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The Analysis of Linguistic Borrowing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Einar Haugen
Einar Haugen*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin
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Extract

As early as 1886, Hermann Paul pointed out that all borrowing by one language from another is predicated on some minimum of bilingual mastery of the two languages. For any large-scale borrowing a considerable group of bilinguals has to be assumed. The analysis of borrowing must therefore begin with an analysis of the behavior of bilingual speakers. A vast literature has come into being on the subject of borrowing, particularly in the historical studies of individual languages; but there is still room for discussion of the relationship between the observed behavior of bilingual speakers and the results of borrowing as detected by linguists. Any light that can be thrown on the question by a study of bilingual speakers should be welcome to all students interested in borrowing and in the general linguistic problems associated with this process. In the present article an effort will be made to define more precisely the terminology used in the linguistic analysis of borrowing, and to set up certain hypotheses concerning the process of borrowing. It should then be possible to test these by their usefulness of application to particular studies of bilingualism and borrowing.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 26 , Issue 2-Part1: April-June , June 1950 , pp. 210 - 231
Copyright
Copyright © 1950 Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte2, Chap. 22 (Halle a. S., 1886).

2 See the writer's article, Problems of bilingualism (to appear in Lingua, Vol. 2), for a discussion of the social pressures that lead to bilingualism, and for some recent studies of the problem.

3 Languages frequently referred to are abbreviated as follows: E English; N Norwegian; PaG Pennsylvania German; AmG American German; AmN American Norwegian; AmPort. American Portuguese. Other abbreviations are standard or obvious.

Examples from AmN are taken from the writer's own materials, collected chiefly in Wisconsin, under research grants from the Research Committee of the University of Wisconsin (1936, 1937), the Guggenheim Foundation (1942), and the Rockefeller Foundation (1949). The substance of the article was presented to students attending the writer's course Problems and Methods of Research in Bilingualism at the Linguistic Institute (University of Michigan, 1949), and to his colleagues of the Linguistic Circle at the University of Wisconsin; the paper has profited from valuable suggestions made by both groups.

The examples from AmPort. are taken from Leo Pap, Portuguese-American speech (New York, 1949).

4 Paul, Prinzipien 338; Meillet, La méthode comparative 82 (Oslo, 1925); Meillet, Linguistique historique et linguistique generale 76 (Paris, 1921).

5 Language 445 (New York, 1933).

6 On shivaree see Alva L. Davis and Raven I. McDavid Jr. in American Speech 24.249–55 (1949).

7 Paul Schach, Hybrid compounds in Pennsylvania German, American Speech 23.121–34 (1948).

8 Kr. Sandfeld-Jensen, Die Sprachwissenschaft 69 (Leipzig and Berlin, 1915).

9 Cf. the apt criticism of the term in Pap 176–7, note 58.

10 Pap 87–8.

11 George L. Trager, IJAL 10.146 (1944); Pap 94.

12 TCLP 4.79–96 (1931).

13 Paul, Prinzipien 340–1; George Hempl, TAPA 29.37; Bloomfield, Language 446.

14 TCLP 4.80 (1931).

15 IJAL 10.145 (1944).

16 V. Mathesius, Englische Studien 70.23 (1935–6).

17 Harry Hoijer, Lg. 15.110–5 (1939).

18 Spicer, Am. Anthr. 45.410–26 (1943).

19 English loan-words in Modern Norwegian 164 (London and Oslo, 1945).

20 Stene 163 (her opinion that borrowed verbs are for this reason fewer than nouns seems insufficiently founded); Pap 106.

21 Pap 96.

22 Pap 97.

23 Pap 101.

24 Paul Schach, Symposium 3.120 (1949).

25 Pap 79, 88.

26 Pap 87.

27 Sandfeld-Jensen 69.

28 Pap 89.

29 Spicer, Am. Anthr. 45.410–26.

30 Schach, Symposium 3.115.

31 A. Menarini, Ai margini della lingua 145–208 (Firenze, 1947); reviewed by Robert A. Hall Jr. in Lg. 24.239–41 (1948).

32 Schach, Symposium 3.115.

33 Language, culture, and personality (Essays in memory of Edward Sapir) 66–74 (Menasha, Wis., 1941).

34 W. D. Whitney, On mixture in language, TAPA 12.5–26 (1881).

35 Whitney's statement in Language and the study of language 199 (New York, 1867) to the effect that ‘a mixed grammatical apparatus’ is a ‘monstrosity’ and an ‘impossibility’ has often been quoted, while his later, more considered statement has been overlooked, e.g. by Otto Jespersen in Language 213 (New York, 1922) and by Alf Sommerfelt, Un cas de melange de grammaires 5 (Oslo, 1926).

36 TCLP 8.85 (1939).

37 Otakar Vočadlo, Some observations on mixed languages, Actes du IVe congres internationale de linguistes 169–76 (Copenhagen, 1938).

38 Op.cit. 176.

39 Cf. Stene 5.

40 J. I. Kolehmainen, Am. Soc. Rev. 2.62–6 (1907).

41 Fries and Pike, Lg. 25.29–50 (1949)

42 Paul Garvin, Distinctive features in Zoque phonemic acculturation, SIL 5.13–20 (1947); cf. William Wonderly, IJAL 12.92–5 (1947).

43 Unfortunately no study has been made of E words in the N dialects, parallel to Aasta Stene's for the standard language; anyone who has heard Norwegian sailors speak is aware that they have borrowed heavily from English. Cf. Ivar Alnæs, Bidrag til en ordsamling over sjømandssproget (Christiania, 1902); R. Iversen, Lånord og lønnord hos folk og fant (Trondheim, 1939); A. Larsen and G. Stoltz, Bergens bymål (Christiania, 1912).

44 Evidence on this point was gathered for the writer from the N dialect archives in Oslo by Magne Oftedal and in Bergen by Olai Skulerud. The related term rells ‘rails’, on the other hand, does not seem to have been known in Norway, though it took root in Sweden; cf. G. Langenfeldt, Språk och Stil 15.88–110 (1915).

45 The words river, ticket, coat, surveyor, courthouse, and table knife are reported from Tinn, Norway, as characteristic of returned emigrants by Skulerud, Telemaalet 73 (Christiania, 1918) and Tinnsmaalet (Halle a. S., 1922); cf. similar reports from Sweden and Swedish Finland in Folkmålsstudier 2.137–40 (1934) and Svenskbygden 1932.3–5.

46 Cf. Aasen NO2 s.v. kjφld ‘Sogn og fler’, but not under kulde and the other words.

47 Cf. V. Mathesius, Zur synchronischen analyse fremden sprachguts, Englische Studien 70.21–35 (1935–6); B. Trnka, Phonological analysis of present-day standard English 49–53 (Prague, 1935); Stene, op.cit.

48 Stene 5.

49 Cf. the writer's review, Lg. 25.63–8 (1949).

50 Cf. W. F. Twaddell, A phonological analysis of intervocalic consonant clusters in German, Actes du IVe congrès internationale de linguistes 218–25 (Copenhagen, 1938); Hans Vogt, Structure of Norwegian monosyllables, NTS 12.5–29 (1940).

51 Lg. 25.31 (1949).

52 Cf. Eugen Kaufman, Der Fragenkreis ums Fremdwort, JEGP 38.42–63 (1939). Kaufman wishes to eliminate Fremdwörter from German, but not Lehnwörter.