A lexical borrowing occurs when speakers of one language use words from another language.
These words may be the same or slightly modified, but the meaning is usually the same or very similar. For example: parking(from the English “parking”).
Even within a single language, there are specialized lexicons, for example within the jargon of certain professions . Words used within a discipline can be popularized and taken to mean something different from the one that originally gave them meaning. For example,depressionIt’s a mental illness with very specific characteristics and is a word originating in the psychiatric field. However, we can say that a party is depressing if there’s no music or that a movie is depressing, without referring to the illness itself, but rather to the meaning we give it outside of the psychiatric context. This is also called lexical borrowing. However, the term is primarily used for words borrowed from other languages, i.e., foreign words .
It may be useful to you:
- Xenisms
- Localisms (from different countries)
- Lexical Families
Types of lexical loans
Lexical loans can be:
- Unadapted foreign words.Words are taken without any change in spelling and with a pronunciation similar to the original (depending on the speaker’s practice). For example:marketing.
- Adapted foreign words. These wordsare adapted to the usual form of a word in the local language. This occurs primarily in verb conjugation. For example:park(from “parking”)
- Semantic calques.Expressions are copied from another language and translated literally. For example:Iron Curtain(translated from “iron courtain”)
Examples of lexical borrowings
- To park(adapted foreign word). It comes from the English word “park,” which, in addition to “park,” means to park.
- Chalet(adapted foreign word). From the French “chalet,” it refers to family homes that have an adjacent or surrounding garden, but no internal courtyard.
- Eau de parfum(an unadapted foreign word). This French word is used to describe perfumes from any country of origin, and also to differentiate it from “eau de toilette,” which refers to a less intense perfume that lasts less time on the skin.
- Hardware(a foreign word not adapted): These are the physical (material) parts of a computer or any other computer system.
- Holding(unadapted foreign word). “Hold” in English means to hold, to have, or to preserve. The word holding is used in Spanish (and many other languages) to refer to commercial companies that manage the properties of other companies.
- Happy hour(semantic translation). Literal translation of “happy hour.” It refers to a period of the day when a business offers special prices, primarily used for bars that offer significant discounts on their drinks.
- Stalking(adapted foreignism). The English word “stalk” (which means to follow or harass) has been modified to respond to the form of infinitives in Spanish
- Iron Curtain(semantic translation). It’s the translation of “Iron Curtain.” It refers to a political and ideological barrier. It was an expression used during the Cold War, when most of the world was divided between capitalist and communist countries.
