The causality of borrowing: Lexical loans in Eurasian languages

Abstract

All languages borrow words from other languages. Some languages are more prone to borrowing, while others borrow less, and different domains of the vocabulary are unequally susceptible to borrowing. Languages typically borrow words when a new concept is introduced, but languages may also borrow a new word for an already existing concept. Linguists describe two causalities for borrowing: need, i.e., the internal pressure of borrowing a new term for a concept in the language, and prestige, i.e., the external pressure of borrowing a term from a more prestigious language. We investigate lexical loans in a dataset of 104 concepts in 115 Eurasian languages from 7 families occupying a coherent contact area of the Eurasian landmass, of which Indo-European languages from various periods constitute a majority. We use a cognacy-coded dataset, which identifies loan events including a source and a target language. To avoid loans for newly introduced concepts in languages, we use a list of lexical concepts that have been in use at least since the Chalcolithic (4000–3000 BCE). We observe that the rates of borrowing are highly variable among concepts, lexical domains, languages, language families, and time periods. We compare our results to those of a global sample and observe that our rates are generally lower, but that the rates between the samples are significantly correlated. To test the causality of borrowing, we use two different ranks. Firstly, to test need, we use a cultural ranking of concepts by their mobility (of nature items) or their labour intensity and “distance-from-hearth” (of culture items). Secondly, to test prestige, we use a power ranking of languages by their socio-cultural status. We conclude that the borrowability of concepts increases with increasing mobility (nature), and with increased labour intensity and “distance-from-hearth” (culture). We also conclude that language prestige is not correlated with borrowability in general (all languages borrow, independently of prestige), but prestige predicts the directionality of borrowing, from a more prestigious language to a less prestigious one. The process is not constant over time, with a larger inequality during the ancient and modern periods, but this result may depend on the status of the data (non-prestigious languages often remain unattested). In conclusion, we observe that need and prestige compete as causes of lexical borrowing.

Egyptian words in the Late Bronze Age Levant

“…This means that, while each of these realities is unique, it is reasonable to assume that similar sociolinguistic realities will result in similar sets of borrowed words (in fact, this is what current cross-linguistic research showssee e.g. HASPELMATH;TADMOR, 2009;CARLING et al, 2019). As a consequence, we can also assume that if we study the nature and distribution of borrowed words attested in a given language, then we might be able to infer information about the sociolinguistic reality underlying their borrowing.…”

Lexical Phylogenetics of the Tupí-Guaraní Family: Language, Archaeology, and the Problem of Chronology

“…The list of concepts used is provided in Appendix A, along with the corresponding Concepticon cognate set ids and glosses [84] when available. The choice of concepts relied on the following criteria: concepts from the Swadesh [85] and Leipzig-Jakarta [86] lists, the Swadesh list extended by [87], and culturally relevant TG concepts taken from [88] and expanded by the authors. The concept coverage for each language is given in Table 3.…”

Linking norms, ratings, and relations of words and concepts across multiple language varieties

“…Since linguists study diverse languages from a synchronic as well as a diachronic perspective, linguistic data offers different dimensions of word and concept properties. Data from linguistics include rankings of concepts regarding linguistic constructs such as stability (the robustness of the connection between a word and word meaning over time, e.g., Petroni & Serva 2010;Dellert & Buch 2018), borrowability (the likelihood that a word is transferred or borrowed from one language to another, e.g., Carling et al, 2019;Vejdemo and Hörberg, 2016), or polysemy (the degree to which a word expresses multiple concepts, e.g., List et al, 2018;Rzymski et al 2020). The relation between words and concepts are usually derived from the comparison of multiple languages, whereas psychological norms and ratings are collected for one particular language.…”