Across the Fence: Loanword

What a fun word today, taken from the German language and adapted/translated into English – because “loanword” is the equivalent of the German “Lehnwort” (pronounce: ‘lane-vort). Which linguistically makes it a calque, NOT a loanword! Because a calque is the literal translation of a word from another language. Hah, I know this will be a fun bewildering AND eye-opening article for all of you who have a secret love for cleaning up chaos.

So, loanwords are not translated. Kindergarten is a typical loanword, for example. If it were a calque it would be children’s garden – you follow me? The English language has a lot of loanwords from other languages, too. Take words like ballet and café from the French language, pasta and paparazzi from the Italian language, smorgasbord from Swedish, and so on and so forth. Some of the words are from the times back in the Old World, some have entered the English language when the American continent was settled with immigrants from all kinds of nations.

Sometimes, the pronunciation of such loanwords is adapted to the English language, in many cases it is not. Remember the articles that I have written about Germanisms so far? All of them were loanwords, even pronounced very similarly to the German origin, if not necessarily always used the way Germans would. Sometimes you wouldn’t even know you are using a calque, such as world view for the German original Weltanschauung (pronounce: ‘velt-un-shou-oong).

So, a loanword is a distinctly foreign term in a language either substituting for a term that is already existing or introducing an aspect that so far hasn’t been covered by the language at all. Noodle is a loanword from German Nudel that was adapted to the English language in the 18th century; pasta is a more obvious loanword from the Italian language. In this case, one loanword is an alternative for another loanword! Heavens, what a chaos, right?

But the English language also loans syllables. In a place name as, for example, Jacksonville, the “-ville” part is loaned from French, meaning “town”. The syllable “-ize” is loaned from Latin (and usually attached to words that are also taken from the Greek or Latin language) and turns a word into a verb.

In other words, wherever two languages meet, there will be a zone of give and take. It’s the same mechanism that creates Pidgin and Creole languages. It seems, though, that the latter two are created where one language has been forced on another by way of colonization.

Languages are as alive as the people who are speaking them. They get mixed. They borrow terms that might be more precise for aspects in life. Or for a field that has been cultivated especially by one foreign language. Sometimes it’s also a matter of fashion – the German language uses a lot of Americanisms not because it lacks German terms, but because they sound so much “cooler”. Language has, therefore, always also been a sign of sophistication and worldliness. Which causes hilarious memes in the social media sometimes. The other day, I had a good laugh when there was one of a baseball pitcher who was said to be “amphibious” while shown to pitch right-handed and left-handed. “Ambidextrous” would have been the correct term.

So, loanwords can be traps. Calques aren’t because you might not even be aware that they are borrowed from another language and translated into your own. Like the word loanword. And no, I won’t start over again …