3.6. German and Dutch loans

From the Middle Ages on, various kinds of contacts have existed between the Dutch and the British. In these contacts English borrowed from Dutch and a lot of nautical terms, as the Dutch were eminent in this field. Among these are: bowline, bowsprit, buoy, commodore, cruise, deck, keel, leak, reef, skipper, smuggle, yacht. The Dutch and Flemish were also famous for their cloth making and associated commercial activities. Together with cloth they exported the words dealing with this domain: cambric, duck, jacket, nap, spool. Other commercial terms include: dollar, groat, guilder, and mart.

Loanwords also came into English through contacts between American and Dutch settlers, who lived close to each other sharing the territory and the languages. The diversity of contacts accounts for the wide range of loanword: boodle, boss, cookie, cranberry, dope, lowery, Santa Clause (Sante Klaas, ‘Saint Nicholas’), spook, waffle.

Another region of contacts was in South Africa, were South African Dutch (Afrikaans) was spoken. From this language English has borrowed a few lexical items, among them are: apartheid, commandeer, commando, outspan, spoor, trek, veld.

The contacts between English and High German were not so beneficial. Words have been borrowed in specialist fields such as geology and mineralogy: cobalt, feldspar, gneiss, nickel, quarts, seltzer, zinc. Some food and drink terms include: delicatessen, frankfurter, noodle, schnapps. German borrowings could be easily identified in English by their phonetic form, e.g.: blitz, ersatz, Gestalt, hinterland, leitmotiv, rucksack, umlaut, waltz, Weltanschauung. They also preserve morphological, and graphical features of the original language and are non-assimilated.

3.7. Spanish, Portuguese and Italian borrowings in English

Apart from Latin and French English has borrowed from other Romance languages such as Spanish, Portuguese and Italian. Many Spanish words have come into English from three primary sources: many of them entered American English in the days of Mexican and Spanish cowboys working in what is now the U.S. Southwest. Words of Caribbean origin entered English by the way of trade. The third major source is the names of foods which had no English equivalent as the intermingling of cultures has expanded Spanish diet as well as Spanish vocabulary. Many of the words changed their meaning upon entering English, often by adopting a narrower meaning than in the original language.

Spanish and Portuguese borrowings could be arranged into the following groups:

1) Food and cookery terms: apricot, avocado, banana (word originally of African origin, entered English vie either Spanish or Portuguese), barbecue (from barbacoa, a word of Caribbean origin), tomato, vanilla.

2) Military and political terms: armada, conquistador, comrade, embargo, guerilla, junta.

3) Nature phenomena: El Niňo, hurricane, savanna, tornado.

4) Trade and business terms: cargo, embargo, bonanza, El Dorado

5) Names of dances and musical instruments: tango, rumba, habanera, guitar.

A good mixture of English and Spanish can be observed in Spanglish (a blend of English + Spanish) – a variety of English heavily influenced by Spanish, commonly spoken in US Hispanic communities and the British communities in Argentina. For example, a fluent bilingual speaker addressing another, like bilingual speaker, might indulge in code switching (a linguistic term denoting the concurrent use of more than one language, or language variety in conversation) with some words, changing them into English, as in the sentence: ‘I’m afraid I can’t report at the meeting next week porque tengo una obligación de negocious en Chicago, pero espero que I’ll do it a week after’.

The influence of Italian on English is mostly lexical and has continued over many centuries. Since m medieval times, Italian has had a strong influence on French, as a result of which many borrowings into English have had a distinctly Gallic aspect, as with battalion (16 c: from battalion, from battaglione), caprice (17 c: from caprice, from capriccio, the skip of a goat, a sudden sharp movement), frigate (16 c: from frigate, from fregata), picturesque (17 c: from pittoresque, from pittoresco, with assimilation to picture). Direct borrowings fall into four broad categories:

1) Terms from the old pan-European tradition of using Italian to discuss and describe music: e.g.: adagio, alto, andante,basso, bel canto, cello, coloratura, concerto, contralto, crescendo, diminuendo, divertimento, duet, fortissimo, libretto, pianoforte, pizzicato, scherzo, solo, sonata, violine.

2) Comparable literary, architectural, artistic, and cultural terms, such as canto, conversazione, cupola, extravaganza, fresco, novella, palazzo, stanza, tarantella.

3) Internationalized culinary terms, such as lasagne, minestrone, mozzarella, pasta, pizza, ravioli, spaghetti, vermicelli.

4) A variety of social words, including alfresco, bimbo, bravo, confetti, dilettante, fascist, fiasco, gazette, ghetto, gigolo, graffiti, incognito, mafia, regatta.

Some loans have adapted spelling, such as macaroni (from Italian maccherony). In addition, some words have moved to a greater or less extent from their original area of application to a wider use, as with crescendo, piano, solo.