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verbieLinguist 
Joined: 07 Dec 2009
Posts: 23
Location: Hawai'i, USA |
 Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 11:17 am
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Thank you everyone for all your fascinating input!
JohnDillinger43 wrote:
I love lexical borrowing and phonological adaptation! I've actually written a couple papers on neologisms and borrowing.
I look forward to reading these! Thank you for sharing :) |
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verbieLinguist
Joined: 07 Dec 2009
Posts: 23
Location: Hawai'i, USA |
Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 11:31 am
Post subject: More fun loans I found |
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I recently was doing some research on calques (a subcategory of linguistic borrowing), and I found the following:
The English phrase "Long time no see" is actually a direct, word-for-word translation of a Chinese phrase hao jiu bu jiàn.
Another direct translation of a Chinese borrowing is the English term brainwashing, which calques the Chinese xi nao. U.S. soldiers picked up the phrase during the Korean War.
The English word "skyscraper" has been calqued by a number of languages, including French gratte-ciel, the Spanish rascacielos, and the German Wolkenkratzer (but, interestingly, the German phrase was calqued as "cloud-scraper"... no one knows for sure why).
Keep 'em coming guys! I'm fascinated  |
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Joined: 30 Aug 2009
Posts: 765
Location: U.S. |
Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 12:39 pm
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kuasi wrote:
JohnDillinger43 wrote:
Languages with extremely restrictive phonotactics are always fun, e.g., "Merry Christmas" --> Hawaiian meli kelikimaka.
yeah, it's so comical how restrictive it becomes. like, they don't have T's, so they replace them with K's,
There is no t sound in christmas, so I would not expect them to insert one, even if Hawaiian had a t sound. The silent t was not replaced with a k in this example.
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-- i'd be interested to see how hawaiian deals with loanwords from caucasian languages. that would probably be about as brutal a slaughtering of words as there could ever be.
You must also get a laugh at how English changes its loan words from other languages. |
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Joined: 30 Aug 2009
Posts: 765
Location: U.S. |
Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 12:45 pm
Post subject: Re: More fun loans I found |
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verbie wrote:
The English phrase "Long time no see" is actually a direct, word-for-word translation of a Chinese phrase hao jiu bu jiàn.
Catsup comes from Cantonese: ke (tomato) tsap (sauce) |
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kuasiChomsky 
Joined: 24 Oct 2009
Posts: 206
Location: Lauderdale/Seattle |
Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 4:29 pm
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Dennis wrote:
There is no t sound in christmas, so I would not expect them to insert one, even if Hawaiian had a t sound. The silent t was not replaced with a k in this example.
right, i wasn't talking about their word for "christmas". sorry if i made that unclear. i was just saying that hawaiian generally replaces T's with K's, which seems bizarre at first, but since they're possibly the only language without a T (i honestly don't know if there are others), then it's not a problem we should expect to be familiar with. and given the other seven consonants in their inventory, K really seems to be the most logical. but of course, they also don't have S's (another rare problem), and while it might seem logical that a language would just use a T for an S, they don't have T's. and so they end up having to use K's for S's, which would ordinarily be really bizarre, but since it's hawaiian we're talking about, it makes sense. in any case, sorry if that was unclear.
Dennis wrote:
You must also get a laugh at how English changes its loan words from other languages.
how do you mean? i probably would. do you have any examples?
Dennis wrote:
Catsup comes from Cantonese: ke (tomato) tsap (sauce)
are you sure? the online etymology dictionary says something different.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=Catsup&searchmode=none
and it would appear that ketchup wasn't originally made with tomatoes. wikipedia has a lot of explanations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catsup#Etymology |
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Joined: 30 Aug 2009
Posts: 765
Location: U.S. |
Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 5:10 pm
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kuasi wrote:
Dennis wrote:
You must also get a laugh at how English changes its loan words from other languages.
how do you mean? i probably would. do you have any examples?
Take your pick, since most words coming in from non IE languages have been changed quite a bit.
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Dennis wrote:
Catsup comes from Cantonese: ke (tomato) tsap (sauce)
are you sure? the online etymology dictionary says something different.
There certainly seems to be many theories. |
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verbieLinguist
Joined: 07 Dec 2009
Posts: 23
Location: Hawai'i, USA |
Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 7:17 pm
Post subject: The ultimate enigma: Catsup |
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And what about the orthographic (and phonological?) distinction between catsup and ketchup?
Personally, I pronounce both as /kɛčəp/...
Hm.. I wonder if they are cognates? If so, which came first?
Looks like we need to brush up on our condiment etymology! |
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potterarchy
Joined: 21 Jan 2010
Posts: 9
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Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 5:21 pm
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Here's another one for your list.
A tuxedo (or a "dinner jacket" or "smoking jacket") is called "lo smoking" in Italian. At the time that a tuxedo was called a "smoking jacket" (I believe the 40s? 30s?) Italians were not too familiar with English syntax, and considered "jacket" to be the adjective of the phrase (in Italian, as with other romance languages, the adjective comes after the noun), therefore "smoking" became the noun for them.
"Lo" is used as the article, because a loanword is considered masculine in Italian (as well as, I believe, other romance languages), but the word begins with an S followed by a consonant, so "lo" and not "il" is used.
Another interesting thing, "smoking" is pronounce /zmɔkiŋ/. When you have written "ss," it is pronounced /s/ but "s" is pronounced /z/ (hence, "espresso" and "Pisa," though interestingly enough, you can have "falsetto" and "stacatto" as they sound in the English language - I may have to look into that further). |
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potterarchy
Joined: 21 Jan 2010
Posts: 9
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Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 5:28 pm
Post subject: Re: The ultimate enigma: Catsup |
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verbie wrote:
And what about the orthographic (and phonological?) distinction between catsup and ketchup? Hm.. I wonder if they are cognates? If so, which came first? Looks like we need to brush up on our condiment etymology!
"Ketchup" comes from the Malay "kichap" (via Amoy Chinese dialect "koechiap," meaning "brine of fish"), and originally was made of just mushrooms, walnuts, cucumbers, and oysters - tomatoes came later, ironically. The word "catchup" was originally how they attempted to transliterate the word, and it was somehow rendered eventually as "catsup" (perhaps the transliteration technique at the time used "ts" for "ch" like pinyin today uses "c" for "ts"?). Nowadays of course, it's "ketchup" just like it sounds. (Gotta love Etymonline: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=catsup&searchmode=none) |
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Joined: 17 Oct 2007
Posts: 681
Location: New Brunswick, NJ |
Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 10:59 am
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| The voicing in Italian /s/ has to do with syllable structure, not orthography. Both s's in "espresso" are voiceless. The /s/ in "lo smoking" is voiced because it precedes a voiced segment in an onset, and so assimilates. Don't ask me why the /p/ in "espresso" doesn't voice, but given that it's voiceless, we expect the /s/ before it to also be voiceless, which it is. Linda Lombardi has a decent paper on voicing typology that goes over such systems in detail. |
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potterarchy
Joined: 21 Jan 2010
Posts: 9
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Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 9:26 pm
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JohnDillinger43 wrote:
The voicing in Italian /s/ has to do with syllable structure, not orthography.
Gah, that's true. I sometimes fall into the pit of orthography, thanks for correcting that.
JohnDillinger43 wrote:
Don't ask me why the /p/ in "espresso" doesn't voice, but given that it's voiceless, we expect the /s/ before it to also be voiceless, which it is.
Why would the /p/ ever voice? It's from the Latin "exprimere" ("press out"), it's been a /p/ for quite awhile. Would the /ɾ/ cause a voiced /p/ possibly?
JohnDillinger43 wrote:
Linda Lombardi has a decent paper on voicing typology that goes over such systems in detail.
Fascinating, thank you! |
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LexiconTop-Notch Linguist 
Joined: 25 Feb 2007
Posts: 143
Location: New Orleans |
Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 9:35 pm
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I'm not sure I understand, is the 's' in espresso actually /z/ in Italian?
Also a voiced /p/ is a /b/.
_________________
There's no such thing as an exception to the rule...that's just another way of saying "we haven't figured out the rules yet!" |
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Joined: 17 Oct 2007
Posts: 681
Location: New Brunswick, NJ |
Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 10:42 am
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@potterarchy: yeah, I was thinking the /p/ might be expected to voice because of the /r/, but my intuition is that flap /r/ doesn't induce voicing assimilation, though I'm not sure if that's true.
@Lexicon: no, it's an /s/. But the <s> in words like sbagliato and sviluppare are actually /z/ because of voicing assimilation. |
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Joined: 29 May 2010
Posts: 3
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Posted: Sat May 29, 2010 11:37 pm
Post subject: French loan words in Vietnam hark back to the colonial days |
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French loan words in Vietnam hark back to the colonial days
One of the most popular dishes from Vietnam to make it to restaurant tables around the world, from New York to London, is pho. There’s pho bo and pho ga and pho tai and more.
And while the jury’s still out, it is widely believed by linguists and word sleuths that the word pho is not a Vietnamese word, but in fact comes from the French term pot au feu (pronounced ‘‘poh oh fuh’’). The word was likely introduced to Vietnam by French colonialists more than 100 years ago, according to longtime Vietnam resident Didier Corlou, a top French chef in Hanoi. Corlou told a food seminar in Hanoi in 2003 that pho most likely was a transliteration of the French term for hot pot.
The list of French “loans words” still used in Vietnam today is gaining recognition as young Vietnamese become more curious about their nation’s past, 23-year-old Abby Nguyen of Ho Chi Minh City told the Taipei Times in a recent e-mail exchange.
Before the Americans got involved in a long and protracted war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, the French had been heavily involved in the country for more than 300 years, she said. From 1853 to 1954, Vietnam was a French colony. As a result, Vietnam’s colonial past has left an indelible mark on the country’s language.
The Vietnamese word for cheese, for example, pho mat, comes from the French word fromage — say it out loud slowly — and cake is called ga to, from the French word gateau.
The word for butter — bo — comes from the French word buerre.
During a recent research expedition via keyboard and the Internet, this reporter came across more than two-dozen “loan words” from French still used in Vietnam today, in addition to pho mat and ga to and bo.
To understand all this, it helps to know a little French, but even if you never studied French in high school or college and you don’t know bonjour from bonsoir, “amusez-vous bien.” That means: “Enjoy!”
Liver pate is called pa in Vietnam today. Pate chaud, according to Californian foodie Andrea Nguyen of the Viet World Kitchen blog, is called pa so.
There’s more, according to sources in Vietnam and overseas. Ba — father in Vietnamese — comes from the French word papa, many linguists believe.
Va li comes from the French word for suitcase — valise.
Bia comes from the French word for beer, biere.
A doll is called a bup-be in Vietnam, from the French word poupee.
What to call the necktie on that senior civil servant giving a press conference on Hanoi television? It’s a ca vat — from the French word cravate.
Doc to comes from the French word docteur, which is not far from the English word doctor.
Phac to comes from facteur, the French word for mailman.
Phim means “movie” and comes from the French word film.
A pha is a headlight on a car or motorscooter, from the French word phare.
Motorscooters and motorcycles are themselves are called moto — from the French term motocyclette.
If you make a mistake in France, it is called a faute. In Vietnam today, people often say phot for mistake.
Bit-tet is from the French term biftek — beefsteak, or just plain steak.
Coffee is called ca phe, from the French word cafe.
Wine is called vang (vin).
Soap is called xa bong (savon).
A circus is called xiec (from the French word cirque).
Ben Zimmer, a noted US-based word maven who writes the weekly “On Language” column for the New York Times, pointed this reporter to the work of Milton Barber, whose 1963 paper, The Phonological Adaptation of French Loan Words in Vietnamese, was eye-opening, to say the least.
MaryJo Pham, a senior at Tufts University in Boston who was born in Vietnam and came to the US as a young girl, said she has been informally collecting French loan words used in Vietnam over the years.
“Piscine is still in use for ‘swimming pool,’” she said in an e-mail.
“And cyclo, or ‘xich lo’ in Vietnamese, is what we call a bicycle-drawn rickshaw.”
“Yogurt — yaourt in French — is called da ua in Vietnamese. Ice cream is called ca rem from the French word creme.”
A clothes zipper is called a phec mo tua in Vietnamese, from the French word fermeture, Pham said. A woman’s bra is called su chien from the French word soutien, she added.
“You can see how some French loan words influenced the actual transliteration of words — for motorscooters, women’s bras, coffee, frozen yogurt, baguette sandwiches — things that were and are indispensable to daily life in Vietnam,” Pham said. “‘Bo for butter, from the French buerre, is still definitely in use in Vietnam. And phim for movies, film, cinema, yes.” |
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verbieLinguist
Joined: 07 Dec 2009
Posts: 23
Location: Hawai'i, USA |
Posted: Sun May 30, 2010 11:02 am
Post subject: French loan words in Vietnam |
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| Fascinating! Thanks for sharing :) |
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