Temporal Variation

Question 1

What is temporal variation?

Answer 1

A language vocab can be totally changed with the passing of time. The Eng language is a good example of it.

Question 2

Borrowing

Answer 2

Borrowing is the adoption of linguistic elements from another language variety. We can identify three types of lexical influence of one one language variety over another:

1. Adstratum influence - a situation where two language varieties are in contact and neither one is culturally dominant. It usually results in the borrowing of everyday words in both languages, e.g. Scandinavian and English
2. Substratum influence - a situation where the culturally non-dominant language variety lexically influences a dominant language variety, e.g. borrowing words into English from American Indian.
3. Superstratum influence - a situation where the dominant language influences another language variety, e.g. Norman French on English during the Middle English period

Question 3

The reasons for borrowing

Answer 3

If a suitable word exists in another language variety, it’s easier to borrow it rather than to create a new one. Lack of creativity is one of the major reasons for the process of borrowing, and others include no suitable existing word in the target language, prestige (showing off), just the need to have the right word when there is no English equivalent e.g. chic, naive.

Question 4

Direct and indirect borrowing

Answer 4

Direct borrowing e.g. omelette from French. Indirect borrowing e.g. shah (Persian) - eschec (Middle French) - chess (English). There is always a danger of misunderstanding what words denote when borrowing, e.g. safari in Swahili means any kind of journey while in English it experiences semantic narrowing.

Question 5

Calques (Loan translations)

Answer 5

Calques are borrowings that are translated part by part into another language. English gets a lot of calques from French (e.g. sans ceremonie - without ceremonies)

Question 6

The Old English period

Answer 6

Most of the words were from Germanic influence. Today, 85% of the words are no longer in use. However, kinship terms, numbers, basic bodily functions etc have Germanic roots. Other foreign languages that had an influence: Celtic, Latin, Scandinavian

Question 7

The Middle English period

Answer 7

The Norman Conquest resulted in a lot of french words being introduced to English in the fields of culture, gastronomy, religion, law etc. In this period a lot of words from Arabic were borrowed, relating to science or the Muslim religion (algebra, Ramadan).

Question 8

Early Modern English

Answer 8

The printing revolution brought a new interest in languages and literature, so a lot of languages had an influence on English: Greek and Latin (athlete, abdomen etc), French (bizarre, lingerie), Dutch (cookie, yacht)

Question 9

Modern English

Answer 9

English has a lingua franca status and exports words into other languages but borrows too: French (in fields of fashion, cuisine and cosmetics), Italian (classical music and food), German (WW2 and Nazi-related), Spanish (mostly food), a little bit of Slavic (czar, sputnik), Japanese (kimono, haiku), American Indian (chipmunk, parka, names of cities).