Book contents
- The Secret History of Language
- The Secret History of Language
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Notes on the Text
- 1Language History
- 2What’s in a Word?
- 3You Get My Drift?
- 4Language Mooching
- 5Sound Change
- 6How Do Languages Clean Up Their Act?
- 7Can Languages Change Their Grammatical Spots?
- 8All in the Family
- 9Writing and the Magic of Writing Systems
- 10Thereby Hangs a Tale
- 11Is Linguistic Armageddon Nigh?
- Appendix:Language Families of the World (Including Language Isolates)
- Glossary
- References
- Index
4 - Language Mooching
Loanwords and Borrowing
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2026
Book contents
- The Secret History of Language
- The Secret History of Language
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Notes on the Text
- 1Language History
- 2What’s in a Word?
- 3You Get My Drift?
- 4Language Mooching
- 5Sound Change
- 6How Do Languages Clean Up Their Act?
- 7Can Languages Change Their Grammatical Spots?
- 8All in the Family
- 9Writing and the Magic of Writing Systems
- 10Thereby Hangs a Tale
- 11Is Linguistic Armageddon Nigh?
- Appendix:Language Families of the World (Including Language Isolates)
- Glossary
- References
- Index
Summary
This chapter is dedicated to borrowed words. Its mission is to explain how and why languages borrow words from other languages and how loanwords are dealt with. It is organized around the loans in English from particular languages, presented in such a way that the contents of the loanwords dealt with reveal the stories of the language contacts that led to the borrowings.
Keywords
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Secret History of LanguageLanguage Change Unraveled, pp. 49 - 73Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
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