bayard - 09 May 2008 03:36 AM

This poses the question as to when a word stops being a loan word and becomes “English”. Are there agreed criteria?

Good point! If we decide to split hairs, practically all language can be traced to hypothetical proto-languages!

The plot really thickens when we consider reverse loan words, for example, the word “boutique” is used in modern Greek, and is recognized by most as a non-Greek word. I only recently realized that it is derived from “αποθήκη” (apotheke)!

Since there is no organization that officially defines what is an English word, there are no authoritative criteria. But the following conditions indicate that the word has become assimilated:

--The term is used without including the definition
--The term is used without quotation marks or italics
--The term is used with English grammatical inflections
--The term is used to form other English words, through compounding, affixes, etc.

For example, the word mensch, from Yiddish and ultimately from German, usually appears in English without definition, quotes, or italics. You say “we’re all mensches here,” not “menschen.” I don’t know of any English words formed from it. But based on three out of four, I’d say it’s an “English word” now.

It is not uncommon for words to be loaned, altered, and then loaned back to the original language. A good English example is anime, which was originally the English animation, borrowed into Japanese and altered, and then returned to English with the sense of the particular style of animation that is popular in Japan.

Qualification: I’d say that mensh has become an American English word now. I don’t think anyone British feels it’s a naturalised part of their language, and I would be surprised to see it written without italics over here.

Pavlos - 09 May 2008 10:13 AM

the word “boutique” is used in modern Greek, and is recognized by most as a non-Greek word. I only recently realized that it is derived from “αποθήκη” (apotheke)!

I recall the first time I went to Greece, painfully transliterating a shop sign, ‘M-P-O-Y-T-H-K’, and being both amused and disappointed to realise what it represented (I was expecting something exotic).

Sang-froid, I suggest, has overtones that are not found in English equivalents.

There is a linguistic urban myth - Pavlos may be able to confirm or deny its truth - that when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, people in Greece were initially very confused by the reported destruction, since “atomic bomb” translates literally into Greek, so it is claimed, as “individual bomb”, the expression used for hand-grenade.

Zythophile - 12 May 2008 10:26 AM

There is a linguistic urban myth - Pavlos may be able to confirm or deny its truth - that when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, people in Greece were initially very confused by the reported destruction, since “atomic bomb” translates literally into Greek, so it is claimed, as “individual bomb”, the expression used for hand-grenade.

I have hot heard of this, but it is quite plausible, since “atomic” (ατομικό) generally implies “personal/individual” in Greek.

Although the expression “atomic bomb” is commonplace in Greece today, nuclear (πυρηνική) bomb is more widely used.