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This paper examines the development of the periphrastic passive voice construction in Swedish between 1300 and 1750, from the point of view of constructional change. The development involves the rise of a new auxiliary, bliva 'remain', originally a lexical loan from Middle Low German, which after a period of variation replaces the older auxiliary varda 'become'. The findings reveal that the origins of the periphrastic passive construction may be found in mutative constructions with varda and adjectival complements, and the same development is then found with the loanword bliva, delayed by some hundred years. The results of quantitative analysis place the turning point in the development between 1450 and 1550. The paper relates the variation and change in passive auxiliaries to Diachronic Construction Grammar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Superstratum languages often become substratum languages after military defeats. This was the case with Middle Persian in the Islamic Empire. There were different phases of interference between Middle Persian and Arabic. For example, Middle Persian terms, especially in administration and technology, were borrowed into Arabic. Later, in the first decades of Abbasid rule, a new scientific terminology was developed in Arabic based on translations of Sanskrit and Middle Persian texts in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, and medicine. Besides that, some scientific concepts of Chinese origin were received too. Most of these early Arabic scientific texts are lost, having been replaced later in the 3rd/9th century by translations of Greek scientific works. However, many fragments of them are preserved in secondary tradition, and such materials have been only partially studied. This paper will discuss cases of Arabic borrowings, including calques and loanwords from Sanskrit and Middle Persian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on loanword semantics seldom investigates systematic patterns of change because semantic change is not nearly as constrained and predictable as phonological change. Hong Kong is a bilingual city of English and Chinese/Cantonese, where people frequently use English loanwords in Hong Kong Cantonese (ELCs). Drawing upon the notion of cognates, this questionnaire-based study examines the extent to which Hong Kong Cantonese speakers are aware of the contrasts in meaning between ELCs and the English words from which they have been borrowed. Three ELCs that are false friend cognates with their English source words were selected to be included in the study. Respondents who completed the questionnaire included a group of native English speakers (N = 19) and a group of native Cantonese speakers (N = 107). Their responses were compared and contrasted through both qualitative and quantitative methods. The results show that the ELCs affect the Cantonese speakers' understanding of the English source words. The English proficiency of native Cantonese speakers has been identified as a contributing factor that correlates with the accuracy of understanding word meanings. This study delineates the relationship between false friend cognates, ELCs and English vocabulary acquisition. It offers pedagogical implications for vocabulary learning and teaching in bilingual contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While classical accounts of Bantu linguistics often depict noun classes as an inherent feature of nouns, more recent studies show there is greater variation in the use of noun classes, especially in terms of their discursive and pragmatic context. Youth language practices, often characterized by creativity and conscious changes, are of particular interest in this regard. This paper explores whether Bantu youth language practices exhibit conscious variation in their noun class systems and agreement. I discuss data from Bantu-based youth language practices in Southern and Eastern Africa, especially Lugha ya mtaani (Tanzania) and S'ncamtho (Zimbabwe), looking at noun classes and agreement. The paper features a short discussion of variation in noun class usage in Bantu languages in general, including insights into relevant aspects such as information structure, the use of loan words, noun classes in multilingual or translanguaging situations, and semantics. The latter is particularly important, as speakers can make conscious use of noun classes as part of contextualized meaning making processes that reflect semantic nuances and stylistic choices. The objective of this contribution is to highlight the role of semantics and conscious meaning making in the choice of grammatical devices and the manifestations of microvariation in youth language practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arabic diglossia, whereby Standard Arabic (SA) exists alongside numerous vernaculars, often leads to diglossic style-shifting, based on context or topic changes and marked in the vernacular by shifting to standard linguistic features. While this phenomenon has been widely studied in the speech of educated adults, research on diglossic style-shifting by children and adolescents has been rather limited. This paper investigates how it operates amongst 3–17-year-olds from a Bedouin speech community of Palestinian refugees in Syria. It examines context effects on realizations of the variables (θ) and (ð), which overlap with local realizations and (q), which has a standard realization ([q]) that is independent of dialectal variation in the community. Participants were recorded during sociolinguistic interviews and a picture-naming task, the latter being expected to evoke a school setting and prompt the use of more standard realizations, signaling diglossic style-shifting in their speech. Style-shifting was influenced by age, context, and the linguistic variables under examination. While picture-naming prompted greater use of standard realizations of all variables, shifting to [q] also appeared during the interview in lexical borrowings from SA, revealing topic effects on diglossic style-shifting. Children aged 6–14 exhibited more style-shifting in picture-naming, likely reflecting the central role of school in their lives, while the speech of 15–17-year-olds contained more lexical borrowing with [q]. This likely reflects their larger linguistic repertoires and longer exposure to SA than their younger peers. These findings indicate that SA plays a key role in participants' linguistic practices and reflect their awareness of how to employ it appropriately in their speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Northeastern (NE) Thai dialect dictionary compiled by the National Cultural Council is one of the best NE dialect dictionaries. Pali and Sanskrit (PL-SKT) loanwords used in the spoken and written language and in NE literature were collected from the dictionary. Some words were very different from the original Pali and Sanskrit words because of sound changes in vowels and consonants. The objectives of this study were to explore the sound changes in vowels and consonants of PL-SKT loanwords in the Northeastern (NE) dialect dictionary compiled by the National Cultural Council. The conceptual framework of this study consists of usage of PL-SKT words through sound change theories. A qualitative method was employed and the data collection was done from the Northeastern (NE) dialect dictionary compiled by the National Cultural Council. It was found that there were 3,022 PL-SKT loanwords. Two kinds of sound change in vowels and consonants were found: intentional sound change and unintentional sound change. Seven types of vowel sound change and fourteen types of consonant sound change were found. Surprisingly sound changes in vowels and consonants with analogy in PL-SKT declension were found. The types of sound change in PL-SKT words seem to have occurred because they were more convenient to pronounce and beautiful in the spoken and written language including NE dialect literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the Ossetic word for 'boar' against the backgrounds of modern Ossetic porcine terminology. The Common Iranian name of the beast has survived in Ossetic anthroponymy only. Due to taboos many descriptive names for 'boar' are in use, such as 'forest pig', etc. The standard term (Digorian) tusk'a 'boar' was discussed by V. Abaev on a number of occasions, and the doyen of Ossetic studies considered it among Ossetic-European isoglosses in view of Eng. tusk , etc. The paper adds Iron evidence never mentioned before in its discussion and reassesses several questions regarding its alleged borrowing from Gothic. It is shown that the currently accepted approach to the pre-history of the Ossetic word as a linguistic loan at least requires adjustments, and that the term may well be of indigenous origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and objectives: This study examines fennicisms (i.e., Finnish loanwords and calques) in Finland-Swedish, a Swedish variety spoken in Finland. We investigate how fennicism frequency relates to speakers' regional backgrounds and fluency in Finnish. Methodology: 134 participants from four regions in Finland performed a picture-naming task designed to elicit fennicisms. The participants also rated their own fluency in Finnish. Data and analysis: A regression analysis with the outcome variable of fennicism frequency and the predictors of region, fluency in Finnish, and gender was performed. Findings: Results show that speakers from the more bilingual regions of Southern Finland and Helsinki used significantly more fennicisms than speakers from Ostrobothnia or Swedish-speaking Åland. The study suggests that fluency in Finnish was a strong predictor for fennicism use, as speakers with low or moderate knowledge of Finnish used fewer fennicisms than speakers with high or native(-like) fluency. No significant effect of gender was found. Originality: While fennicisms are considered widespread in Finland-Swedish, there is little previous research on their use and distribution. Implications: The results demonstrate that while many of the fennicisms are well-established in the Finland-Swedish variety, their use is limited to certain groups and communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ausbau processes increase differences between two close written language varieties. Finnish and Kven are considered two ausbau languages today, in contrast to an earlier view which considered Kven to be a dialect of Finnish. In this article, ausbau processes are illustrated by comparing the use of eera verbs, a group constituting international and Scandinavian loanwords in the two languages. Most eera verbs were purged from Modern Written Finnish and they are expressed via other means today. By contrast, Kven accepts eera verbs in the same way as Old Written Finnish. Purism – perceived as avoidance of certain linguistic elements – is the explanation behind ausbau processes in this case, and purist attitudes reflect the identities of language planners. Eera verbs represent a small corner of language, yet their use differentiates Kven from Modern Written Finnish, and underscores the independence of Kven as a separate language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emlen (2017) advances our understanding of Proto-Quechuan, Proto-Aymaran, and their initial linguistic contact. We take as our point of departure phonological patterns of Proto-Aymaran and pre-Proto-Aymaran, some already observed by Emlen and some unmentioned but present with high statistical significance in his data, pertaining to affricate consonants. These patterns indicate that the first lexical borrowings into Aymaran from Quechuan, as well as a subsequent series of reconstructable sound changes, predate the stage of Proto-Aymaran proper. Results of these diachronic developments include the introduction of the place contrast *č ≠ *ĉ, the loss of the aspiration contrast for the affricate(s), and the conditioned application of contrastive glottalization to the affricates. This hypothesis has implications for Quechuan and Aymaran etymology and the internal linguistic histories of both families, including Torero's (1964) problematic observation regarding glottalization as a reflex of retroflection in Cuzco-Bolivian Quechua. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The editorial in Diachronica's 40th-anniversary issue features reflections from various authors on historical linguistics. The authors discuss research priorities, sociolinguistics, variation, fieldwork, and the influence of grammaticalization and language contact on the field. The editorial also highlights the importance of fieldwork and endangered languages, emphasizing the need for a comprehensive understanding of language variation and change. The text underscores the significance of collaborative research, community engagement, and the integration of phonetics into historical linguistics for a more nuanced understanding of language evolution. [Extracted from the article]

This paper investigates the phonological processes that English loanwords had undergone to be in harmony with the grammar of Najdi Arabic (NA henceforth). This study aims to provide a theoretical analysis of these phonological processes. Epenthesis, vowel lengthening, and vowel shortening are shown in this study to be strategies adapted by Najdi Arabic speakers to modify the loanword forms into a shape based on their L1 grammar. The constraint-based theoretical framework of Optimality Theory (OT) accounts for the phonological modifications in English loanwords. Epenthesis is seen to be motivated by the requirements of Najdi Arabic's syllable structure. Sound segments are epenthesized, for instance, to repair illicit onsetless syllables as well as repair disallowed consonant clusters. Further, the foot well- formedness is the main incentive behind vowel lengthening and vowel shortening in the course of adapting English loanwords. This study concludes that English loanwords are harmonious with Najdi Arabic grammar where they go through phonological modifications to be pronounceable by Najdi Arabic speakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecolinguistics explores the interplay between language and the environment, offering insights into how linguistic elements adapt and evolve. This study examines five cement-related English loanwords in Chinese to uncover the evolutionary mechanisms governing the adaptation of these loanwords by analyzing their ecological dynamics. The research quantitatively evaluates the ecology of these loanwords using two indicators: lexical niche breadth and overlap. The results are as follows: (1) The emergence of English loanwords in Chinese is intricately linked to specific social environments. As new concepts and items are introduced from abroad, the masses initially coin new loanwords, which are later standardized by authoritative bodies. (2) The vitality of the loanwords correlates with their niche breadth. The competition among lexical variants is influenced by niche overlap. The loanwords for cement are ranked by vitality values in descending order—ShuiNi (水泥/water mud): 3.221, YangHui (洋灰/foreign ash): 2.350, ShuiMenTing (水门汀/water-gate concrete): 1.385, HongMaoNi (红毛泥/red-hair clay): 1.202, and ShiMinTu (士敏土/sticky soil): 0.879. (3) The endangerment of the loanwords results from the synergistic interaction between external (nature, society, culture, psychology) and internal (sound, form, meaning, grammar) environments. Intense competition arises due to multiple synonyms for the same entity, and adaptation challenges occur when the loanwords do not precisely fit the entity. Among the five loanwords for cement, the first two exhibit higher vitality and continue to develop sustainably, while the last three show lower vitality and are gradually becoming endangered. As these loanwords undergo continuous evolution, a lexical ecocontinuum emerges: (i) extinct in the wild—ShiMinTu; (ii) critically endangered—HongMaoNi; (iii) endangered—ShuiMenTing; (iv) vulnerable—YangHui; (v) least concerned—ShuiNi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines a famous element in the reports on the canonization of the Qurʾānic text under the auspices of Uthman, in which the committee of scribes that were to write the standard text came to a disagreement on how to write the Qurʾānic word for at-tābūt "Ark." After examining the different versions of the report that contain this episode, and concluding that the report of this episode goes back to the common link of Ibn Šihāb al-Zuhrī (d. 124/741–2), it is shown that early on the linguistic details of this disagreement were no longer understood. However, by examining how Aramaic and Classical Ethiopic loanwords that end in stem-final -ūt or -ōt are treated, this report can be understood as referring to two competing adaptations of this foreign word into Arabic. On the one hand at-tābūt, the form that ends up in the standard text, and on the other hand at-tābāh (or more precisely: at-tābōh), which shows a similar strategy of adaptation as several other central loanwords in the Qurʾān such as aṣ-ṣalāh "prayer" and az-zakāh "alms." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a lexico-semantic analysis of grammatical terminology in the dictionary by M.A. Trotz Nowy dykcjonarz, to jest Mownik polsko-niemiecko-francuski (Leipzig, 1764). Trotz created an original work that had a significant impact on the dissemination of specialist grammatical terms that have subsequently been reflected in grammar books and textbooks. In particular, the lexicographer exhibited a preference for vernacular terms, while significantly reducing the use of Latin terms. The analysis of selected specialist terms has shown that, at that stage, grammatical terminology was forming, with a search for model terminological units and a tendency for them to become stabilized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thao Hung or Cheuang has been one of the important poetic works in Northern Laos and Northeastern (NE) Thailand for a long time. The use of Pali and Sanskrit (PL-SKT) words and their meanings in communicating the contents of the story in Northern Laos and Northeastern (NE) Thailand are a fascinating feature of this work. The objectives of this study were to explore the semantic changes in the PL- SKT loanwords, and to explore figures of speech in Thao Hung or Cheuang. The conceptual framework of this study consists of exploring 1) the use of PL-SKT words through semantic change processes and 2) the figures of speech used in Thao Hung or Cheuang. A qualitative method was employed and the data collection was done from the volumes 1-4 of Thao Hung or Cheuang Northeastern Literature Dictionary complied by the Royal Society of Thailand. It was found that there are 679 PL-SKT loanwords in 807 stanzas (Klong) of Thao Hung or Cheuang. Three processes of semantic change, namely, widening of meaning, narrowing of meaning and transferring of meaning, were employed in PL-SKT words. Furthermore, the following seven figures of speech: simile, metaphor, symbol, personification, hyperbole, onomatopoeia, and metonymy were found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates lexical borrowing from Austroasiatic into Austronesian languages. It does so for the following contact stages and interactions between these languages following the Austronesian overseas dispersal: (Stage 1) early contacts between Austroasiatic and Malayo-Polynesian particularly in the early Neolithic in the area encompassing mainland Southeast Asia, Northwest Kalimantan, and Sumatra, often resulting in the transmission of faunal terms; (Stage 2) interactions between speakers of Mon-Khmer and Malayo-Chamic languages during the early development of statehood; (Stage 3) exchange of terms in the period of early Khmer, Cham, and Malay kingdoms. Some of these transmissions can be shown to have taken place against the backdrop of the paramountcy of the kingdom of Funan. The latter stage also involves Sanskrit loanwords which were transmitted to Malayo-Polynesian via a Mon-Khmer language. The loanwords in this article are informative of Southeast Asia’s language history as well as the region’s cultural history.

Frederick de Houtman’s Malagasy language material (1603) consists of a wordlist and short prose texts. It represents a dialect spoken more than four hundred years ago in the Antongil Bay region on Madagascar’s northeast coast, which does not have a documented modern descendant. This chapter investigates Malay and (to a lesser extent) Javanese loanwords found in this material. Most of these loanwords are demonstrably old and can be dated to an era preceding the Malagasy migrations to eastern Africa thirteen centuries ago. They provide invaluable insights into the world of the early migrants to Madagascar and the degree of their exposure to major civilizations in insular Southeast Asia before their departure from Borneo. Another important aspect of these loanwords is that they hold unique information about Malay and Javanese lexical history. Finally, that Houtman’s material represents Madagascar’s oldest historiolect only adds to the appeal of these data.

The borrowing of foreign lexicon in Indonesian is well documented. However, to date, research on Korean loanwords has remained unavailable. Against the backdrop of the Korean Wave (hallyu), this paper discusses the phonological adaptation of Korean loanwords in Indonesian and the way these loanwords contribute to the Indonesian lexical landscape. By collecting data on Korean culture from a selection of Instagram and Twitter (now X) accounts from the Indonesian community, our corpus shows that besides nouns, Korean loanwords also include adjectives and verbs. We identified 52 loanwords related to the domain of popular culture, including film, music, and food. The different phonological systems of Korean and Indonesian determine the assimilation processes in the Indonesian vocabulary. Since this paper involves big data stored in a corpus, it has the capacity to provide new insight in the ways Korean loanwords and their phonological structure are integrated in Indonesian and become linguistically acceptable.

Early-modern wordlists and dictionaries provide an underexplored area for etymological scholarship. By critically comparing different sources written under the aegis of the Dutch East India Company, often compiled by autodidacts who were unable to gain fluency, this article makes some generalizations about the etymology and contact history of early-seventeenth-century Malay. I demonstrate that the Dutch materials provide concrete instances to study lexical change, both phonologically and semantically. When used advisedly, the material also casts light on the nature of language contact in an era in which the Indo-Malayan Archipelago was at the nexus of trade networks connecting speakers of Arabic, Persian, Chinese, Portuguese, and various Indian and Indonesian languages. Finally, early-modern lexicography offers valuable data to reconstruct elements of the society being studied, including in the realms of religion, social hierarchies, and material culture.

Sound changes that occur as a result of the dynamics within the language or external influences are important structures seen in every language. Turkish appears as a very rich language in terms of sound changes due to the wide geography it has spread throughout history and its relations with different languages. One of these sound changes, sonarisation, is important in that it reflects the characteristic features of a language and the dialects and dialects within it. Sonarisation is the phenomenon in which when a suffix starting with a vowel is added to the end of words ending in voiceless consonants, the voiceless consonants at the end of the word soften and turn into voiced consonants.The sonarisation, some examples of which have been seen since Old Turkish, is seen in many dialects of the Turkish Language today. Among Turkish dialects, sonarisation, which is mostly seen in Oghuz group Turkish dialects, is also seen in Northwest dialects that preserve voiceless consonants. In Kipchak Turkish, this sound phenomenon is also encountered in the Middle Dialect, Misher (Western) and Siberian (Eastern) dialects of Tatar Turkish, which is one of the Northwest group Turkish dialects. Since one of the characteristic features of the Siberian (Eastern) Dialect of Kazan Tatar Turkish is detonation, it is also noteworthy that examples of sonarisation are seen in this dialect. In this article, the sonarisation phenomenon seen in the front, inner and final sounds in Kazan Tatar Turkish dialects, Turkish and loan words will be revealed with its reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is currently no satisfactory etymology for the hapax legomenon רַפְסֹדוֹת rapsōdôt in 2Chr 2:15 (Eng. 16), although its meaning is agreed to be »rafts, floats«. It is proposed here that the word comes from the phonetically identical Greek word ῥαψῳδία (the ancestor of English rhapsody), which literally means »linked song«. Logs linked together into rafts recalled verses linked together into songs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dictionaries of foreign words in Slovak have a tradition of publication that can be traced for more than one hundred years. Their popularity among users is closely connected to a general interest in so-called language cultivation, which includes a good knowledge of frequently used words of non-native origin. Here, special attention will be paid to suffixed loanwords. In the case of larger sets of loanwords with the same suffix, speakers recognize their similarity and regularity. The central aim of this paper is to investigate how the lexicographic representation of suffixed loanwords in Slovak dictionaries of foreign words developed in the past one hundred years. The analysis focuses on a set of loanwords with three non-native suffixes, namely - ácia ('-ation'), - izmus ('-ism'), and - ita ('-ity'), each of which stands in competition with a corresponding native suffix. It was investigated how the emergence of a competing variant with a native suffix attached to the same foreign base influences the information given by dictionaries. For the analysis, I used five dictionaries of foreign words in Slovak published between 1939 and 2005. Based on a sample of entries from these dictionaries, I distinguish four types of dictionary definitions used to describe suffixed loanwords. Then I propose a model explaining the historical and logical relationships between these four definition types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the extent to which perceptual and other factors (i.e., orthography and standardization) affect vowel adaptation in English loanwords in Korean. It also examines whether perceptual variability gives rise to adaptation variability, and it further addresses whether the degree of perceptual influence in vowel adaptation is different from that in consonant adaptation. Data on Korean listeners' perceptual mapping patterns for English vowels were collected in an English-to-Korean vowel category mapping experiment and compared to the patterns in a loanword database. The results indicate that perceptual factors have a great impact on the adaptation of English vowels into Korean, in line with de Jong and Cho's (de Jong, Kenneth & Mi-Hui Cho. 2012. Loanword phonology and perceptual mapping: Comparing two corpora of Korean contact with English. Language 88. 341–368) findings for the adaptation of English consonants into Korean. Consequently, factors such as orthography and standardization are viewed as deviations from these perceptual influences. The impact of perceptual adaptation is, however, rather limited because the correlation between perceptual mappings and loanword mappings is less robust for English vowel adaptation than for English consonant adaptation possibly due to the less categorical nature of vowels relative to consonants. Additionally, the results show that increased strength of modal perceptual mappings is related to less loanword variability in vowel adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English loanwords in Croatian have been thoroughly investigated in terms of the degree of their adaptation, use across different styles and domains, and speakers' attitudes. Most studies rely on selectively chosen examples or specialized corpora. To provide systematic data on a subgroup of English loanwords, those that occur in orthographically unadapted forms, new resources have been recently developed. They provide the data on the identification of unadapted English loanwords in Croatian, their meaning, native equivalents, and frequency. The aim of this paper is to bring together recent findings on unadapted English loanwords in Croatian, obtained from a set of studies in which computational-linguistic and corpus linguistic methods were used, with the purpose of providing a new insight into the phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research shows that several factors influence the adaptation of English phonemes in Spanish Anglicisms: speaker age, English proficiency, and geographic distance from the U.S.A, among others.Due to globalization, increased mobility, and the ubiquitous availability of English media, the question arises whether these factors are still relevant in today's world. For the present study, 70 speakers from Mexico and Spain read a word list containing Anglicisms aloud. A generalized linear mixed effects model was applied to analyze which factors directly influence pronunciation. Results show that the realization of Spanish grapheme-phoneme correspondences plays a major role in the adaptation process. Moreover, the analysis shows that it is exposure to the English language that mainly influences the pronunciation: the more exposure speakers from both countries have to the English language, the more likely they are to imitate the English pronunciation instead of the realization of Spanish grapheme-phoneme correspondences. Finally, the analysis revealed differences not only between the phonemes and the speakers but also between the words included in the study and once more highlighted that every word has a history of its own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to present problems in etymological research on colloquial vocabulary using the example of the words bajer and bajerować. The author refers to various attempts to determine the origin of these words. They have been connected with Germ. dial. beiern ‘to ring the bells only moving their hearts’, Pol. bajka ‘tale, story’ and Hung. bájol ‘to charm, to enchant’. The author also presents her own explanation, comparing Pol. bajer and bajerować with Germ. beirren ‘to confuse someone’, but points out that none of the presented etymologies is fully satisfactory [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Around 700 Arabic words have been absorbed by the Acehnese language. This absorption process of course influences changes in the phonetics and meaning of the words produced in the Acehnese language. This research discusses the process of spelling and meaning changes in the Acehnese language after the Arabic vocabulary was absorbed into it. The method used is the Agih Method and the Determining Element Sorting Technique. The results show that there was a change in the spelling of Acehnese loan words. The spelling change included several processes, such as dissimilation, metathesis, diphthongization, monophthongization, anaptyctic prosthesis, epenthesis, paragog, apheresis, syncope, and apocope. Apart from changes in spelling, there are also changes in the meaning absorbed from Arabic, namely: fixed meaning, narrowed meaning, and expanded meaning. However, the Acehnese language tends to have a fixed meaning in its absorption of Arabic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an overview of the oldest West Karaim written sources with a special focus on the Slavic lexical elements they contain. The main goal of the article is to present the phonetic adaptation processes these loanwords underwent and to answer the question from which Slavic languages they were borrowed. The Slavic linguistic material presented in this article was collected from manuscripts created in the first 100 years of the written history of West Karaim, i.e. in the period between 1671 and 1772. The year 1772, i.e. the year in which the First Partition of Poland took place, has been chosen as the closing time limit mainly because the second half of the 18th century was the time when Slavic-West Karaim bilingualism became a widespread phenomenon which, in turn, resulted in markedly different adaptation processes than in the early decades of these contacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the possible Iranian etymology of three hitherto unexplained Old Armenian words is discussed: Arm. aptak 'slap, blow' < Ir. * apitāka -, to be compared with Man.Parth. and MP abdāg 'assailant'; Arm. žapawēn 'hem, border' compound of Parth. * žī(h) , equivalent of NP zeh 'string, hem, decoration' + Arm. apawēn 'cover, shelter, refuge'; Arm. xawsim 'to speak' from a metathetic form of MIr. * wā̆xs -, inchoative formation from the root * vac - 'to speak'. Finally, Szemerényi's convincing explanation of Arm. awgnem 'to help' and zawravign 'aid, helper, defender' as related to an OIr. noun * abigna - 'helper' attested in several anthroponyms (e.g. OP Bagābigna -) is reaffirmed and substantiated since it remained mostly unnoticed in the subsequent literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trilogy The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien is appropriately called the fundamental writing of fantasy literature. The story of the battle between good and evil, which continues to amaze readers around the world almost 70 years after it was first published, has been translated into dozens of languages, including Chinese. The work is typical for its detailed description of the landscape. The high frequency of local names raises the question of how translators work with them when translating into foreign languages. In the case of Chinese, the applied procedures are even more interesting, as it is a language with a typologically different writing system. The paper presents the results of a lexicological analysis of place names, which led to identifying not only all applied loanword categories but also which of them was the most productive one for borrowing toponyms. Based on the analysis of 512 toponyms, the following types of loanwords have been recognized: phonetic loanwords, hybrid loanwords, calques, semantic loanwords and induced new creations. The most productive loanword categories are phonetic loanwords, calques, and hybrid loanwords. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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How and when did domestic donkeys arrive in China? This article sets out to uncover the donkeys' forgotten trail from West Asia across the Iranian plateau to China, using archaeological, art historical, philological, and linguistic evidence. Following Parpola and Janhunen's (2011) contribution to our understanding of the Indian wild ass and Mitchell's (2018) overview of the history of the domestic donkey in West Asia and the Mediterranean, we will attempt to shed light on the transmission of the beast of burden to Eastern Eurasia. Due to its length, the paper is published in two instalments: Part I covers archaeological, art historical and textual evidence for the earliest occurrence and popularization of donkeys in China. Part II contains three sections: Two sections explore possible etymologies of ancient zoonyms for donkeys or donkey-like animals in Iranian and Chinese languages respectively. In a final discussion, possible ways of transmission for the donkey from the Iranian plateau to the Chinese heartland are evaluated with regard to the cultural, linguistic, and topographic conditions reflected in the previous parts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dictionaries of various Ainu lects contain from seven to ten different pa- headings. It is a daunting task to establish whether we are dealing with either one or two (or more) words that merged at some point in recent history. The isolate status of Ainu may only make things worse. This contribution confirms that internal reconstruction (as well as the evaluation of scenarios involving colexification and grammaticalization) and the correct evaluation of external data (so that we can avoid the confusion of internal data and potential loanwords) remain the reliable tools to reach satisfactory conclusions in the domain of etymology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with an important aspect of the integration of loan nouns into the grammatical systems of languages attesting to grammatical gender, namely gender assignment. Traditionally, it is assumed that gender assignment takes place according to the internal assignment rules of the replica language. In many cases, however, the original grammatical gender is borrowed along with the source word. This is the case of gender copy which often takes place under special (sociolinguistic) conditions and is used as assignment strategy in languages to a different extent. A special focus of my study is on gender assignment and particularly gender copy in the contact of languages of different assignment types (formal vs. semantic). The empirical data comes from five European languages in different sociolinguistic situations, attesting to different assignment systems and of different language branches of two language families – Indo-European (Romanian, Slavic, and Indo-Arian) and Nakh-Daghestanian (Lezgic and Tsezic). The analysis shows that gender copy is possible mostly in the contact of languages of the same assignment type. In the contact of languages of the formal assignment type, gender copy often goes along with the formal adjustment of the loan word. Sociolinguistic circumstances play an important role as to the possibility and frequency of the occurrence of gender copy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examines variation in the pluralization of Hebrew loan nouns that end with a vowel. Most loan nouns take the plural suffix -im with no variation, while loan nouns that end with vowels other than a show variation with respect to deleting and not deleting the final vowel. Hebrew native nouns that end with vowels other than a are relatively rare and therefore the Hebrew morphological mechanism is not accustomed to pluralizing them. The paper proposes a hierarchy that predicts which vowels are more or less likely to be deleted. It is based on the accessibility of deletion in existing pluralization paradigms within native words, in addition to the interaction of markedness and faithfulness constraints. The study provides further support for the claim that the mechanism of word formation takes into account not only the word itself but also its relations to other words in a paradigm. In addition, it sheds light on morphological adaptation of loanwords and provides predictions with respect to their degree of integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Etudes Romanes de Brno is the property of Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper discusses the inflections of Latin proper names in the Old English translation of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica. Whereas most common Latin loans are integrated into the Old English system as far as inflections are concerned, proper names, like scientific loans, can retain Latin inflections in some contexts. The analysis of the more than 700 tokens in this text reveals that the prototypical paradigm of Latin proper names results from a mixture of Latin and Old English patterns. The choice of inflections seems to be chiefly conditioned by grammatical case. While the nominative and accusative are modeled after Latin with very few exceptions, the dative and genitive are influenced by Old English paradigms as well. Both Latin and Old English inflections are evenly distributed in the dative. However, marking on names seems to be secondary and determined primarily by additional morphosyntactic means such as determiners or prepositions. As for the genitive, the predominant inflection, thematic vowel plus -s, results from the fusion of the inflections in both languages grounded in phonetic or spelling similarities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the correspondence between the borrowability indices from the Loanwoard Typology (LWT) project and Castilianization indices from the Atlas Lingüístico Galego (ALGa) across seven semantic fields. To this end, we identified all Castilianisms in the ALGa and conducted a quantitative analysis to compare these indices. Results obtained indicate a mismatch between the rankings of the LWT project and the ALGa. For example, the field 'The body' has the highest level of Castilianization according to the ALGa but the lowest borrowed score in the LWT project. Moreover, Castilianization levels in the ALGa show greater dispersion than borrowability levels from the LWT project. In fact, in each semantic field, many concepts (52.2%) have low levels of Castilianization, between 0% and 10%, and only a few concepts have high levels. A more detailed analysis of three semantic fields ('The body', 'Agriculture and vegetation', and 'The physical world') suggests that explanations based solely on semantic criteria (such as the existence of an unalterable central lexicon) are insufficient; other factors such as prestige, urbanization, cultural modernity, frequency of word usage, and perhaps other intralinguistic factors should be taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Respectus Philologicus is the property of Vilnius University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The current paper investigated the trend in modern Arabic colloquial dialect spoken by young Qunfudhah Arabic Dialect speakers to add the Arabic possessive enclitic /ək/ to the English loanwords when addressing a second person (e.g. [ʃɔːrt.ək] ‘your short’, [dʒækɪt.tək] ‘your jacket. Using a descriptive approach, a number of loanwords encliticized with the Arabic second-person possessive morphemes /ək/ which were elicited from 45 participants were analyzed and presented. The main purpose of the current paper was to find out the role of vowel length in determining the output of the loanword after adding the Arabic possessive enclitic morpheme /ək/. Data analysis based on syllable structure and Optimality Theory showed that the output of these English loanwords varied according to the type of the vowel preceding the coda of the syllable. It is evident that when adding the Arabic enclitic /ək/ to monosyllabic or disyllabic words that contain a short vowel, the coda of the syllable becomes geminate. Alternatively, if the words contain long vowels or diphthongs, the gemination does not take place.

This study investigates the polysemy of French loanwords in Middle English, analysing the attested senses of loan lexis in three occupational domains. Senses recorded in the Dictionnaire du moyen français and the Anglo-Norman dictionary were compared with corresponding lexical entries in the Middle English dictionary. Out of over 100 Middle English items borrowed from French, it is found that the great majority were polysemous in ways reflecting the source language semantics. This outcome contrasts with the usual finding that foreign borrowing in modern contexts produces monosemous loanwords. The conclusion is therefore drawn that the process of borrowing from French was of a different nature in the English medieval period. It is argued that bilingual users of French were agents of borrowing who replicated source word polysemy in their English. The likelihood that senses matching those of the French etymon arose in Middle English independently of source language polysemy is considered, but rejected.

Zechariah 4:12 has been perplexing exegetes and scholars throughout the ages, hampering efforts to explain the message of the lampstand vision in Zech 4 as a whole. The current paper will suggest a path towards a solution by showing that the hapax legomenon צנתרות in this verse means “centaurs.” This claim, which found little support in research so far, reaches its full persuasive power by a deep linguistic, exegetical, and cultural-comparative analysis. Namely, it will be argued that phonetically *צנתר fully accords with κένταυρος if the palatalization /k/ > [t͡s] is assumed, and when Jerome’s overlooked reading sinthoroth is considered. This interpretation is further supported by iconographic data which has so far escaped the scholarly discussion of this verse. As it demonstrates, Zech 4 is based on the Sacred Tree motif iconography, in which hybrid entities are only expected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]