Donor Language Research Articles

Using lexical language models to detect borrowings in monolingual wordlists.

Lexical borrowing, the transfer of words from one language to another, is one of the most frequent processes in language evolution. In order to detect borrowings, linguists make use of various strategies, combining evidence from various sources. Despite the increasing popularity of computational approaches in comparative linguistics, automated approaches to lexical borrowing detection are still in their infancy, disregarding many aspects of the evidence that is routinely considered by human experts. One example for this kind of evidence are phonological and phonotactic clues that are especially useful for the detection of recent borrowings that have not yet been adapted to the structure of their recipient languages. In this study, we test how these clues can be exploited in automated frameworks for borrowing detection. By modeling phonology and phonotactics with the support of Support Vector Machines, Markov models, and recurrent neural networks, we propose a framework for the supervised detection of borrowings in mono-lingual wordlists. Based on a substantially revised dataset in which lexical borrowings have been thoroughly annotated for 41 different languages from different families, featuring a large typological diversity, we use these models to conduct a series of experiments to investigate their performance in mono-lingual borrowing detection. While the general results appear largely unsatisfying at a first glance, further tests show that the performance of our models improves with increasing amounts of attested borrowings and in those cases where most borrowings were introduced by one donor language alone. Our results show that phonological and phonotactic clues derived from monolingual language data alone are often not sufficient to detect borrowings when using them in isolation. Based on our detailed findings, however, we express hope that they could prove to be useful in integrated approaches that take multi-lingual information into account.

«Черное золото» Африканского континента — новая мировая литература или дополнение к мировым национальным литературам?

This article examines literary works of bilingual authors in Nigeria, who create their own national cultural worldviews through the language in which they write, thereby explaining why English in Nigeria is influenced by Nigerian culture. Nigeria is a country that has witnessed a cross-flow of linguistic change due to its inherent multilingualism combined with colonial experiences under British rule, a country where ethnic minorities were referred to as “oil minorities”. Although only two languages are recognized as official languages in Nigeria — Yoruba and English –the problem of multilingualism in Nigeria today remains unexplored, and where there is language contact, there must be a language conflict. Indeed, contiguous languages are often competitive languages and there is no language contact without language conflict. Moreover, the problem of linguistic contact and linguistic conflict exists at three different but interrelated levels: social, psychological and linguistic. The social aspect is related to such issues as the choice of language and its use, the psychological — to the attitude towards language, ethnicity, while the linguistic aspects are focused on the code switching, the donor language intervention, which the English language is. The language conflict has influenced the literary work of Nigerian writers writing in English, which has become an exoglossic language, superimposed on the indigenous languages of the Nigerian peoples. Thus, bilingualism in Nigeria can be considered semi-exoglossic, including English coupled with language mixing.

The International Vocabulary of Russian and Slovenian Languages: Gender Category

Slovenian and Russian substantive internationalisms of different grammatical gender are compared in the present article. Five groups of internationalisms have been distinguished on the basis of the formed glossary based on the dictionaries of the two languages which includes about 450 pairs of lexemes with different gender characteristics: 1) Slovenian feminine ~ Russian masculine; 2) Slovenian masculine ~ Russian feminine; 3) Slovenian masculine ~ Russian neuter; 4) Slovenian feminine ~ Russian neuter; animated nouns constitute a separate group. The significant difference is the small number of neuter gender internationalisms in Slovenian, while there are a great number of such internationalisms in Russian; as well as the predominance of feminine gender borrowings in Slovenian. The analysis has illustrated that the internationalisms gender in both languages is determined by a common set of factors (the influence of gender of the prototype word, features of the morphological category of gender in language, lexical and semantic characteristics), which have different importance in the two languages. The influence of the prototype word gender is mainly characteristic in Slovenian, while structural and paradigmatic factors play a much larger role in Russian. The differences in the donor languages are of great importance for understanding the gender distinction of internationalisms in Slovenian and Russian. The time factor is more evident in Russian, where there is a gradual increasing importance of a paradigmatic factor in the gender determination of a number of borrowings, whereas for Slovenian, where a number of borrowings-internationalisms were formed later, the time factor does not play a big role.

The late success of Soviet language policy: The integration of Russian verbs in languages of the former Soviet Union

Purpose:This study examines the integration of Russian verbs into 50 languages from 12 different language families predominantly spoken in the former Soviet Union with respect to insertion strategies and input forms of Russian verbs. The aim is to test if there are statistically significant distributions between particular insertion strategies and grammatical, areal and sociolinguistic properties of the recipient languages.Methodology:This study applies the typological categories developed by Wohlgemuth for the classification of verbal borrowings by distinguishing three major insertion strategies. The donor language is kept constant (Russian). For every recipient language information on all instances of inserted verbs and data on word order, morphological type, language family and relevant social parameters have been gathered.Data and analysis:The linguistic data largely come from published sources. Frequency data on the distribution of the insertion strategies are quantitatively analyzed and tested for statistically significant correlations with sociolinguistic and typological parameters and areal location. The distributions are visualized by maps.Findings:There are no correlations between insertion strategies and extralinguistic parameters such as the general contact intensity. The two typological features (word order; morphological type) showed some correlations, and areality also plays a certain role. The main factor is the existence of productive insertion strategies within particular families or subbranches. Furthermore, the strategies show different degrees of flexibility with respect to the morphological form of the input and can be ordered along a hierarchy from more flexible (direct insertion) to not flexible at all (paradigm insertion).Originality:This is the first attempt to systematically compare the impact of Russian on languages with different genealogical affiliations, typological profiles and sociolinguistic conditions. Russian is an understudied donor language with a complex verbal morphology. This study is meant to undertake the first step towards a comprehensive study of Slavicization.

THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF ANGLO-BARBARISM IN THE UKRAINIAN EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

Goal. Our goal is to investigate and explore the social context of anglo-barbarismin the educational sphere, i.e. to determine the complex of extralingual factors creating conditions for imposition of the English language and Anglicisms under the guise of allegedly necessary and useful phenomena of globalization and internationalization of the education. Methods. The main methodological basis of our research is the priority of the national principle and interest in assessment of socio-lingual phenomena in the area of foreign-language influence and use of descriptive-analytical method enabling to explore the main mechanisms of anglo-barbarism in the Ukrainian educational domain. Results: a) antagonism between the social and political phenomenon of globalism and nationalism as a worldview and linguistic confrontation under condition of insufficient formation of the Ukrainian nation is explored; b) the meaning of the term anglo-barbarism is explained as the most applicable to contemporary expansionary processes in educational environments; c) the Ukrainian legislative environment facilitating educational processes of the state Ukrainian language being replaced by the English language is defined and analyzed; d) a model of balanced language policy with the language-national priority is proposed. Conclusions. Extralingual factors play a decisive role in the processes of vocabulary borrowings. As a rule, a donor language is a language of the world’s to economic and political state with aggressive language policy of globalization-liberal character. Though, it does not mean that other states must adhere to this policy. On the contrary, one should reston the national principle with one’s own language priority, which, alas, taking into account the adopted laws and various educational regulations, we do not have in the Ukrainian State. Neither the language legislative environment, nor the general denationalized thought in the educational sphere work for actualization of our own language opportunities, but rather are targeted at replacement of the Ukrainian language by English or Russian. Integration into the so called globalized world with a positive outcome for our own country is only possible under condition of education on specificnationallanguagebasis.

LEXICON BORROWINGS FROM ARABIC IN SUNDANESE SPEECH LEVEL SYSTEM

Purpose of the study: This article examines a lexicon of Arabic borrowings used in the Sundanese speech level system. A lexicon of borrowed words refers to a lexicon of Arabic loanwords that are used across different speech level codes. A lexicon of borrowings consists of words from a donor language that have been adopted into a recipient language for certain purposes. Methodology: In this descriptive and qualitative research, the data were collected utilizing the observation method and recording technique. The data for this descriptive-qualitative research were collected using observing the use of words prescribed in a Sundanese dictionary namely Kamus Undak Usuk Basa Sunda (Dictionary of Sundanese Speech Level) by Tamsyah, published in 2015 and Kamus Etimologi Basa Sunda (Dictionary of Sundanese Etymology) also by Tamsyah, published in 2017. The data were analyzed by using an identical method and a lexico-semantic approach. The sources of the data were chosen as data source samples by taking into account the availability of the data required in them. Main Findings: The findings of the research study reveals that a lexicon of nineteen words borrowed from Arabic commonly used in coarse, middle, and refined codes, with coarse usage predominating. While some of these words retain a similar form to that of the original Arabic, others have transformed. The nineteen words are as follows: asal, makam, berekah, Abdi, alim, udur, hed, Kabar, hawatir, maksud, maot, mayit, lahir, saum, sabab, salat, sunatan, surat, and umur. Applications of the study: Introduction of Arabic lexicon to the Sundanese speech system occurred through a process of the loan. While some of these words retain a similar form to that of the original Arabic, others have transformed. It is a transformation that causes the words to be used in different codes in the Sundanese speech level system. Novelty/Originality of the study: In Sundanese, speech level is considered a sociolinguistic innovation. Both the written and spoken forms of the language, together with all their variations and functions, are vital amidst the daily dynamics of the Sundanese people’s life. Hence, this article discusses the use of the lexicon of Arabic borrowings across different codes of the Sundanese speech level system. The current study is novel as it’s the first study that compares the Arabic and Sundanese language and found out the words that are originated from Arabic.

Partial fusion in long-term bilingualism: The case of vernacular Kildin Saami

Objectives: Distinguishing between language mixing and language fusion is a non-trivial task, particularly in situations of long-standing bilingualism. The main goal of this paper is thus to propose and test a methodology for discerning language fusion from conventionalized mixing. In addition, we examine the hypothesis that the fusion of unbound elements evolves from alternational mixing. Design: The paper addresses the goals through a distributional analysis of a vernacular variety of Kildin Saami, a seriously endangered East Saamic (Uralic) language spoken on the Kola Peninsula in Northwest Russia, as a partially fused lect due to contact with Russian. Data and Analysis: A one-hour recording of an informal group conversation with three native speakers, comprising some 10,000 word tokens, was transcribed and annotated for Russian-origin items. For comparison, other available speech samples, documenting the earlier stages of the language development, as well as the few existing grammatical descriptions and dictionaries were referred to. Findings: The paper develops and showcases three diagnostic criteria indicative of language fusion: (a) regularization of the donor language items’ usage patterns in the mixed variety; (b) functional reduction, or functional extension, of the donor language element, and/or of its inherited native equivalent; (c) the introduction of new constructions involving the donor language grammatical elements by way of loan translation. Finally, we report multiple parallels existing between the distribution of Russian-origin items in vernacular Kildin Saami and alternational mixing. Originality: This paper is the first to propose and systematically test diagnostic criteria indicative of language fusion in a situation of long-term bilingualism. Significance: The proposed criteria may reliably be employed as indicators of fusion in future studies of contact varieties with little, or undocumented, linguistic histories. Furthermore, in contrast to the mainstream assumption, this study also provides evidence for the claim that alternational mixing can be a starting point for the emergence of a fused lect.

Una aproximación sociolingüística al préstamo en el español actual: características y variación

According to recent studies, the import of loanwords from other languages is currently one of the main mechanisms for creating new words in Spanish. Therefore, we are facing an important phenomenon which is strongly influenced by factors outside the linguistic system itself, like the speakers' perception of a particular linguistic expression, the prestige accorded to the donor language, or the tendency to make a more creative use of language depending on variables such as age and sex. For these reasons, in this study we propose to conduct a thorough characterization of the loanword from a sociolinguistic perspective that takes into account all its dimensions: origin, part of speech, topic, adaptation, geographic and chronological distribution, etc. To do so, we made use of some corpora to obtain a real set of data so that our analysis could be quantitatively and qualitatively relevant. Furthermore, we address the lexical variation caused by the incorporation of some loanwords, we study what elements can lead to the selection of one or another variant, and we also present different categories that can help us to classify both loanwords and their possible equivalents. Additionally, we provide an overview of the main contributions to the concept of loanword made by various authors throughout history.

The Incorporation of the Kiswahili Names of Cereals and Tubers in the Non-Bantu Languages in Tanzania

Abstract I articulate the mechanisms for the incorporation of Kiswahili names of the New World cereals and tubers in the Afro-asiatic, Khoisan and Nilo-Saharan languages spoken in Tanzania. The penetration of pastoral-terms from non-Bantu societies into Bantu communities is extensively documented. But research on the impact of Kiswahili on non-Bantu languages has not been given prominence except in a few studies. Thus, specific investigation of the names of cereals and tubers into non-Bantu languages is incomplete. With regard to transference of the nomenclature of the farm-related products, I show that the major donor languages in this study include Iraqw and Kiswahili. This result illuminates the fact that agro-pastoral communities (e.g. Iraqw) influence the lexicon of languages spoken by pastoralists (e.g. Datooga) and foraging communities (e.g. Hadza). I show that Kiswahili is the main agent of names of agriculture in non-Bantu communities. Moreover, I highlight that the names of crops are integrated through assignment of gender-number markers primarily in Hadza, Iraqw and Maasai. In Datooga, I show that the number suffixes dominate as the strategy to incorporate Kiswahili words in the language.

Loanword Identification in Low-Resource Languages with Minimal Supervision

Bilingual resources play a very important role in many natural language processing tasks, especially the tasks in cross-lingual scenarios. However, it is expensive and time consuming to build such resources. Lexical borrowing happens in almost every language. This inspires us to detect these loanwords effectively, and to use the “loanword (in receipt language)”-“donor word (in donor language)” to extend the bilingual resource for NLP tasks in low-resource languages. In this article, we propose a novel method to identify loanwords in Uyghur. The most important advantage of this method is that the model only relies on large amount of monolingual corpora and only a small scale of annotated data. Our loanword identification model includes two parts: loanword candidate generation and loanword prediction. In the first part, we use two large-scale monolingual corpora and a small bilingual dictionary to train a cross-lingual embedding model. Since semantic unrelated words often cannot be treated as loanword pairs, a loanword candidate list will be generated according to this model and a word list in Uyghur. In the second part, we predict from the preceding candidates based on a log-linear model that integrates several features such as pronunciation similarity, part-of-speech tags, and hybrid language modeling. To evaluate the effectiveness of our proposed method, we conduct two types of experiments: loanword identification and OOV translation. Experimental results showed that (1) our proposed method achieved significant F1 improvements compared to other models in all four loanword identification tasks in Uyghur, and (2) after extending the existing translation models with loanword identification results, OOV rates in several language pairs reduced significantly and the translation performance improved.

Новейшие контаминанты современного немецкого языка на пересечении языков и культур

The article considers a relevant word-formative tendency in the modern German youth language - contamination. The semantic analysis of modern contaminants in the German language aims to identify donor languages and the peculiarities of this type of word-formation. The findings have allowed concluding that the English language dominates among the donor languages. Special attention is paid to dialecticisms that tend to participate more actively in the word-formative process.

Судьба заимствований в русском языке (к истории слова партизан)

We analyze the semantics and usage of French borrowing of military partisan themes from the moment it entered Russian at the turn of the XVII–XVIII centuries to the present time. We give an etymological and historical analysis of the word, and consider the evolution of its semantics in Russian language due to the functional diversity of its use both in the donor language and in the recipient language. The study of lexeme history in cultural and historical terms helps to trace the development of the form and meaning of the word partisans and its derivatives, the peculiarities of its functioning as a representative of battle vocabulary sphere in Russian language. We conclude that the sememe is completely borrowed from the French language into the Russian lite-rary language in terms of its form (phonetics, grammar, peculiarities of word usage) and meaning. We indicate and analyze in detail the sources of word study in the synchronous-diachronic aspect, lexicographic, documentary-historical, and artistic-textual sources both on the material of the modern Russian literary language and in the previous periods of its development, and we identify the transformation of its semantic structure. We pay attention to the disclosure of the extensional value of the word in the text of Leo Tolstoy’s epic novel “War and Peace”, which is the most valu-able source for studying the lexical and semantic system of Russian language of the pre-Pushkin era. A number of examples from different spheres of the modern usus of Russian language show changes in the functional and stylistic coloration of the word and the acquisition of enantiosemici-ty features and other additional shades by the word. We conclude that the word partisan is adapted as an element of the battle term system of Russian language and that its use in modern conditions of conducting combat operations is inevitably fading away, turning it into historicism.

On the Earliest Slavic Borrowings in East Baltic

A survey of the phonological and accentological evidence confirms that in general the early Latvian borrowings from East Slavic belong to an older layer than the early borrowings found in Lithuanian. The differences between the Latvian and the Lithuanian sound substitutions may to a certain extent mirror variation within the East Slavic donor language. It is likely that the oldest layer must be dated before the rise of the East Baltic tonal systems.

Some examples of Croatian dialects’ influence on the lexical diversity of the contemporary linguistic idiom of Zadar among non-native elderly speakers

The synchronic linguistic situation of the urban idiom in the city of Zadar is a result of several strands of dialectal influence: Neo-Shtokavian dialect spoken in the hinterland, Chakavian ikavian (“ikavski”) idiom spoken in the coastal region of Croatia, Central Chakavian ikavian-ekavian (“ikavski-ekavski”) dialect and standard Croatian. Lisac established that the contemporary Zadar idiom consists of a mixture of two Croatian dialects, Chakavian and Shtokavian, each in turn further subdivided into Central Chakavian and South Chakavian, Bosnian-Herzegovinian and East Herzegovinian, respectively. Due to varied historical circumstances, within these dialects we find a number of loanwords, mostly Turkish in Shtokavian and Romance borrowings in the Chakavian dialect. To this end the paper uses linguistic contact theory, applied in research on dialects, and explores influence in one direction only: it explores the presence of Turkish loanwords in Croatian idiom of Zadar (in its Shtokavian dialectal component) and Romance loanwords in the Zadar idiom (in its Chakavian component) but not the influence of Croatian on either Turkish or Romance languages. Hence the recipient language is Croatian (here specifically its Zadar idiom) while the donor languages are Turkish and Romance languages, mainly Venetian Italian but also standard Italian, and in some cases we are dealing with linguistic relics of Romance Dalmatian language in Croatian. We have selected to analyse Turkish loanwords in the Shtokavian dialect and Romance loanwords in the Chakavian dialect (within the Zadar idiom) because they are the most frequent foreign borrowings in the Zadar idiom, especially Romance elements that pervade the varieties of Croatian spoken in the coastal region (they often remain on a regional level only but some have passed from Chakavian into Croatian standard).

Exotic Plural Forms of Foreign Currency Names in English, French, and Italian: Grammatical, Lexicographical, and Translation (from/into Ukrainian) Perspectives

This article analysed exotic plural forms of loanwords denoting foreign currency names in the English, French, and Italian languages, the specificities of their translation from/into Ukrainian and presentation in Ukrainian bilingual dictionaries. The findings of the research prove that there is no unequivocal approach to the use of either exotic or adapted plurals in the names of foreign currencies and coins in English, French, and Italian. The analysis of academic materials within this research allows a recommendation to consult dictionaries for correct exotic plural forms in all the three languages, recognising the appropriateness of the adaptation of borrowed plurals to the native morphological model in the French and Italian languages. In Ukrainian translations and the presentation in Ukrainian bilingual dictionaries, this approach should be preserved, with additional information provided on the donor language from which the exotic form was borrowed to ease the reader’s comprehension and choice of the plural to be used.

ЯЗЫКОВАЯ МАНИФЕСТАЦИЯ «ПЕРЕКРЕСТКА КУЛЬТУР» В НЕМЕЦКОМ МОЛОДЕЖНОМ СЛЕНГЕ

The article examines borrowings in the modern colloquial German language enriching its vocabulary as representation of linguistic and cultural contacts between ethnic communities’ representatives. The analysis of factual material obtained by continuous sampling from the dictionary “100% Jugendsprache 2019” has allowed the author to conclude that the majority of borrowings come from Russian, Turkish, Japanese and English, and the latter dominates among the donor languages.

MORPHOSYNTACTIC INTERFERENCE IN THE UDMURT-RUSSIAN BILINGUALISM

The article deals with the morphosyntactic interference in the Udmurt-Russian bilingualism, which is the result of interaction between structures and structural elements of these languages throughout centuries long contacts. On the one hand, interference increases the number of the communicative functions of Udmurt; on the other hand, it narrows the distributive properties of certain linguistic phenomena with different degrees of interference in different levels as a result of interaction and mutual influence. Like in other languages, in the Udmurt-Russian bilingualism there is more interference in lexis whereas interference in grammar (morphology and syntax) is less. The article focuses on the adaptation of the bases of notional parts of speech (verbs, nouns, adjectives, numerals) to the grammar of Udmurt and zero transmorphologization in the speech of Udmurt. In terms of syntactic interference, the following transformations are singled out: 1) minus-segmentation, i. e. the number of elements in the recipient language reduces due to the influence of corresponding models in the donor language; 2) plus-segmentation, i.e. the number of elements in the recipient language increases due to the influence of the distributive rules of the donor language; 3) replacing, i.e. the elements of the recipient language are rearranged under the influence of the rules of the donor language.

Loanword adaption in Persian: A Core-Periphery model approach

This study discusses the adaptation of loanwords in Persian from donor languages of Arabic, French and English. The main claim is that loanwords adapt to the host language phonology based on the duration of the time they have been used in that language (Kemmer 2017). Thus, I propose that Arabic loans which are borrowed earlier are more nativized than recent loans, like Russian, French and English words. Compared to the former studies (Shademan 2002; Perry 2005, 2011; among others), this is the first account that aims to show the hierarchical and gradual nativization process of loans in Persian by use of Core-Periphery model (Itô and Mester 1999). This model categorizes words from core stratum to periphery stratum based on the satisfaction of constraints in the host language as systematic comparison criteria of older loans with recent ones. In this study I show that the Persian lexicon is stratified into three strata: core, middle and periphery. This lexicon stratification reflects the gradual nativization of loanwords where the core stratum includes frequent native items, the middle stratum includes older loans (Arabic) and the periphery stratum includes recent loans (Russian, French and English). Furthermore, this paper shows that highly frequent Arabic loans satisfying all constraints have become completely nativized and thus are categorized as part of the core showing the great influence of the donor language.

GRAMATIČKI ROD I JEZIČKO POZAJMLJIVANJE: ANGLICIZMIMI ŽENSKOG RODA U ITALIJANSKOM JEZIKU

The paper deals with the problem of gender assignment of loan words from predominantly isolating languages (such as English) in languages with (partly) flexible morphology (such as Italian). The English as a donor language does not have grammatical gender, whereas in recipient language (Italian) it is obligatory. How to assign the gender to English loans in Italian if the loan word does not indicate a living being scilicet does not have the natural gender? The aim of this paper is to determine the rules for assigning feminine gender to English nouns in Italian because the nouns become feminine only on the basis of the rule (otherwise, in cases where no rule can be used, the noun would be, by default, of the masculine gender). The research is conducted on word corpus consisting of examples taken from Italian dictionaries and newspapers as well as from Google.

The Marañón-Huallaga exchange route

In this article we claim that stone classifier-based numeral systems in a number of unrelated North-western South American language families/languages such as Kawapanan, Cholón-Hibito, Munichi, and, tentatively, Quingnam emerged due to calquing or loan translation (Weinreich 1963; Epps 2006, 2013). In addition, although the donor language remains unknown, we argue for this to be a case of a poorly attested grammaticalisation path of numeral classifiers and numerals, namely STONE>CLASSIFIER, as presented in Conklin (1981), for languages such as Gorontalo, Kam-Muang, White Tai and Western Austronesian languages (Conklin 1981, 233, 234; mentioned by Aikhenvald 2000, 446). Moreover, ethnohistorical and historical evidence (Reeve 1994, 125) suggests that pre-Hispanic societies in the Marañón-Huallaga area shared a salt-stone-based trading system, henceforth SBT. This is remarkable, since other adjacent language families, such as Quechua and Chicham, do not show such a pattern for the formation of their own numerals. We claim, tentatively, that these common trade networks may be the sociohistorical motivation for the diffusion of this calquing pattern in the area.