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The causality of borrowing: Lexical loans in Eurasian languages
Gerd Carling1, Sandra Cronhamn1, Robert Farren1
1Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
Plos One
|October 31, 2019
Summary
Languages borrow words due to internal need and external prestige, with concepts like mobility and labor intensity influencing borrowability. Language prestige affects borrowing direction but not overall borrowing rates.
Area of Science:
- Linguistics
- Historical Linguistics
- Sociolinguistics
Background:
- Languages exhibit varying susceptibility to lexical borrowing.
- Borrowing can occur for new concepts or existing concepts under 'need' or 'prestige' pressures.
- Understanding lexical loan patterns is crucial for tracing language evolution and contact.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the causes of lexical borrowing in Eurasian languages.
- To determine the influence of concept characteristics (need) and language status (prestige) on borrowing.
- To analyze borrowing patterns across different concepts, domains, languages, and time periods.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a cognacy-coded dataset of 104 concepts in 115 Eurasian languages.
- Focused on lexical concepts existing since the Chalcolithic (4000-3000 BCE) to exclude recent innovations.
- Employed cultural rankings for 'need' (mobility, labor intensity) and power rankings for 'prestige'.
Main Results:
- Borrowing rates varied significantly across concepts, domains, languages, families, and time periods.
- Concept borrowability increased with mobility (nature) and labor intensity/distance-from-hearth (culture).
- Language prestige did not correlate with general borrowability but predicted borrowing directionality.
Conclusions:
- Both need and prestige act as competing drivers of lexical borrowing.
- The influence of prestige on borrowing directionality is evident, particularly from more to less prestigious languages.
- Borrowing dynamics show temporal variations, potentially influenced by data availability for less prestigious languages.
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