Anglicism

An Anglicism is a word or construction borrowed from English into another language.

With the rise in Anglophone media and global spread of British and American cultures in the 20th and 21st centuries, many English terms have entered popular usage in other tongues. Technology-related English words like internet and computer are particularly common across the globe, as there are no pre-existing words for them. English words are sometimes imported verbatim, and sometimes adapted to the importing language in a process similar to anglicisation. In languages with non-Latin alphabets, these borrowed words can be written in the Latin alphabet anyway, resulting in a text made up of a mixture of scripts; other times they are transliterated. Transliteration of English and other foreign words into Japanese generally uses the katakana script.

In some countries such anglicisation is seen as relatively benign, and the use of English words may even take on a chic aspect. In Japan, marketing products for the domestic market often involves using English or pseudo-English brand names and slogans. In other countries, anglicisation is seen much more negatively, and there are efforts by public-interest groups and governments to reverse the trend; for example, the Académie française in France insists on the use of French neologisms to describe technological inventions in place of imported English terms.

It is also important to note that while Anglicism is fundamentally rooted in the word English, the process does not necessarily denote anglicisms from England. It can also involve terms or words from all varieties of English so that it becomes necessary to use the term Americanism for the loan words originating from the United States.[1]

Adaptation

A number of scholars agree that in order for Anglicism to take place, adaptation must first occur such as in the case of the integration of a great number of Anglicisms in Europe.[2] Fischer said that it is similar to neologism in the sense that it completes several phases of integration, which include: 1) the beginning, when it is still new and not known to many speakers; 2) the phase where it begins to spread and take part in the process of institutionalization; and, 3) the word becomes part of the common core of the language.[3] There are experts who propose a more detailed framework such as the model of Anglicism adaptation that transpires on four levels: orthographic, phonological, morphological, and semantic.[4]

Anglicisms in Chinese

These are English terms, expressions, or concepts that have been absorbed into the Chinese language, including any of its varieties, and should not be confused with Chinglish, the variety of the English language used by native Chinese speakers.

The origins of Chinese anglicisms vary, one of the most common being those obtained by phonetic borrowing. For example, a "bus" (traditional Chinese: 公共汽車; simplified Chinese: 公共汽车; literally: "public vehicle", in Mainland China or Taiwan) is usually called "巴士"; (baa1 si6-2) in Hong Kong and Macao because its Cantonese pronunciation is similar to its English counterpart. Another type of anglicism is syntactic anglicism, when a sentence is rendered following the English word order instead of the standard Chinese word order; for example, the word for "network" is 网络; (網絡) or 网路; (網路), where 网; (網) can be translated as "net".

Anglicisms in French

A distinction is made between well-established English borrowings into French, and other words and structures regarded as incorrect. The term anglicisme is often pejorative, carries a large amount of political weight, and frequently denotes an excessive use of English in the French language.

There are many words in French of English origin whose English roots are unknown or unrecognized due to lack of salience or length of time since borrowing (ex: gouvernement), as well as other words which are seen as English but that are well accepted as part of French (ex: parking, week-end). Other examples include clown (pronounced "kloon"), square (meaning "public square") or spleen (meaning "melancholy" rather than the organ). These are not considered Anglicisms but are fully accepted as French words by the Académie française.

Occasionally governments and linguistic institutions of both Quebec and France have undertaken strenuous efforts to eradicate Anglicisms, often by suggesting French replacements with French phonology and morphology. Although efforts in Quebec have been met with some success (ex: fin de semaine for week-end), attempts by the Académie française have largely been unsuccessful.[5] Sociolinguists have attributed these failures to the general inability of linguistic institutions to enforce a linguistic norm.[6] The Académie française regularly updates a list of prescribed linguistic norms, many of which include using suggested French replacements instead of anglicisms (ex: mot-dièse for hashtag).[7]

Replacements have taken many different forms. For example, in Quebec the portmanteau word clavardage is increasingly gaining acceptance. This neologism is a word coined from the words clavier ("keyboard") and bavardage ("chat"). Other replacements have various forms created by the academy and Quebecois linguistic institutions.

Quebec French and European French tend to have entirely different Anglicisms for historical reasons. Quebec French acquired its Anglicisms in a gradual process of linguistic borrowing resulting from linguistic contact with English speakers for two and a half centuries since the Battle of the Plains of Abraham of 1759. European French, on the other hand, mostly adopted its Anglicisms in recent decades due to the post-Second World War international dominance of English, or the rise of English as a lingua franca. Due to the differences between in English borrowings in Canada and France, the people of Quebec and France often consider each other's anglicisms to be incorrect or humorous while considering their own to be perfectly normal.

An example of a European French Anglicism not used in Quebec:

  • sweat: short for sweatshirt, but pronounced like the English word "sweet"

An example of a Quebec French Anglicism not used in France;

Furthermore, the social meaning and acceptance of anglicisms differs from country to country due to the differences in the historical relationship to French. In Quebec, anglicisms are never used in formal documentation (government papers, instruction sheets) and very rarely used in informal writing (magazines, journals). In 1993, the French passed the legislation Loi Toubon which forbids the use of anglicisms (or those from other languages) in common publications. In both countries, wherever the use of an Anglicism is unavoidable, it is often written in italics or in quotations.

There are a number of different varieties of anglicisms which are largely differentiated on the way in which they entered the language. One type of anglicism is a calque, or a direct translation from English. For example, the valediction Sincèrement vôtre is regarded as an anglicism since it is a direct translation of the English "Sincerely yours." Other anglicisms include the wholesale adoption of the English term such as "business" or "start-up". Additionally, some English words in French may not have the same meaning as those words in English. One example is the word "golf" which has an increased semantic field, referring to not just the game of golf but also a golf course as in "on va aller au golf" (trans: we're going to the golf course).

It must be noted that anglicism is a political term and does not necessarily indicate the etymology or history of the word itself. Rather, it indicates the common attitudes and perceptions about the (theoretically English) history of the word. For example, because English itself borrowed a great amount of French vocabulary after the Norman Conquest, some anglicisms are actually Old French words that dropped from usage in French over the centuries but were preserved in English and have now come full circle back into French. For instance, one attested origin of the verb "to flirt" cites influence from the Old French expression conter fleurette, which means "to (try to) seduce". (Other possible origins for the word include flit, E. Frisian flirt (a flick or light stroke) and E. Frisian flirtje (a giddy girl)). This expression is no longer used in French, but the English Gallicism "to flirt" has now returned to French and is considered an anglicism, despite its likely French origins.

Anglicisms in German

Denglisch (German spelling) or Denglish (English spelling) is a portmanteau of Deutsch and Englisch (the German words for the German and English languages). The term is used in all German-speaking countries to refer to the increasingly strong influx of English or pseudo-English vocabulary into German. Denglish is also used to refer to incorrect English that is influenced by German. To some extent, the influence of English on German can be from normal language contact. The term Denglisch is however mostly reserved for forced, excessive exercises in anglicization, or pseudo-anglicization, of the German language.

Anglicisms in Latvian

The first anglicisisms in the written sources of Latvian appear at the end of the 18th century, however, up until the middle 1970s they were barely researched as their number remained low and since they mostly appeared in the terminology of sports and engineering. The direct contact between Latvian and English at that time was very limited, thus most of the anglicisms entered Latvian through German or Russian.[8] Ever since Latvia regained its independence, there has been an influx of anglicisms into the Latvian language due to the fact that media in English is more accessible than ever.

Anglicisms in Polish

Sporadic linguistic contacts between Polish and English-speaking areas have been noted at least since the 15th century. However, most early Anglicisms in Polish were mostly limited to names for places in Great Britain and the Americas.[9] The first proper Anglicisms were also related to geography and were recorded in an 18th-century work "Geografia, czyli opisanie naturalne, historyczne i praktyczne krajów we czterech częściach się zawierające" by Franciszek Siarczyński. By the end of that century there were at least 21 lexemes of English provenance in Polish usage. The 1859 dictionary of foreign words by Michał Amszejewicz contains roughly 100 Anglicisms, the so-called Vilnian dictionary of 1861 contains roughly 180 of such words.[10] The Anglicisms recorded in the 19th century were in large part words related to social, political, legal and economic concepts used in English society and lacking corresponding institutions in contemporary Poland. Another group were naval, sports-related and technical terms.[9]

Typically new words were initially being written in their original form, especially when they were used to describe English or American contexts. Such was the case of the word budget, first recorded as such in 1792 in relation to English economy, but soon also used in Polish context.[11] With time the word was assimilated and remains in modern Polish dictionaries, written as budżet. Early 19th century Dictionary of the Polish Language by Samuel Linde includes the following Anglicisms: foksal (after London's suburb of Vauxhall; meaning an evening garden party in contemporary Polish), galon, klub, kwakier, piknik, poncz, rum and porter.[11]

The assimilation of new English words into Polish sped up in the 20th century and gradually English replaced Czech, German, French, Italian and other languages as the primary source of new imports into the Polish language.[12] At the turn of the century there were roughly 250 English words in use, by 1961 the number of English lexemes in Polish rose to over 700, breaking 1000 lexemes in the 1980s and at least 1600 in 1994.[12]

Borrowings from English language used in modern Polish fall into a number of thematic categories:

Take note, that some of the borrowed words already have Polish equivalents and therefore are not recognized by all language users:
menadżer (manager) instead of kierownik
quad (quad bike) instead of czterokołowiec
monitoring (CCTV) instead of nadzór, dozór
W czym mogę pomóc (English: How can I help you) instead of Czym mogę służyć (English: How can I serve you).

In addition to lexical borrowings, there is also a number of calques in everyday use.

Anglicisms in Italian

Under Benito Mussolini, efforts were made to purify Italian of Anglicisms and other foreign words. Today, Italian is one of the most receptive languages for anglicisms.[13]

Anglicisms in Spanish

The Hispanisation of English words is fairly common in the United States and even in Latin America. In Spain, the adoption of English words is extremely common in the spheres of business and information technology, although it is usually frowned upon by purists.

Anglicisms in Ukrainian

There are a lot of Anglicisms in Ukrainian language which are from many sides of human life.

Техніка: блюмінг (blooming), бульдозер (bulldozer), буфер (buffer), грейдер (grader), диспетчер (dispatcher), дисплей (display), ескалатор (escalator), каупер (cowper stove), комбайн (combine), комп'ютер (computer), конвеєр (conveyor), крекінг (cracking), принтер (printer), радар (radar), слябінг (slabbing), сейф (safe), телетайп (teletype), тендер (tender), трактор (tractor), трамвай (tramway), тунель (tunnel), файл (file), фільм (film), хонінгування (honing).

Мореплавство, військова справа: браунінг (Browning), бункер (bunker), ватерлінія (waterline), снайпер (sniper), танк (tank), танкер (tanker), траулер (trawler), шквал (squall), шрапнель (shrapnel), шхуна (schooner), яхта (yacht).

Політика (politics), економіка (economy), торгівля: банкнота (banknote), бізнес (business), блеф (bluff), блокада (blockade), бойкот (boycott), бос (boss), бюджет (budget), гангстер (gangster), демпінг (dumping), долар (dollar), інтерв'ю (interview), лідер (leader), локаут (lockout), маркетинг (marketing), менеджер (manager), менеджмент (management), мітинг (meeting), рекет (racket), трест (trust), чек (check).

Спорт (sport): аут (out), бокс (box), боксер (boxer), ватерполо (waterpolo), волейбол (volleyball), гол (goal), голкіпер (goalkeeper), матч (match), жокей (jockey), нокаут (knockout), раунд (round), рекорд (record), спаринг (sparring), спорт (sport), спортсмен (sportsman), старт (start), теніс (tennis), трек (track), тренер (trainer), фініш (finish), форвард (forward), футбол (football), хокей (hockey).

Одяг, тканини: вельвет (velvet), джемпер (jumper), піжама (pyjama), плед (plaid), плюш (plush), смокінг (smoking jacket/tuxedo).

Їжа, напої: біфштекс (beef steak), кекс (cakes), пудинг (pudding), пунш (punch), ром (rum), ростбіф (roast beef), сандвіч (sandwich).

Культура (culture): гумор (humor), джаз (jazz), клоун (clown), клуб (club), комфорт (comfort), памфлет (pamphlet), сквер (square), тент (tent), фокстрот (foxtrot), фольклор (folklore), хол (hall).

Anglicisms in Finnish

The Anglicisms can be divided to four types: direct phonetic imitation, lexical and grammatical calques, and contamination of orthography. Official language (as given by the Language Planning Office) deprecates Anglicisms, and for the most part, native constructions are sufficient even in spoken language. Nevertheless, some Anglicisms creep in.

Computer jargon is generally full of direct imitation, e.g. svappi "swap". Other jargons with abundant Anglicisms are pop music, scifi, gaming, fashion, automobile and to some extent scientific jargon. This is regarded a sign of overspecialization, if used outside the context of the jargon. Generally, direct imitation is not as common, but there are examples. For example, the word sexy [seksy], pronounced with an Y unlike in English [seksi], might be used as an adjective. This is teenager-specific.

Lexical calques take an English expression, like killer application, and produce tappajasovellus, which does mean "an application that kills" just as in English. You will need to know the equivalent English term to understand this.

Some speakers, especially those in frequent contact with the English language have created a grammatical calque of the English you-impersonal. The English impersonal utilizes the second person pronoun you, e.g. You can't live if you don't eat. Here, the word you does not refer explicitly to the listener, but signifies a general statement. The same example is rendered in Finnish as Syömättä ei elä, where a separate grammatical impersonal (also known as passiivi) is used. When translated word-by-word, Sä et elä jos sä et syö, it will refer directly to the listener. Here the contraction sä of spoken language is used instead of the sinä of spoken language. Then, you will need to understand that it is an Anglicism, or you can be offended by the commanding "You there!" tone produced. (There are also native examples of the same construction, so the origin of this piece of grammar may not always be English.)

An English orthographical convention is that compound words are written separately, whereas in Finnish, compound words are written together, using a hyphen with acronyms and numbers. In Finnish, prosessitekniikka and Intel 80286 -prosessori would be correct, but process engineering or Intel 80286 processor would not. Failure to join the words or omitting the hyphen can be either an honest mistake, or contamination from English.

Another orthographical convention is that English words tend to be written as the originals. For example, the computer jargon term from to chat is written as chattailla (chat + frequentative), even if it is pronounced sättäillä. The forms chattäillä or chättäillä are used, too. Sometimes, it is even standard language, e.g. sherry Finnish pronunciation: [ʃerry], instead of according to English pronunciation šeri [ʃeri].

Other definitions

Other definitions of Anglicism include: a word or construction peculiar to English; a word or phrase that is peculiar to British English; or English syntax, grammar, or meaning transposed in another language resulting in incorrect language use or incorrect translation.

In the context of Interlingua, an Anglicism is a uniquely English expression used when speaking or writing Interlingua. Many English expressions have penetrated into a wide variety of languages, making them good Interlingua expressions. Novice speakers sometimes assume that an English expression is correct Interlingua when in fact it is not sufficiently international. For example, a novice may use Lassa nos considerar le optiones to mean 'Let's consider the options', as in English. In Interlingua, however, this expression means 'Permit us to consider the options'. A more international expression is Que nos considera le optiones, literally 'That we consider the options'.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Fischer, Roswitha (2010). Anglicisms in Europe: Linguistic Diversity in a Global Context. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 8. ISBN 9781443825184.
  2. ↑ Hartmann, Reinhard (1996). The English Language in Europe. Oxford: Intellect Books. p. 40. ISBN 9781871516890.
  3. ↑ Fischer, p. 8.
  4. ↑ Winter, Werner (2011). On Languages and Language: The Presidential Adresses of the 1991 Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. p. 131. ISBN 9783110881318.
  5. ↑ Bogaards, Paul (2008). On ne parle pas franglais: la langue française face à l'anglais. Brussels: De Boeck Duculot. ISBN 978-2-8011-1417-9.
  6. ↑ Bécherel, Danièle (1981). "A propos des solutions de remplacements des anglicismes". La Linguistique. 17 (2): 119–131.
  7. ↑ "Dire, ne pas dire". Academie Francaise.
  8. ↑ Baldunčiks, Juris (1989). Anglicismi latviešu valodā [Anglicisms in the Latvian language]. Riga: Zinātne. p. 6. ISBN 5-7966-0078-8.
  9. 1 2 Elżbieta Mańczak-Wohlfeld (2006). Janusz Arabski, ed. Angielsko-polskie kontakty językowe [Anglo-Polish Language Contacts] (in Polish). Kraków: Jagiellonian University Press. pp. 17–43. ISBN 83-233-2132-9.
  10. ↑ Mańczak-Wohlfeld, p. 32
  11. 1 2 Elżbieta Mańczak-Wohlfeld (1987). "Najstarsze zapożyczenia angielskie w polszczyźnie" (PDF). Język polski (in Polish). 67. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-09-24. Retrieved 2013-06-18.
  12. 1 2 Alexandra Hemmert (2008). Zmiany w użyciu anglicyzmów w jzyku polskim na przestrzeni ostatnich 15 lat (in Polish). Leipzig: University of Leipzig, GRIN. pp. 10–11. ISBN 978-3-638-90908-2.
  13. ↑ Universität Regensburg (26–28 September 2006) "Anglicisms in Europe - Universität Regensburg" Universität Regensburg. Retrieved 30 March 2013
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