2.3.4 Spanish Loanwords

English has taken words from Spanish as well. “Spanish words or Spanish transmissions came from the New World” (Pyles & Algeo, 1993, p. 300); they include such words as alligator, anchovy, armada, armadillo, avocado, barbecue, bolero, cannibal, cargo, castanet, chocolate, cigar, cocoa, cockroach, cork, corral, domino, embargo, flotilla, galleon, guitar, junta, maize, mescal, mantilla, mosquito, mulatto, negro, palmetto, peccadillo, plaza, potato, sherry, sombrero, tango, tomato, tornado, tortilla, vanilla, and others.

2.3.5 Borrowings from Italian

From another Romance language, Italian, English has acquired musical terms, such as duo, fugue, madrigal, violin, viola, allegro, largo, opera, piano, presto, recitative, solo, sonata, adagio, aria, cantata, concerto, contralto, staccato, tempo, and trio. Other loan words from Italian include artichoke, balcony, balloon, bandit, bravo, broccoli, cameo, canto, carnival, casino, dilettante, firm, fresco, lasagna, lava, macaroni, malaria, pizza, replica, scope, stanza, studio, umbrella, vendetta, and volcano.

2.3.6 Loans from Dutch and German

Dutch and German also contributed some words. The following Dutch words penetrated English: buoy, cruise, deck, skipper, and yacht. Much of the vernacular of geology and mineralogy is of German origin, for instance, cobalt, gneiss, lawine, loess, nickel, quartz, and zinc. Other words taken from German include hamburger, frankfurter, noodle, wienerwurst, and schnitzel. The vernacular of drinking includes lager, bock, and schnapps. Seminar and semester are ultimately Latin, but they entered American English by way of German.

2.3.7 Borrowings from Slavic, Hungarian, and Turkish

Very minor sources of the English vocabulary are Slavic, Hungarian, and Turkish. The Slavic sable penetrated English through French. Astrakhan and mammoth are directly from Russian. Later, English assimilated such Russian words as kopeck, muzhik, ruble, steppe, tundra, troika, vodka, and sputnik. Goulash and paprika came from Hungarian. Turkish borrowings include khan, horde, and tulip. Tulip received its name from turban(d). It is believed to have looked like Turkish headgear (Pyles, 1964, pp.339-351; The Living Webster, 1977).

3. Classification of Borrowings according to the Degree of Assimilation

Loan lexemes are also classified according to the degree of their adaptation. Irina Arnold uses the term assimilation for this process “to denote a partial or total conformation to the phonetical, graphical, and morphological standards of the receiving language and its semantic system” (1986, p.255). She identifies the following three groups of loan words: completely-assimilated loans, partly- assimilated loans, and non-assimilated loans, which she terms barbarisms. She believes that most of the borrowed words, which penetrated the English language in earlier times of the history, underwent changes and became completely-assimilated loans. A good example is the French word sport and the native word start. Without consulting an etymological dictionary, one would assume they are of native origin. According to Albert Baugh and Thomas Cable (1993, p.219), the adaptation of some loan words occurred by the simple process of cutting off the Latin ending, e.g., conjectural (L. conjectural-is), consult (L. consul-are), exclusion (L. exclusion-em), and exotic (L. exotic-us). Thus the Latin ending –us in adjectives was changed to –ous ((L. conspicus>conspicuous) or was replaced by –al as in external (L. externus>external). Latin nouns ending in –tas were changed in English to –ty (brevitas>brevity).

The second group containing the partly assimilated loan lexemes can be divided into several subgroups:

1. Loan words partly assimilated semantically because they denote objects and notions peculiar to a particular country from which they come. They may denote foreign clothing: sari, sombrero; foreign titles and professions: shah, rajah, sheikh, toreador; food and drinks: pilaf (Persian) and sherbet (Arabian).

2. Loan words partly assimilated grammatically, e.g., nouns borrowed from Latin or Greek retain their original plural forms: bacillus – bacilli, crisis – crises, and formula – formulae.

3. Loan words partly assimilated phonetically, e.g., machine, cartoon, police, bourgeois, confetti, incognito, macaroni, opera, sonata, tomato, and potato.

4. Loan words partly assimilated graphically: e.g., in Greek borrowings y appears in the middle of the word (symbol, synonym), ph is pronounced as [f] (phoneme, morpheme), ch is pronounced as [k] (chemistry, chaos), ps is pronounced as [s] (psychology).

The third group of borrowings comprises the so-called barbarisms, i.e. words used by English speaking people in conversation or in writing, but these words retained their original forms, e.g., adios, ad libitum, tкte-a-tкte, and vis-а-vis.