Language Contacts as a Source of Borrowing

Abstract

Borrowings are the evidence of cultural contacts. They play a positive role in political, economic, cultural and linguistic contacts. Then closer the contacts between countries, then more borrowings mutually penetrate in the language system. Territorial proximity always facilitates the penetration of linguistic units and their elements into the lexicology. Today, a large number of borrowings comes from the eastern side of Russia, including China. A new wave of Chinese-Russian relations has actively introduced lexemes in both languages that have no analogue. The article analyzes groups of borrowings of morphological, etymological and semantic types, explores the reasons for borrowing a new layer of vocabulary from Chinese into Russian. The survey determined the frequency of use of the old and new wave of borrowings from the Chinese language in the Russian lexical base. The results of the survey showed that, along with such old borrowings as tea, pearls, silk, etc., such tokens as kunya, tofu, wushu, etc., which entered in the everyday Russians life. It should be noted that some lexical borrowings did not linger in Russian and, having not had time to assimilate, they disappeared. The Chinese language has a much lesser impact on Russian than English and other European languages, but it has a significant impact on the lexical composition and culture of Russian society nowadays.