1

1. Introduction

Borrowing is one of the most important sources of new words which happens
when one language takes a word or morpheme from another language and adds it
to its lexicon besides its own words. We find that all languages use this linguistic
phenomenon, so the words of each language can be divided into native and
nonnative words (often called loan words). A native word is one whose history (or
etymology) can be traced back to the earliest known stages of the language.
(Fromkin and Rodman, 1993: 332).
Needless to say that borrowing is a very common linguistic phenomenon and that
no language is completely free of borrowed forms. The term loan word
according to Theodora Bynon (1977) is a loan translation of German lehn-wort.
English has borrowed from so many languages to the extent that we cant say
anything without using at least one borrowed word. In fact the majority of words in
the vocabulary of English have been taken from other languages by borrowing.
Modern borrowings can be noticed easily, such as the word kibbutz which was
borrowed from Hebrew, while words borrowed long ago are often hard to be
distinguished from native English words. One example is the word cheese, which
was borrowed from Latin about 1600 years ago (Falk, 1973: 44).
It is somewhat misleading to call this borrowing, since we cannot return the
borrowed words. In fact, probably the original intent of the first borrower of a
word of another language is to use it just for the occasion, when speaking with
persons who know the source language. But when a word is so borrowed, and
when other hear the borrowing and find it useful, they repeat it. If this word comes
to be repeated and used by other people, it becomes familiar in the borrowing
language unless the word is phonologically or orthographically odd in the
borrowing language, subsequent users often wont notice that the word is borrowed
from another language (Hudson, 2000: 246).
Borrowing is a way of expanding our vocabulary. English is one of most
borrowing languages due to its speakers who aggressively borrow words from
other languages (Akmajian, 2001: 27). Borrowed words or Loan words are
2

especially in evidence as a language becomes international in its usage, because it
comes into increasing contact with other languages, and exchanges words with
them. We can notice that easily when we look at the vocabulary of English, as a
global language, which have been hugely increased during the 20
th
century for that
reason (Crystal, 2005: 225).
Langacker (1967: 181) assumes that it is easier to borrow an existing word from
another language than to make one up. Whenever two languages come into contact
one or both may be modified. In face-to-face communication, one of the
participants may imitate some features of the others speech. If the languages they
speak are very similar, borrowing is hard to occur, since neither speaker is apt to
use any form unknown to other. If the two languages are so different that the
speakers cannot understand each other, we dont expect borrowing to occur too.
Between the two extremes we find the situation in which borrowing is more
probable to occur (Hockett, 1958: 403).

2. Conditions for borrowing
1- The speaker of the borrowing language must understand, or think he
understands, the particular utterance in the language which contains the
model.

2- The speaker of the borrowing language must have some motives, overt or
covert, for the borrowing.

3. Direct and indirect borrowing
A language may borrow a word directly or indirectly. A direct borrowing means
that the borrowed item is a native word in the language from which it is borrowed.
For example feast was borrowed directly from French and can be traced back to
Latin festum. On the other hand, the word algebra was borrowed from Spanish,
which in turn, had borrowed it from Arabic. Thus algebra was indirectly
borrowed from Arabic, with Spanish as an intermediary (Fromkin and Rodman,
1993: 332).
3

English word omelet is an example for direct borrowing because it has been
taken over from French (French: omelet) directly, without any major phonological
or orthographical changes (Katamba, 1994; 191).
In contrast to that, indirect borrowing takes place when a certain word is passed on
from the source language to another (as a direct borrowing), and then from that
language is handed over to another and from this one maybe even to another. This
process may go hand in hand with the development that the word, each time it is
passed on from one language to another, is nativized phonologically and
orthographically to make it fit to the phonological/ orthographical system of the
recipient language (Katamba, 1994; 192). The Turkish word kahveh has been
passed on to Arabic as kahwa, from there the Dutch borrowed it as koffie and
finally it was taken over by the English in the form coffee (Katamba, 1994: 191).
In this context, Katamba reminds us that there is a danger of misunderstandings or
alternations in the meaning, the more indirect a term is borrowed. In English there
exists the term howitzer (light gun). It entered the language from Dutch and
they had borrowed it from the Czech original houfnice which means catapult
(Katamba, 1994; 192).

4. Kinds of Loans
Whenever one of the motives plays a part, it does not happen always that the
borrower imports the whole word used by the donor. Hocket (1957: 408) mentions
three distinct things may happen, giving rise respectively to the following types of
borrowing:

4. 1. Loanwords: in which the borrower may adopt the donors word along with
the object or practice. The acquisition of a loanword constitutes or entails a
semantic change. When words are borrowed as a whole, that is, both sound and
meaning are adopted in the borrowing language. This type of borrowing is called
morphemic importation without substitution or changing (borrowing by adoption).
Words like email, cholesterol and hotel are borrowed into many different
languages with both the meaning and form. Interestingly so, brand names of
4

popular consumer products and food items are also commonly borrowed Band-
Aid, McDonald's, tacos, sushi, lasagna, croissant, etc.

It is certain that the most easily borrowed words are those referring to technology
e.g. computer, engine, etc. and names for new artifacts and other cultural items
telephone. Usually basic vocabulary e.g. (eat, sleep, moon, rain, do,
have, be, etc.) and function words essential in syntax e.g. (the definite article
the, or conjunctions like and, or, if etc.) are not so easily borrowed.

4. 2. Loanshift: is a special kind of borrowing which is also known as loan
translation or calque in which a word is not borrowed whole, but its parts are
translated separately and a new word formed. Such a loanshift is the German word
ubermensch which has been translated into English as superman (Crystal,
2006: 225). Moreover, the term loanword itself is a loan translation from the
German lehnwort (Katamba, 1994: 19).

Hocket (1958:411) remarks that a loanshift happens when a new idiom arises
under the impact of another linguistic system, in which the borrower may not
accept the donors words along with the new cultural item. But he may somehow
adapt material that exists in his own language and the precise adaptation may be in
one way or another patterned on the donors verbal behavior.

4. 3. Loanblends: A loan blend is a new idiom developed in the borrowing
situation, in which both the loanword and the loanshift processes are involved: the
borrower takes part of the model and replaces part of it by something already in his
own language (Hocket, 1958:413).
For example, American immigrant Portuguese borrows English word boarder as
bordo: the stem: bord-, is imported from English, but the suffix er is replaced
by the structurally and semantically comparable Portuguese elemnt o.

Sometimes it is hard to decide whether a hybrid word is the result of loanblending
at the time of borrowing or a later coinage of native and well-assimilated foreign
elements. Nevertheless, we have words that there is a documented evidence to be a
loanblend such as the English word chaise lounge, where the first word of the
French model chaise longue which means (long upholstered chair of a certain
5

kind) is imported, but the second part is mistranslated so as to make sense (Hocket,
1958: 413).

5. Motives for borrowing
The following are the main motives for borrowing:
5. 1. The Need-Filling Motive: the clearest reason for borrowing is to fill a gap in
the borrowing language. As when English sailors borrowed the Chinese word
typhoon when they didnt find such a word in English that describe the violent
storm they faced in the sea. Words such as (tea, coffee, tobacco, sugar,
cocoa, chocolate, tomato) have spread all over the world in recent times,
along with the objects to which they refer (Hocket, 1970: 405).
Katamba remarks in this context that there is no purely linguistic reason for
borrowing. According to him no limit exists to the number of words that can be
generated in any language (Katamba, 1994; 195). But still, whenever the need for a
new term arises, due to the contact between people from different cultures, the
formation of a neologism, composed of elements of the own language, is only
rarely done. One reason for borrowing a suitable word from another language is
the need to find a term for an unfamiliar thing, animal, or cultural device. Then
borrowing seems to be the easiest solution to this problem.
- Geographical reason could be also an urgent necessity for borrowing when two
people move away from each other, their language will diverge. The two groups
will have different experiences, and at the very least their vocabulary will change.
Similarly, when people come into contact with each other, their language will be
combined. The sounds, grammar, and vocabulary of one group will affect the other
group. Especially in the current days, where the increased mobility of people
within and between countries represents a major factor of borrowing (Crystal,
2005: 361). Geographical neighborhood also provides necessities and natural
convenience for language borrowing as in the case of the long history of frequent
and large-scale borrowing between English and French.
6

- Cultural development also entails borrowing when new objects, ideas,
experience, and practices are continually being created. This will help in bringing
new words into a language (Hocket, 1958: 405).
- Intercommunication is a very important motive for borrowing whereby speakers
of one language are in linguistic contact with speakers of another language.
Intercommunication is a necessary, if not always sufficient, condition for
borrowing. Intercommunicating was widely used among mono-lingual English
inhabitants and the bilingual members of the ruling and merchant classes (Falk,
1973: 46). Interactions like trade and art exchange, international trade, studying
abroad, working overseas and so on surly all contribute to borrowing between
languages.
- Speakers (often consciously) may adopt the new word when speaking in the
borrowing language, because it most exactly fits the idea they are trying to express
or to enrich their language and expand their choices of lexical and stylistic
features.
- Political activities including social reforms, national policy and diplomacy
directly affect language borrowing. For example, Taika Reform and The Meiji
Restoration in J apan opened the door for the country and brought about peaks of
Chinese and English borrowings.
Steady and powerful politics is normally accompanied with prosperity of economy
and great urge for trading and exchanging with other nations. This evidently lays
foundations for language borrowing as in the case with China which has
experienced flourishing economy and advanced level of productivity in ancient
times.
- Military conquest and colonization is another important factor influencing
language borrowing. The history of English best illustrates this, where English
itself was brought into Britain by Anglo-Saxons, the invaders, in the fifth century.
- Religious activities are also a promoting factor for language borrowing. For
instance, old English absorbed a considerable amount of Roman and Greek
loanwords when receiving Christianity. The same is applied to Arabic which has
7

spread over many Islamic countries, since it has The Holly Quran written in its
language.
5. 2. Social prestige: people emulate those whom they admire, in speech pattern as
well as in other respects. Katamba notes here that people have always liked to
show off (Katamba, 1994:194).
The prestige motive is always works in dialect borrowing; it becomes important in
language borrowing only under special conditions. When speakers of two different
languages live intermingled in a single region (often by invasion and conquest,
more rarely by peaceful migration), it is usually that the lower language will be
affected by the language that is spoken by those in power which is the upper or
dominant language. The prestige factor leads to extensive borrowing from the
upper language into the lower (Hocket, 1958: 404).
Sometimes the motive is somewhat different: the imitator does not necessarily
admire those whom he imitates, but wishes to be identified with them and thus be
treated as they are. It is just as Bloomfield (1933) has put it, in all case; it is the
lower language which borrows predominantly from the upper. Obviously, the
lower language here refers to the culturally lower language.
- Code-switching also plays an important role in borrowing. If a word is habitually
used in code-switching, it perhaps might pass over from one language to the other
and then eventually even become fully integrated. In such a way for example the
Yiddish word schmaltz (banal sentimentality) has been introduced to English
(Katamba, 1994: 196). Thus the person who uses code-switching may want to
make other people know that he masters tow languages as a matter of prestige.
Actually prestige has a history in being a motive for borrowing even since the
Anglo-Saxon and Norman ancestry, where one who used French words, might
hope to be identified with the upper classes. At that time, servants were using
words used by the French people in order to make a better impression on their
masters. Even the farmer, when he brought his vegetables to the market, he may
have been obliged to use a few words of French in order to sell his goods (Falk,
1973: 46).

8


6. English history in loanwords
As we know, some languages borrow words extensively more than others,
depending on their history, and on their desire for whatever the words are about.
English has borrowed throughout its history lots of words from Latin, Danish,
French, American Indian, and other languages. To the degree that it is estimated
that over 75% of the words of most English texts were borrowed since 500 AD
(Hudson, 2000: 248 following William 1975).
6. 1. From Latin: Religious words are the most important ones that were borrowed
from Latin to English. Latin words including monk, school, martyr, creed,
ounce, purse, and mass date from these times (Williams 1975, p. 57 as quoted
in Hudson, 2000: 249), and the high number of religious vocabulary among these
words is evidence of the nature of greatest Roman influence. Inhabited since
prehistory by speakers of Celtic languages including Irish, Scots Gaelic, and
Welsh, Britain was invaded by West Germanic tribes, including the Angles and
Saxons, from about 450 ad, whose Anglo-Saxon dialects evolved into Old English.
Some of the earliest written records of Old English were religious texts. This is
because missionaries tried to spread the instructions of the Anglo-Saxon (Falk,
1973: 44).
6. 2. From Danish: As soon as the Anglo-Saxons were settled in their new
land, another wave of Germanic tribes, from Denmark, invaded, and occupied
much of eastern Britain.
The Danish Vikings, who spoke a Germanic language quite similar to Old English,
continued to use a large number of words from their native language over four
centuries. As a result of that some of these words entered into the Old English
spoken by the Anglo-Saxons in the rest of Britain (Falk, 1973: 45). Danish words
which survive in English from that time are sky, sister, thing, egg, and
both (Hudson, 2000:248).
6. 3. From French: As a result of the victory of Norman French at the battle of
Hastings in 1066, French influence became inevitable. In the next hundred years
French became the second language of cultured Britons, and French loanwords
9

from this period especially reflect the influence of the Normans in political and
economic affairs: duke, rent, market, cost, labor, calendar, pay, etc
(Hudson, 2000: 248). We find that one of the important kinds of words borrowed
from French are the food words, such as veal, beef, and pork (Falk, 1973: 45).
6. 4. From Latin and Greek: During the Middle Ages and the Renaissances
(10th to 16th centuries), we find that European languages including English
borrowed from Latin and Greek without any restrictions, since these were the
languages of educated people, so it is good to borrow from them since they are full
of vocabulary fo philosophical discourse and scientific discoveries of the period.
From this era we have words like necessary, legal, popular, solar, gravity,
telescope, and history (Hudson, 2000: 248).
6. 5. From Native American languages: In America, speakers of English
encountered a New World of places, plants, and animals, and most of these names
which Native American peoples had given them are; Michigan, Illinois
Chicago, and Texas; maize, tobacco, and tomato; moose, caribou,
cougar, and skunk. This kind of borrowings certainly show the strange
combination of new form and new meaning (Hudson, 2000: 248).

7. Borrowing Scale
Sarah Grey Thomason in her (language contact, 2001: 70) mentioned that a
number of scholars have proposed borrowing scales to predict which types of
borrowed elements that can be expected to appear in increasingly intense contact
situations. This scale is fairly typical.
Using intensity of contact as our measuring stick, we find that only
non-basic vocabulary gets borrowed under conditions of casual
contact; as the intensity increases, the kinds of borrowed features
increase according to relative case of borrowing from a linguistic per-
spective, until finally all aspects of a language's structure are
susceptible to borrowing. (Thomason, 2001: 71)
Intensity of contact is a vague concept, and we may not be able to make it more
precise because it is related with speakers' attitudes as well as with the level of
10

fluency of the borrowers and the number of borrowing-language speakers who are
fully bilingual in the source language. It is not necessary for the speaker to be
fluent in a language in order to borrow a few of its words, but it is necessary to
control the structure of the source language before he borrows structural features.
So nonbasic vocabulary items are the easiest to borrow, since in most languages a
new noun (for instance), or even a verb, can be inserted readily into existing
constructions. Inversely, at the end of the scale, inflectional morphology is the
hardest part to borrow, because its component parts fit into a whole that is
(relatively) small, self-contained, and highly organized (Ibid).
7. 1. Casual contact: borrowers in this stage need not be fluent in the source
language, and it demands few bilinguals among borrowing-language
speakers. Only nonbasic vocabularies are borrowed: content words (most
often nouns, but also verbs, adjectives, and adverbs).
7.2. Slightly more intense contact: Borrowers in this stage must be
reasonably fluent bilinguals, but they are probably a minority among
borrowing-language speakers. Function words and slight structural are
borrowed (e.g. conjunctions and adverbial particles like then) as well as
content words; still nonbasic vocabulary. Only minor structural borrowing at
this stage, with no introduction of features that would alter the types of
structures found in the borrowing language.
7. 3. More intense contact: More bilinguals, attitudes and other social
factors favoring borrowing. In this stage basic as well as nonbasic vocabulary
are borrowed, with moderate structural borrowing. The kinds of words that
tend to be present in all languages may also be borrowed at this stage,
including such closed-class items as pronouns and as well as nouns, verbs
and adjectives: derivational affixes numerals as well as nouns and verbs and
adjectives; derivational affixes may be borrowed too (e.g. -able/ -ible which
originally entered English on French loanwords and then spread from there to
native English vocabulary).
Borrowed inflectional affixes and categories may be added to native words,
especially if they fit well typologically with previously existing patterns.
11

7. 4. Intense contact: This requires very extensive bilingualism among borrowing-
language speakers. In this stage heavy structural features (phonological,
morphological, and syntactic features) are borrowed such as inflectional affixes,
categories, prosodic and syllable structure features such as stress rules are all
borrowed.

8. Nativization


Nativization is changing the pronunciation of borrowed words so they conform to
the pronunciation rules of the borrowing language. A notable example of
Nativization is the Hawaiian phrase melikalikimaki for Merry Christmas, which
results from the fact that Hawaiian lacks [r] and [s], for which it substitutes its
nearest equivalents [l] and [k], respectively; it has no consonant sequences such as
[kr] and [sm], for which it substitutes [kal] and [kim], and it has no word-final [s],
for which it substitutes [ki] (Hudson, 2000: 247).

Generally, it has to be remarked that the borrowing of a word into another
language is always a gradual process which takes quite some time (quoted in
Hussey, 1995; 34). This gradual might even lead to the result that foreign words
which are borrowed become nativised, in the case of English then anglicised.
Thus, they then become indistinguishable from native English terms (Katamba,
1994; 199) or as J espersen has put it so nicely, with a quotation full of Norse loan
words which a native speaker of English would not detect as foreign elements: An
Englishman cannot thrive or die or be ill without Scandinavian words; they are to
the language what bread and eggs are to the daily fare [italics my emphasis]
(quoted in Geipel, 1971: 69).

When a language borrows a word, as English borrowed cheese from Latin about
1600 years ago, the new word is come to fit the sound system of the language
which receives this borrowing. Thus the word for cheese was caseus in Latin,
but in the English spoken sound at that time it was borrowed, the word became
cese (the letter c represented a k sound in both Latin and Old English).
Thereafter this word was subject to the same sound changes as native words when
12

the sound spelled c became that spelled ch in English to be cheese (Falk,
1973: 43).

English acquisition of the word wiener involved no lexical change, since the
language already had a morpheme represented by the shape /wijn/ and several
morphemes represented by suffixed /-r/. On the other hand, our acquisition of the
word allegro /legrow/ entailed a shape change of the type just described
(Hocket, 1958: 408).

When a word is taken over into another language, its semantic structure as a rule
also undergoes great changes. For example, polysemous words are usually adopted
in one or two of their meanings. Thus, the word timber that has a number of
meanings in French was borrowed into English as a musical term only. The words
cargo and cask, highly polysemous in Spanish were adopted only in one of their
meanings the goods carried in a ship and a barrel for holding liquids
respectively.

Borrowed forms are subject to grammatical patterns of the borrowing language,
such as pluralization, tense formation, and compositional rules. Sometimes the
borrowing language will adopt the full construction that is foreign to native
formation. This adoption occurs as Dineen remarks (1967: 289) most commonly in
the borrowing of foreign suffixes.

It is unlikely that the borrowed item will lead to any disturbance in the patterns of
the borrowing language. Sounds will be assimilated in the case there is some
similarity in the borrowing sound system that makes them acceptable, although this
may introduce a new phonemic distinction (Ibid: 235).





13

9. How borrowing contributes to language change
Borrowing is presumably the most important mechanism by which a language to
change during adult life. But if such a single act of borrowing were not followed or
accompanied by others, it could lead to no measurable results in the later history of
the language as a whole.
The future of the language is not affected unless others imitate the borrower. So
that the newly imported word passes into more or less general usage and
transmitted to subsequent generation (Hocket, 1958: 403).
In most languages, the vast majority of new words are in fact borrowings from
other languages. Some languages have borrowed so extensively that native words
are in a minority. English is a very clear example of this where it has borrowed
words from over 350 other languages and less than a quarter of its word-stock
actually reflects its Germanic origins. English as Crystal (2006: 224) describes has
always been a vacuum-cleaner of a language
Sometimes we find a language that influences another in a large extent that
subsequent people and even scholars cannot decide which of the two had borrowed
from the other (Hocket, 1958: 419).
Thus, borrowed words may sometimes entail changing in the phonological and
morphological systems of the borrowing language.
9. 1. Phonological and phonetic change: Dineen (1967: 289) remarks that if a
person who introduces a foreign word into his language has a good knowledge of
the phonetics of the foreign language, he may pronounce it in a manner that
corresponds to that language in a way that is not required by his native
phonological system which. This will be a reason for changing the phonological
system of the borrowing language to adopt the borrowed word but this is not
always true of all people who adopt the expression, and in the event that they
would follow the foreign pattern, it is possible for the phonology of the borrowing
language to change.
The first few members of a community to use a word from another language may
imitate the pronunciation of the model accurately (Hocket, 1958: 410).
14

An example of the phonological change are the French words like rouge,
garage, mirage which probably end more commonly in English with /j/ than
with / /.
It is clear that a great flood of loanwords from some single source can have some
influence in phonetic system. The well known example is the influence of Norman
French on English: it was through this influence that English acquired initial /v, z,
j/ and consequently the phonemic contrast between /v/ and /f/, /z/ and /s/ (Hocket,
1958: 410).
9. 2. Morphological change: If several words of the same type are borrowed over
a period of time, their original form structure may become apparent. As in the
words (propose, repose, depose, progress, regress, protect, detect, receive, and
deceive) where there is a problem in Modern English as to whether each of these
words consists of a single form or whether each contains a derivational prefix (pro,
re, or de) and a bound root (pose, gress, tect, or ceive) this problem has come about
because all of these words were borrowed in the Middle English period from
French, which in turn had received them from Latin. In Latin, each word did in fact
consist of a prefix and a root but when they entered into English as a single form
(Falk, 1973: 47).
Sometimes the set of borrowed word may actually be great enough in number to
lead to new rules of word formation, although such rules may be only partially
productive, as in the case of prefix re which entered English in borrowed words.
Other productive prefixes borrowed into English are non (as in nonacademic,
nonconformist, nonmetallic, and nonstop), pre (as in precensor,
predispose, pretrial, and prewar), and anti (as in antibacterial, anti-
intellectual, anti-trust, and antivivisectionist).

10. Borrowing between Arabic and English
A glance at Taylors book Arabic words in English (1933) in which he states:
there are about a thousand words of Arabic origin in English, and many thousand
derivatives from those word shows that the word cable, the anglicized form of
the Arabic word habl means rope, which was incorporated into English
15

according to Oxford English Dictionary in 1205, has been taken back in its new
form and its technical term.
The English word algorithm which is an antonomasia deriving from the Arabic

al-Khwarizmi the founder of that branch of science, is used nowadays in Arabic

as lugritma:t. This shows an ignorance of the etymology of the word on the part
of the Arab linguists, especially that an etymological dictionary of the Arabic
language is yet to be compiled. Arabic has also got back the Anglicized form of the
Arabic sakk means cheque, adopted in 1706 so that nowadays it is commonly
used as /aik/.
A large proportion of the Arabic words in English pertain to the realm of science:
zero, cipher, zenith, alchemy, algebra, nadir, alcohol, bismuth and alkali. These
borrowings, writes Langackcr (1967: 181), attest to Arabic influence in science and
mathematics during the early medieval period. This same view is held by Sapir
(1921: 194) who writes: "There are just five languages that have had an
overwhelming significance as carriers of culture. They are classical Chinese,
Sanskirt, Arabic, Greek and Latin.
English is often regarded as a language that has borrowed heavily from other
languages. Some statistics show that seventy-five percent of the English lexicon is
of foreign origin. Arabic on the other hand, has flooded the vocabularies of Persian
and Turkish for centuries, but has, in contrast, received little in return. Arabic
words in Persian are estimated at fifty percent of its lexicon. In his attempt to
explain this phenomenon Sapir

(1921: 195) writes: it seems very probable that the
psychological attitude of the borrowing language itself towards linguistic material
has much to do with its receptivity to foreign words. While Langacker (1976:
180) remarks: The reason why languages differ in this regard are no doubt more
historical and cultural than linguistic.
While some languages impose morphological restrictions on the forms of words,
several others do not. Arabic, for instance, permits no more than five consonantal
phonemes in a word, e.g. zabardad, chrysolite, zumurrud, safardal,
quince, etc., but English tolerates words like antidisestablishmentarianism,
transubstantiationalism and honorificabilitudinitatibus. It is worth noting that
(Lisa.n al-'arab) contains some 187 quinqueliteral roots only. Thus, Weinreich
16

(1964: 61) remarks that: A language with many restrictions on the forms of words
may be proportionately more resistant to outright transfer and favor semantic
extension and loan-translation instead.
In his book entitled The Foreign Vocabulary of the Quran (1938), Arthur J effery
unconvincingly gives an enormous list of so-called foreign vocabulary comprising
(324) words, some of them are listed below:
Abraham
Azar (the father of Abraham)
Couches
Silk brocade
A barrier or partition
Name of Fountain in paradise
Myriads

Among these words are the names of Prophets and places that occur in the Holly
Quran and which are recognized as foreign by al-J awaliqi who states that all
prophets names except Adam, Saleh, Shuaib, and Muhammed are foreign.
The question of whether the Holly Quran contains foreign vocabulary or not has
been one of the most controversial issues.
Sulaiman Abu Ghoush (1977: 18) claims that English has 10,000 loan-words of
Arabic origin; but no date as to when these words were first cited in English is
given. Furthermore, some exaggerators, like Mazhar (1967) trace English back to
Arabic. The present researcher, however, tends to disagree with the above
mentioned views because it represent an extreme view and Abu Ghoushs study
lacks sufficient scientific evidence.
Despite the fact that Arabic and English are said to be genetically unrelated since
they belong to Semitic and Indo-European groups respectively, any one could cite
thousands of Arabic and English words bearing formal and semantic
correspondences to each other.

17

The following list of Arabic words that are borrowed into English is only given as
a sample example:

jasmine
Cave
0Tcotton0T
0Tlemon0T
0Tadmiral0T
0Tapricot0T
0Tcamphor0T
0Tguitar0T

Arabic in turn has borrowed a lot of English words especially words of technology,
food and fashion (computer , fax , telephone , modem , mall
, supermarket , bank , crepe , pullover , T-shirt
etc.).
Katamba writes that at various periods in world history different civilizations have
been pre-eminent in one field or another (like for example sciences, trade, military,
and medicine). According to him, the normal course of development was then that
the language of this civilization became the lingua franca for that specific field
during the period of their pre-eminence (Katamba, 1994; 195). In the Middle Ages
the Arabic world was advanced in many sciences and thus, a lot of words have
been passed on during this time to other languages and also to English. Some of
the best known examples are alchemy, alcohol, and algebra. Many of those
Arabic terms have not been borrowed directly into English, but were gradually
passed on to English from other languages. English often acquired them from
French, which took them over from Spanish and Spanish finally had borrowed
them directly from Arabic (Katamba, 1994; 196).

18

11. Conclusions

Throughout what we have read, we can conclude that it is hardly possible for a
language to stop borrowing. Since all languages need to coin new words to fill the
gaps in it to proceed with the development of the world, and especially the
development of internet and mass media which became the meeting place for all
people around the world. As this development in technology has made the contact
through the internet so easy, this represents a big potentiality that borrowing is
going to increase among languages through all over the world.
Borrowing is always probably preferable as we have seen to borrow a word is
easier than to coin a new form in the native language. It could be a quick process to
fill the need or to show ability of switching between languages, or to pretend a
higher position for the speaker.
Languages are dynamic and thus changing constantly. Language borrowings are
evidence of such a change. So it is hard for a language, especially those languages
that have global usage or those of developed countries, to avoid borrowing from
other languages they are in contact with them.
Thus, we have tackled borrowing within the field of linguistics although borrowing
is studied by psychologists, anthropologists according to their visions of the
influence borrowing has on society. Nevertheless, borrowing is still an essential
linguistic phenomenon that will never end.



19

12. References

1- Akmajian, Adrian and etal. An Introduction to Language and Communication.
Hong Kong: Massachussete Institute of Technology, 2001.
2- Bynon, Theodrora. Historical Linguistics. London: C.U.P., 1977.
3- Crystal, David. How Language Works. London: Penguin Group, 2006.
4- Dinneen, Francis P. An Introduction to General Linguistics. London: Holt,
Rinehart & Winston, 1967.
5- Falk, Julia S. Linguistics and Language, A Survey of Basic Concepts and
Applications. Lexington, Massachusette/ Toronto: Xerox Corporation, 1973.
6- Fromkin, Victoria and Robert Rodman. An introduction to Language. New York:
Holt, Rinchart and Winston, inc., 1993.
7- Geipel, J. The Viking legacy. England: David Charles, Newton Abbott, 1971.
8- Hockett, Charles F. A Course In Modern Linguistics. New York: The Mackmillan,
1958.
9- Hudson, Grover. Essential Introductory Linguistics. Malden, Massachussets:
Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2000.
10- Katamba, Francis. English Words. London: Routledge, 1994.
11- Langacker,R.W. Language and its Structure. New York: Harcourt Brace,
Jovanovich, Inc., 1967.
12- Sapir, E. Language, An Introduction to The Study of Speech. New York:
Harcourt Brace and World Inc., 1921.
13- Hussey, Stanley. The English Language: Structure and Development. London,
Addison Wesley Longman: 1995.
20

14- Taylor, W. Arabic Words in English. London: Clarendon, 1933.
15- Thomas, Sarah Grey. Language Contact. Edinburgh University Press, 2001.
16- Weinreich, U. Language in Contact: Finding and Problems. : The Hague,
Mouton, 1964.
17- , :) , . 1977 (
18- Internet Websites