Re: vocabulary borrowing

On Sat, 26 Jun 1999, J.Barefoot wrote:

<...>
>
> In a further attempt to jazz up the vocab, I'm playing with a non-related
> language spoken in the same area that A. can borrow words from. The speakers
> have extensive, peaceful trading contact (except maybe for disputes over
> fishing rights). What semantic domains are most likely to be borrowed
> between them?
>
Depending on which one of the two cultures is dominant, numerals could go
from the dominant culture to the other - that happens fairly often and
fairly quickly. Of course anything which one culture buys from the other
will often have the words borrowed, too. Some political institutions -
especially if they don't differ much, then the words might pass from
one language to the other. Animal names, personal names, some technical
domains. In fact, anything from where the two cultures have contact!

Denden has borrowed extensively from Matraian in the religious and
political domain, for instance, because the Charyans took over the
Matraian political and religious institutions over entirely. The
Old Charyan poetical language has many words from Matraian too, since
the Eastern poetical tradition has been deeply influenced by Matraian
court poetry.

Boudewijn Rempt  | http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt