by: Robert at Jun 28, 2008 10:44:29 PM
I've always wondered why the Japanese insist on using the English forms of 'Penis' and 'Toilet'...
Posted by: Hubber at Jun 28, 2008 11:02:35 PM
Please note that HK is a former British colony and the education in middle, high and university level are basically in English, while the former two only switched to Chinese/Cantonese after 1998. So, though there may be cantonese/chinese words meaning the same, mixing English into Cantonese in daily conversation is very common in HK.
Posted by: passerby at Jun 29, 2008 12:27:50 AM
I'm only familiar with English and Spanish, but the Spanish distinction between "ser" (to be fundamentally) and "estar" (to be right now) is just a marvelous economy to have available. Not a distinction you can't make in English, but there isn't any way to do it elegantly.
Posted by: Guyren Howe at Jun 29, 2008 2:10:12 AM
Re: Sapir Worf.
Fashionable to discount, but it struck me recently that programming languages may have something to say about this.
To whit: what programming languages you know can significantly affect how you write computer programs. So clearly affect how someone is thinking.
Posted by: Guyren Howe at Jun 29, 2008 2:13:19 AM
In the Philippines we do not have a word (actually a single or at least a concise wording) for "righteous indignation". I think it is because you are never expected to be indignant in any social situation.
Posted by: Giancarlo Angulo at Jun 29, 2008 4:02:33 AM
Robert - "无聊" not "無聊". Vietnamese has a word for fragrant (huong) and a second word that means something that smells good that you want to taste (thom).
Posted by: Aaron at Jun 29, 2008 5:34:16 AM
I did enjoy the smirk of a French banker giving a presentation who said "Excuse my lapse into French but, you know, there is no English term that quite corresponds to 'joie de vivre'. "
Posted by: polly at Jun 29, 2008 6:19:24 AM
Also there is no "privacy" in Italian, so they use the English word. With an Italian wife and
having the in-laws two floors away in the same building, I've leanred that very quickly. And
so did they.
Posted by: glenn at Jun 29, 2008 8:47:29 AM
Aaron-- Robert's characters were fine. He was using the complex form of "wu," which is certainly appropriate as he is in Taiwan.
Posted by: wugong at Jun 29, 2008 11:30:49 AM
With Japanese, perhaps to a greater extent than other languages, you have to be careful to distinguish between loanwords adopted because there was no pre-existing native word, and those adopted simply because foreign words are cool and annoying to older generations.
There are so many examples that a thick dictionary of loanwords is updated every year. One that probably qualifies as a "non-native concept", however, is sekuhara = sexual harassment.
To me, the most entertaining category is the hybrid word, half loanword, half native. An old example is biidama = a marble, constucted from the Portuguese vidro and the native tama. Only older words use biidoro for glass, though; modern ones use garasu, such as garasubin = glass bottle.
Offhand, I can't think of any conceptual hybrids, but I'm sure they exist.
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Jun 29, 2008 2:03:21 PM
Thank you for referring back to your 2004 post. Games theory clearly needs "ilunga" as a name for a strategy.
It is also interesting that two of the ten words of English voted most difficult to translate are loan words from other languages. Plenipotetiary is the Latin plenipotentiarius. Kitsch is from Yiddish and/or German.
I have sometimed thought that the ease with which English has been accepted as the current lingua franca is partly because almost everyone coming new to English finds terms from her or his mother tongue embedded in it. If your difficult to translate Emglish words are a fair sample, could we say that perhaps 20% of English may be reasonably classed as loan words?
Posted by: Diversity at Jun 29, 2008 3:34:32 PM
English could use a word to identify one's children's "parents-in-law." In Yiddish the word is "machatunim," but that's a mouthful for many English speakers.
What words do other languages use for this relationship?
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov at Jun 29, 2008 5:00:51 PM
Please note that "无聊" is from simplified Chinese that is commonly used in mainland China, while "無聊" is from traditional Chinese, which is used in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Posted by: passerby at Jun 29, 2008 5:33:36 PM
"What loanwords does English need?"
Ashia - from West African Pidgin. In English we only have one word for "Sorry". But sometimes we mean "I apologize" and others we mean "I empathize with your situation." Ashia is used for the second kind of sorry.
Posted by: VC at Jun 29, 2008 7:26:08 PM
Wugong and Passerby, and Robert,
I feel totally stupid and apologize. That's what I get for only studying in the PRC. Sorry!
Posted by: Aaron at Jun 29, 2008 9:24:39 PM
I should also mention "si" in French. It's like "oui," but to correct incorrect assumptions.
Ex.:
"You're not going to come with us?"
"Si." (meaning, "Yes, I am coming with y'all.")
After living in France, I find it hard to respond correctly in Chinese or English to this kind of question.
Oh, and Aaron, no worries. If you had written "无聊" before me, I would have had to look it up. I haven't yet started learning simplified characters.
Posted by: Robert at Jun 29, 2008 11:42:18 PM
What English really needs is the Mandarin "ta" which means "he/she/it" as the case requires.
This makes the clumsy politically correct he/she his/her sentences flow smoothly and well.
I try to use it whenever I am speaking to someone who would understand, ta usually get what I mean.
Posted by: doctorpat at Jun 30, 2008 12:00:39 AM
While I can't comment on all the languages involved, the Japanese in particular make me scratch my head. So many are set phrases that encapsulate so much that it would drive English speakers crazy. "Otsukaresama" is not specific. It means "goodbye" in 99% of work-related situations. There is no actual or implied "thank you" in it, it's just what you say when people leave.
It's like saying that Japanese needs a word to say, "How are you?" (which they most certainly don't have). While it would be nice to have as English speakers who use it as a greeting/generally universally when we don't want to think, it isn't actually some deep profound thought we have to communicate.
If anything, a lot of this stinks of, "This cultural bias is better than another cultural bias" rather than actually thinking about aiding genuine conversation.
As I said, I can't comment on all the languages here, but I strongly feel that people who can't express themselves in English are not unable to do so because they're lacking a word, but because they're lacking communicative competence.
Posted by: Sal Paradise at Jun 30, 2008 1:09:57 AM
Russian apparently lacks lots of basic concepts that are familiar to English speakers. Thus there is no easy way to say "enjoy" or "fun".
Perhaps for people who just started study Russian it is not easy.
"Веселье" overlaps with "fun" about 90%.
"Enjoy" is a bit more difficult but only because "Удовольствие" is not a verb. "Имей удовольствие" is a perfectly identical to "enjoy".
Posted by: mik at Jun 30, 2008 2:32:28 AM
I like the word "Wanderwort" more than "Loanword". One never returns a word that has been loaned. Words wander from language to language.
The English is a collection of loan words or Wanderworts. Relatively few words actually come from Old English.
The Spanish diminutive is useful not just for nouns. It can be used for adjectives. For instance "Ella estaba allí sentadita", means She was there sitting down, but in a cute way (hat tip to Borges). Other example, "caliente" is hot, but "calentito or calientito" is warm in comfortable way.
Keen readers should take a look at the correspondent diary in The Economist from some months ago. The topic was languages and the correspondent showed her/his erudition by describing the nuances of Spanish across Latin America, plus Hebrew, Russian, etc.
Posted by: londenio at Jun 30, 2008 4:46:50 AM
With Japanese, perhaps to a greater extent than other languages, you have to be careful to distinguish between loanwords adopted because there was no pre-existing native word, and those adopted simply because foreign words are cool and annoying to older generations.
Yes . . . but note that an awful lot of Japanese is just borrowings from Chinese. The same is true of Korean. "Milk" was noted above -- but that's 牛乳. Gyuunyuu in Japanese, and ooyoo in Korean, both borrowed from Chinese (though changing with the sound system of the language, much as Milk becomes miruku.) But it's surely not the case that the Koreans or Japanese had no native word for "milk" before they borrowed the term from the Chinese, however many centuries ago. Somewhat unusually -- and, as I understand it, problematically for the usual vocabulary-based historical linguistic analysis -- Chinese borrowings affect both Korean and Japanese down to the level of the most basic vocabulary. For example, both Japanese and Korean have a "native" number system (hana, dool, set, net etc. for Korean, and hi, fu, mi, yo etc. for Japanese), but in my experience, you'll usually hear people counting out with il, ee, sam, sa or ichi, ni, san, shi, both borrowed from Chinese.
Posted by: Taeyoung at Jun 30, 2008 10:34:04 AM
I like the word "Wanderwort" more than "Loanword". One never returns a word that has been loaned.
Sure you do. Orchestra => Kara-oke (kara/empty - ookesutora/orchestra) => Karaoke/"kariokey" Not to say you always give it back in the same condition you got it, mind.
Posted by: Taeyoung at Jun 30, 2008 10:38:12 AM
Weekend.
It would be called "koniec tygodnia" in Polish, but that would be 5 syllables, as opposed to 2. So the shorter (cheaper?!) version won and is used by everyone.
Posted by: Marcin Gomulka at Jun 30, 2008 11:40:11 AM
Taeyoung, one of the interesting aspects of the old Chinese loanwords is that they are considered more formal and/or objective than the equivalent native word, because the borrowing was done by the literate class, while the common folk continued to use the native word. These days, replacing a native word seems to be done to sound modern/western.
The Chinese borrowing is also one of the reasons foreign students scream in pain when they try to learn kanji: many of the characters were borrowed more than once, several centuries apart, after the Chinese pronunciation and meaning had shifted.
On a related note, I grew up hearing the word "skosh" with the belief that it was Yiddish, since it always seemed to be a Jewish-grandmother sort of word (it always sounded perfectly natural coming from Estelle Getty, for instance). When I started studying Japanese, I was surprised to learn its true origin.
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Jun 30, 2008 11:44:00 AM
"English could use a word to identify one's children's "parents-in-law." In Yiddish the word is "machatunim," but that's a mouthful for many English speakers.
What words do other languages use for this relationship?"
For the life of me I don't know why, but in French it's "beau-pere" and "belle-mere," meaning (more or less) "handsome father" and "pretty mother." Perhaps this has something to do with flattering them into letting you marry their daughter.
The French also stole the term "weekend" wholesale, probably not because they had no concept of it, but because it's shorter than "fin de la semaine." This is pure speculation, though.
At some level aren't pretty much all languages a hodge-podge of wanderworts? I realize this may be more true for English than for some others, but it still seems to be fundamentally sound.
Posted by: d.cous. at Jun 30, 2008 12:30:01 PM
I should also mention "si" in French. It's like "oui," but to correct incorrect assumptions.
I thought "si" was a "yes" answer to a negative question.
"Have you not read the book?"
"Si." Meaning, "Yes, I have read the book." English is ambiguous here.
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov at Jun 30, 2008 1:11:20 PM
Mian Zi="face" I liked how English literally translated it but kept the Asian meaning. Guanxi is a good Chinese word to loan to English (not too hard to pronounce either). Culturally, it's really important to understand both words when dealing with Chinese business and politics.
I second the "English needs a word for spicy hot (heat) versus temperature hot (also heat...)", there is a distinct word for each in Chinese. Apparently the English speaking countries don't have a long enough history with spicy foods to have developed that.
Posted by: v at Jun 30, 2008 5:00:54 PM
Mian Zi="face" I liked how English literally translated it but kept the Asian meaning. Guanxi is a good Chinese word to loan to English (not too hard to pronounce either). Culturally, it's really important to understand both words when dealing with Chinese business and politics.
I second the "English needs a word for spicy hot (heat) versus temperature hot (also heat...)", there is a distinct word for each in Chinese. Apparently the English speaking countries don't have a long enough history with spicy foods to have developed that.
Posted by: v at Jun 30, 2008 5:00:59 PM
I totally agree that we need the word "picante" in English. Spicy for not suitable because a food can be spicy and not hot.
Posted by: Ryan at Jun 30, 2008 5:04:32 PM
Bernard Yomtov, "si" is indeed the answer to a negative question, but the question itself is normally an assumption. For instance, when someone asks, "Have you not read this book?" It actually means, "Something you said leads me to believe you haven't read this book, is this true?"
But, yes, it actually is a response to negative questions....
Posted by: Robert at Jun 30, 2008 7:01:22 PM
But sometimes we mean "I apologize" and others we mean "I empathize with your situation." Ashia is used for the second kind of sorry.
The ambiguity is useful.
Posted by: Adam Greenwood at Jul 1, 2008 10:53:27 AM
Spanish "caducated", meaning "past its sell-by-date". Actually I don't know if it's real Spanish, I came across it in a cartoon, a picture of a leading politician with the mock-english caption. "He needs a brain transposal because this one is caducated."
Posted by: steve-reberts at Jul 1, 2008 7:32:12 PM
there are examples of loaned words returned.
In french they say "flirter" for flirt. Borrowed from English but the English had first of all borrowed "conter fleurette" from the French which meant to seduce. Fleurette became flirt which in term became flirter.
In French I found no good, simple way to say "fun" or "awe".
In English, I agree that we need the he/she/it pronoun
Posted by: margo at Jul 2, 2008 6:35:09 AM
In Quebec French at least, the adjective "fun" can be expressed by le fun (usually pronounced almost as one syllable: l'fonne). Despite all appearances, this is not a noun but a two-word adjective, which can be used pretty much in any adjective context:
très le fun -- very fun
pas mal le fun -- quite fun
une job le fun -- a fun job
ce serait le fun -- it would be fun
In some cases it can be used as a noun too:
juste pour le fun -- just for fun
Quebec French also has another round-trip word of sorts: frencher means to French kiss.
Posted by: at Jul 2, 2008 2:22:40 PM
