Talk:Loanword

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 August 2019 and 11 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Siot0819.

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The article is a mess. The section on the classification could be better organised. The section about English should end up at the end of the article. But primarily, the "other languages" section is a mixture of everything, from Jèrriais applying historical processes to recent borrowings to the recent displeasure of the Italian government. Rather than such trivia, the article could use some more core content on e.g. the phonetic adaptation of borrowings or the circumstances in which words are being borrowed. --93.105.205.33 (talk) 16:27, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I edited the part of the source for the English loan of loanword. In the source itself it's only spoken about German as source for it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.100.62.29 (talk) 09:45, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Is it meaningful to talk of terms being "borrowed" from one language? I know this is the term used, but "borrowing" has the sense of depriving with the intention of returning at a later date, and this is not what happens with loanwords. Then again, the same problem arises with the word "loanword", so perhaps "borrowing" is OK after all. — 194.74.1.82 (talk) 17:09, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Borrowing" is the word used in the literature. --Pfold (talk) 18:08, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is a little crazy when you think about it. "Loanword" is a very strange term to apply in situations in which words or expressions from other languages are incorporated into common language use. But I disagree with the above commenter who says "borrow has a sense of depriving with intention to return...." it's obvious this is not about a "physical object" being handed off, but about a word - a spoken sound. Words / spoken sounds can be used freely. This sounds like a cutesy expression from a some college English teacher who was not thinking deeply about what he / she was saying ... by-the-way, do they still teach English in college these days? Loan infers the original host language acted purposefully to allow the borrower language to use the expression. That sounds like "expropriated." Language do not act purposefully. It is even weird if you think about it. By that measure borrowed is also inappropriate. Words/expressions are also not purposefully borrowed from another language. They are both action verbs but there is no actor doing the acting. Of the two, borrow is more appropriate for obvious reasons since the "borrower" did this thing ... the "loaner" had zero say, zero to do with this matter. Maybe "adopted from" is better yet.Danleywolfe (talk) 16:29, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I repeat: "Borrowing" and "Loanword" are the terms used in the literature. This a well established field of linguistic scholarship - arguing with the terminology and suggesting "corrections" is utterly pointless. --Pfold (talk) 17:51, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And linguists are aware that the metaphor is flawed. —Tamfang (talk) 02:09, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In the Classes section the following appears:

"One of the most dramatic examples of a loan word that carries with it a new concept is the introduction of the idea of the seventh day as a holy day of rest presented to the pagan world through Hebrew. The Hebrew word שַׁבָּת has been transliterated into practically every language in the world: in Arabic it is transliterated as السبت; Greek Σάββατο; Latin sabbato; Spanish sábado; and in English Sabbath."

The suggestion that Arabic "borrowed" the word "sabbath" from Hebrew can be most charitably described as inaccurate. Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic (among others) descend from the same language, and the word for Saturday is derived from the Arabic numeral seven in exactly the same way that all other days of the week are derived from the numbers 1-6. Suggesting that the word is borrowed from Hebrew is rather like suggesting that French borrowed the word "Lundi" from Spanish. I'm removing the reference to Arabic, but would also recommend rewriting this section. 76.167.253.199 (talk) 19:45, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

lundi was obviously borrowed from Italian, not Spanish. —Tamfang (talk) 02:11, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Saw banner, had a go, but will need several editors to give this article a churn.

• reorganised the leading section trying to turn it into a 101 for general users
• didn't touch the linguistic classification section (this is way too technical for anyone with no academic knowledge - but then happy to leave this untouched)
• transmission - minor changes, but mostly subsectioning
• reborrowing - deleted the beefsteak example per previous editors critique and due to the cinema one being self-evident.

In ictu oculi (talk) 05:03, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The intro appears rather long, however, a definition can often be clarified by giving the opposite, here "native or inherited word", where I would suggest "native", because also loans can be inherited. HJJHolm (talk) 10:20, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I added a citation request on the origin of the English suffix -er due to the possible (and likelier) source alternative in Proto-Germanic -ārijaz. 217.16.133.200 (talk) 11:01, 24 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In the introduction, it lists the word borrowed from french "café" as an example of a loan word. Yet, in the linguistic definition diagram it lists "café" as a "foreign word," not a "loadword." This seems like a contradiction? If I'm understanding correctly, since café keeps the original spelling, it is in fact not a loanword? It's all rather confusing, honestly. I think this article could do much better to clarify things. Fritzendugan (talk) 02:11, 14 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In keeping all the discussion centralized, I've included discussion from my talk page on this topic from another user:

Hello, Fritzendugan. In your Talk note about Loanword, you make a good point about the ambiguity of "café" between the categories of "loanword" and "foreign word". The system of categories seems to entail more precision than is warranted by the data. What would you think of inserting the following wording immediately below the diagram?

The diagram’s distinction between a “loan word” and a “foreign word”--based as it is on the presence or absence of orthographic adaptation--can be problematic in a language whose spelling system is heterogeneous, such as English. By one standard, the frequent omission of the accent from “café”, for example, might constitute an adaptation and qualify the word as a loanword. By another standard, the fact that the spelling has not been altered to “caffay” might mark the word as an unadapted “foreign word”. Kotabatubara (talk) 14:10, 14 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to add that I think the above suggestion helps to clarify the confusion, and would probably be sufficient. Fritzendugan (talk) 06:59, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This branching image seems a little awkward to read, illegible at smaller screen sizes and entirely useless to screen readers. Should it be a table or something instead, perhaps with fewer examples? --Gnomus (talk) 18:23, 23 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Unfortunately, I wouldn't know what to do to really help tackle the accessibility issues of the image (although I've seen Wikipedia tables with pretty interesting cell sizes, so it probably is possible to move to a table), but I would agree that less examples are needed (I would even go as far as to say one example per item is enough). As well, I think something needs to be done with the font and style. Change the font, change the line spacing, something, because what it is now is not the best (although I am no expert). JaykeBird (talk) 13:13, 26 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Did someone have a field day posting {{Citation needed}} tags all over the article?

I definitely agree that citations are important to have, especially for information that is not generally known, but some of the information that is here, I may consider common knowledge of the subject. Some of the stuff tagged are things that you would get by simply looking at the two words. From Origins, "[Latin words] missa and communio have entered English as mass and communion". Anyone looking at the English and Latin words would obviously assume that one led to another; the only concern would be a false etymology, and if that is the case, it should be removed, not cited.

At the very least, though, this is an example of overtagging. All but one paragraph in Origins has a "Citation needed" tag on it. Nearly every single paragraph in Transmission Patterns has this tag. This is simply too much.

I would suggest we review the article and think more about what does and does not really need a citation, and remove unnecessary "Citation needed" tags from the article. If there's still a multitude of them, I would suggest we instead post {{refimprove}} at the top of the article, and write a post in the talk page stating what sections and sentences need citations. JaykeBird (talk) 13:56, 26 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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I moved some text from the article Transliteration to its Talk page, because I felt it does not belong to transliteration but perhaps to the topic of loanwords. I do not want to insert it into this article because I feel it needs quite some editing before it can be added. I think the author of the removed section wanted to express some thoughts on how loanwords are modified in the goal language. For example, the English "bishop" does not include the nominative suffix "-os" from the Greek original "episkopos". My guess at the reason is that the nominative marker was, in a sense, translated (to an empty morpheme in English) while the main part of the word "episkop-" was borrowed. Is this an example of a loanblend? Is it something to add to this page? -- David N. Jansen (talk) 12:55, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Moved from User talk:Mathglot § loanword

Hello Kent Dominic, I've moved your comment about the lead of this article here, so other interested editors may participate if they wish to; they are unlikely to find it on my Talk page.

Your remarks are apparently in response to this revert of your edit to the lead sentence. You graciously accepted it, but I wanted to explain my original rationale, and point out an additional problem. In the edit summary, you said it provided phrasal suppletion for readability and semantic clarity. I wouldn't say it made it much worse, but every edit should improve the article in some way, no matter how small. There's an argument that your edit made it slightly worse for our foreign readers, because the original version of the sentence is simpler, and closer in form at least to Romance languages like Spanish,^[a] French,^[b] Italian,^[c], or Portuguese^[d] for example. Slavic languages also follow this pattern. Given that that does double-duty in English as both a relative and a demonstrative, including it where it is not needed might lead a foreign reader down the garden path assuming a demonstrative that wasn't there and requiring back-pedaling to reparse and understand the sentence, especially where the original sentence is complicated by various appositives or parentheticals, as you rightly pointed out. This was a major factor in my original revert; I apologize for the brevity of my "better before", as I usually err on the side of being too wordy (of which this post may be a good example!) rather than too brief. Like you, I also am not too crazy about overly telegraphic responses that don't indicate what the objection is. Part of my excuse, if you want to call it that, is that you never know who's actually going to read or consider a longer, more well thought out response, or whether you're just wasting your time, and a couple of words suffice. I can see that you are someone who is definitely reading and considering the meaning of the summary, and I'll try to do better next time as far as being more informative in the summary.

That said, I don't think the word as added to the lead sentence in the follow-up edit helps at all—what is it even doing there?—and may be worse. However, I don't wish to revert again, and I'll let someone else get involved with it, should they care to.

Finally, I'm in full agreeement with you about the seven interpolated words; that's almost a pet peeve of mine, and if I ever get around to writing a bot, it will be one that counts the number of useless words between the subject of the lead sentence and its verb, and tags it for copyediting when it exceeds some threshold. I keep mental notes when I see them, and I well remember one that had 37 words between the bolded topic noun phrase, and the verb is. In cases like that, I just imagine people falling asleep on their keyboard, waiting for the verb to arrive; this is something that the Germans have a patent on, and English speakers shouldn't have to put up with it. Now you'll have to excuse me, as my fetish for reduced relatives (tiny cousins struck by my magic shrinking ray gun?) demands my attention... Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 03:16, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Mathglot: I put "as" there for two reasons: First, in my understanding of Latin-based and Asiatic languages, a conjunction is required in the relevant context, and its omission in English can be disconcerting or perplexing. Second, the meaning I intended with "as" is "in the manner that (a word is)" or "like (a word is)." More than just serving a syntactic function, I intended it to cover those gray-area cases between loanword/calque/pidgin word, especially when some element of the word gets changed in the borrowing, whether it's pronunciation, spelling, compounding, or whatever. (Think naive versus naïve, or et cetera versus et cētera.) Don't get me wrong: I really do admire the definition the way I found it, feel a bit chagrined by my first edit (re. the tense issue, not the conjunction itself), and I stand by the inclusion of "as" as an improvement, but wouldn't feel humiliated if something better came along. One quibble: It seems we disagree about how foreign readers respond to "that" when they encounter it. In my experience, they're more confounded by it's omission than by its sometimes ambiguous inclusion. And one callout on where you're decidedly equivocal: "that" does not do double-duty in English; it performs quintuple-duty as (1) a relative pronoun, (2) demonstrative pronoun, (3) conjunction-A (i.e. so-called relativizer), (4) conjunction-B (i.e. so-called complementizer), and (5) adverb (e.g. "Do you think this is all that important?"). Nonetheless, I think that that that that that first edit meant is not as troublesome as that that that that comment you made above makes it out to be. Got that? Cheers.--Kent Dominic·(talk) 05:07, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Mathglot: P.S. I have no use for the traditionalist terms, relative clause (whether restrictive or non-restrictive), defining clause, and adjectival clause together with their misbegotten relative pronouns, etc. And my skin curls at the terms, "relativizer" and "complementizer" despite how I endorse the thrust of the former as well as the latter's view that the traditional relative pronoun is no pronoun at all, but rather a conjunction. In my lexicon, there are appositive conjunctions (e.g. "The bread that I bought...), parenthetical pronouns (e.g., "The bread, which I bought yesterday, ...") and nominal conjunctions (e.g. "She said that she baked the bread"). Furthermore, there are appositive phrases (e.g. "The bread that sold well is out of stock") distinguished from appositive clauses (e.g. "The bread that we ate is out of stock") but only parenthetical clauses (e.g. "The bread, which sold well, is out of stock;" "Milwaukee, where I was born, is in Wisconsin.") This paradigm addresses my pet peeve of linguists who argue essential versus nonessential or defining versus non-defining stuff in a sentence. My question: If that's the smell test, why include non-essential stuff in the first place? Or, why not define stuff more appropriately in the first place? Plus, "relative" has no linguistic relevance to its syntactic function, unlike "appositive" and "parenthetical." I'm publishing later this year. We'll see how far things fly. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 05:07, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I look forward to it. And I'll see your four that 's, and raise you eight buffalo's. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 05:16, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Cool. But I had 5 that's + 4 that's = 9. Ha! --Kent Dominic·(talk) 10:02, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I am trying to get a clue when it comes to WP. With editing and WP policy, it's becoming clearer there are as many styles and interpretations as there are editors. I understand the general, but there are sometimes remarks made shortly after an edit that leave me unsure.

On this page for example, I made edits to what was, in my view, some very under-developed concepts, some using expression I would contend was not encyclopedic in tone. The issues I tried to edit out had been present in the article for a considerable time. Another editor made changes to my edit very soon after. Their edit summary made some fair-enough points, but those points would equally apply to the base material I changed - again, I mention, of longstanding presence. So, I become a bit unsure: Do they realise this? Was it me moving it around that brought it to their attention? Do they think it's actually worse now? Hard to say, but for the removal of (my) doubt, I explain, in tiresome detail, the edits. AukusRuckus (talk) 09:07, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry Kent Dominic for the "wall-o'-text". My edits, though, were merely variations and re-positioning of text in existence long before my changes. I realise your ES may well be just generalised, not-specifically directed, comments, but as they came so quickly after my change, thought I would address your comments directly anyway. This here is truly a wall of text! For which, in advance, my apologies.

Firstly, this statement, in the body of the article since at least 2015:

of 30 words, I re-wrote to the more encyclopedic voice (imv) using 14 additional words:

As explication of the term, I thought it a better fit in the lead than where it was. However, "lead follows body", so perhaps it is out of place there too. It clearly does not fit into the section from which it came, "Examples and related terms". It's the term, not a related one. Whatever the case, again, not a very recent addition.

Included in the removed wall of text was:

and this sentence:

Again, these are of fairly longstanding. (How long they've been in the lead, I'm not sure, but I think since well before your most recent edits to the article). As it is, I think the lead may now verge on too short to be "a concise overview" of article. However, YMMV! AukusRuckus (talk) 09:07, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I pity the reader who, after reading the lead, mistakes "loanword" for a word borrowed from a given language only to be returned or restored subsequently. That's what editor before you ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/72.231.184.83) was rightfully concerned about. A way to avert such a notion: "permanently adopted." Even a slight expansion a la "permanently adopted without intending to return or restore..." seems superfluous. I have no substantive qualms with the verbiage predating this latest round of edits, but that mouthful of explication is aimed at the least common denominator. (Really, how would you react to an article on, say, clownfish, if it specified that it had nothing to do with a clown? Hint: There's an infinite number of things that something is not.) --Kent Dominic·(talk) 13:45, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree it is unneeded. It seems it was of importance to previous editors, as for example, #"Borrowed from one language" here. My approach to editing is a cautious one: Go with what's there, especially if it's been around for a while, lest you offend someone, and attempt to improve that. I start from the assumption that the existence of a statement over the medium- to long-term meets with the consensus of users, before my arrival on the scene. "Expansion" was just an attempt to be more precise. I do not give a bollocks about this trivial text, I just did not want the wall of text ES directed at someone who did not create it. The argument for its exclusion is preaching to the choir. It seems I did not convey the point I intended to, for which my apologies for wasting your time. All the best, AukusRuckus (talk) 01:45, 7 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Forget the stricken part. I mistook what was removed from the lead when looking at the diff. Still not sure what "attempting to distinguish 'loanwords' from 'loaned words'" means, though. Not anything I was trying to do ... AukusRuckus (talk) 10:59, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Loaned word" is the interpretation implicit in what the previous editor ridiculed. I agree that the deleted material was superfluous and unencyclopedic. If there's anyone who thinks we borrowed "soufflé" from the French on loan for a few centuries only to return the word after we've finished with it, please restore that earlier verbiage. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 13:45, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Kent Dominic, that actually gave me a good laugh! 01:45, 7 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

An editor, in 2017, included something about routes of transmission of loanwords, contrasting "popular" loanwords with "learned" ones:

To me, this was ill-defined (what's "popular", what's "learned"?), but it was cited, so I thought it best to only alter its tone, substituting, "spread orally" with "by word-of-mouth" (among other changes). As with the original material, I presumed that the source given by earlier editor covered both statements. That was tagged^{[citation needed]}, with the ES saying "the 'w-o-m' verbiage smacks of WP:OR". If it were up to me only, I would remove this part entirely, until a fully developed section -or at least paragraph- on the incorporation of borrowings into languages could be written.

My question is: Is it the phrase I used that suggests OR? If not, why was it not tagged before, in its former state? I would be fine with changing it back to "spread orally", if that would help, as that was not the crux of my changes. In any case, I added another cite and another instance of the existing cite (although I do not have access to that source.) AukusRuckus (talk) 09:07, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That 2017 edit might be factually true, but it wasn't attested by cite. It also seems reasonable that popular loanwords are spread word of mouth. But, according to whom? If according only to what you and I (and perhaps the 2017 editor) believe to be true, then it's WP:OR. My tag urged posting a cite that backs up what might well be common sense but nonetheless had no objective data or published assertion to back it up. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 13:58, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That is what I am saying (and said above), though: I believe (possibly incorrectly) it was attested to in the cite already given. If you know that it was not, then surely^{[failed verification]} tag would have been better? My comments are nothing to do with including "commonsense" assertions without sources. I never want to do that. Where in all my excessive verbiage have I given that impression? Perhaps, in trying to be specific, I have made a TL:DR, so my points are not understood for that reason?

"Popular loanwords are spread orally. Learned loanwords are first used in written language, often for scholarly, scientific, or literary purposes."^[1] [previous version]

Why is this statement, "Popular loanwords are spread orally." considered unattested? (is what I was trying to get at.) I took it as a part-and-parcel of a unified premise, cited at the end of par, as normal. You don't address that. And that was my query, not some need to keep it included because it's common sense!

Also, was surprised a little by just what you're saying here: It's been there a long time, but my edit - seemingly - brought it to an editor's attention. I.e. If it "smacks of WP:OR", why didn't it "smack of OR" before? I realise you may never have seen or noticed that before; none of us are required to notice, and we can add tags or alter when we do, if we want. That does not seem to be what you are saying, though. It just leaves me confused. .. Just getting my head around the in-and-outs, trying to adjust my style to the WP-style, and fellow-editors. I will stop my blather now. AukusRuckus (talk) 01:45, 7 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The stuff in question wasn't properly attested before the latest round of edits. I vaguely recall seeing the verbiage and thinking it needed to be deleted if not properly cited, but I had no particular interest in following up. My editing interests typically extend no further than the lead ¶ of an article, so the material under discussion was pretty much off my radar. I tend to withhold most of my gripes unless an article's lead is implicated. Seeing your edit as it popped up on my watchlist, however, motivated my further involvement. Indeed there are tons of other issues in this article that aren't worth my bother. Offhand, "very few Indonesians have a fluent knowledge of Dutch" is unattested and not really relevant to this article. Also, the entire second ¶ in the Linguistic classification is rife with unattested WP:OR and argumentation. I've got no ax to grind; I'm just calling it out as major departures from Wikipedia's standards. Someone more passionate about this topic is bound to straighten it out sooner or later. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 02:51, 7 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know the correct dates so I can't fix it, but when I read 'The studies by Werner Betz (1971, 1901)' I thought it seemed improbable that he wrote studies 70 years apart. So I clicked on the link to see that he would have written the first study 11 years before he was born. Assuming his birthdate is correct, the 1901 study date is impossible. I hope someone can correct this. Werner August Josef Betz (1 September 1912 – 13 July 1980) 2601:58A:8E7F:6F60:6876:7251:E529:EDA1 (talk) 03:03, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Examples of loanwords in the English language include café (from French café, which means "coffee")"

Not true... Le café also means the place, not only the drink. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/french-english/caf%C3%A9

See it says "établissement" But it's arguing that the establishment doesn't exist in French in the sentence. Can this be better fixed with a reference? — Preceding unsigned comment added by KimYunmi (talk • contribs) 18:45, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]