Instances of linguistic contact. The impact of French on Romanian maritime terminology

Abstract

The linguistic contact between French and Romanian has long been validated. The neologisms borrowed from French seem to have a privileged status, being dominant in the second half of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. The contact between the two Romance languages contributed not only to the formation of the modern Romanian language, but also to the innovation of specialized languages. French was the language of diplomacy and international trade several centuries prior to the standardization of English as the international maritime language. As a result, many terms of French origin have entered the Romanian maritime vocabulary since the eighteenth century and continue to show strength today, in spite of the English influence. In this paper, we will demonstrate how linguistic contact has influenced the development of Romanian maritime terminology, focusing on the external means of vocabulary enrichment, namely the loan and the calque.