7. International words

Borrowing of some words is not limited to one language. Often a word is borrowed by several languages at once, and begins spreading all over the world. Words of identical origin that occur in several languages as a result of borrowing from one ultimate source are called international words.

International words play a prominent part in scientific vocabulary, terms of art, culture, sports, politics, computer technologies, and some other spheres.

Many names of sciences of Greek and Latin origin are international words: zoology, algebra, chemistry, physics, philosophy, linguistics, etc.

Terms of art are also of Greek or Latin origin: drama, comedy, tragedy, music, artist, etc.

Terms of music come from Italian: opera, duet, soprano, etc.

Many sports terms come from English: match, hockey, tennis, football, basket-ball, etc.

Some international words that come from English denote clothing: pullover, sweater, nylon, tweed, jersey, etc.

Fruits and foodstuffs imported from exotic countries have also become a source of international vocabulary: grapefruit, banana, mango, cocoa, coffee, chocolate, etc.

Finally, some political terms belonging to the stock of international words must be mentioned: democracy, politics, progress, revolution, communism, capitalism, etc.

8. Translation loans

Translation loans are borrowings of a special kind. They should be differentiated from direct borrowings. Direct borrowings appear in the receiving language in more or less the same phonemic shape which they have in the language from which they are taken. In case of translation loans we deal only with compound words.

A translation loan is a morpheme-by-morpheme translation, i.e. a compound word is translated stem by stem, so that we render its meaning using corresponding morphemes of the same meaning in the receiving language. This difference between direct borrowings and translation loans becomes clear when we compare examples of words borrowed twice: first directly and later – in the form of translation loans.

Thus, the Russian word колхоз gave a direct borrowing in English kolkhoz and a translation loan collective farm. A German word Blitzkrieg was borrowed directly in the same phonemic shape and a translation loan lightning war.

A few other examples from German: Wunderkind → wonder child, Meisterstück → masterpiece, Lautsprecher → loudspeaker, etc.

9. Etymological doublets

Etymological doublets are two or more words of the same language which come from the same etymological source but differ in phonemic shape and meaning.

Some of the doublets represent pairs of native and borrowed words, for example: native and Scandinavian shirt – skirt, shabby – scabby, shriek – screech.

In the following pairs both the words are borrowings: canal (L) – channel (F), captain (L) – chieftain (F).

Others were borrowed from the same language but in different periods: corpse (Norman French) – corps (Parisian French), cavalry (Norman French) – chivalry (Parisian French).

Still others may consist only of native words. They belong to different Old English dialects: whole – hale, to drag – to draw.

One more source of doublets is borrowing two different grammatical forms of the same word. Thus, the word superior comes from the comparative degree of the Latin word super, and the word supreme is the superlative degree of the same word.

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