Loanwords from other sources

English has borrowed a few words from West African languages, mostly via Portuguese and Spanish, e. g. banana and yam, which first appeared towards the end of the 16th century. Likewise, voodoo, with its variant hoodoo, which came in through American English, is of African origin. Gorilla is apparently African in origin. More recent borrowings from this source include: okro, chimpanzee, gnu, safari, zebra.

Most of the borrowings have been made in modern times. Sable, however, came into English in Middle English times, via French from Slavic languages; polka came via French in the 19^th century from Czech. Mammoth was borrowed in the 18^th century directly from Russian. Other more recent borrowings from Russian have not become completely naturalized: bolshevik, czar, glasnost, intelligentsia (ultimately from Latin), perestroika, tundra, vodka. From Hungarian, English has borrowed directly goulash and paprika; while coach came via French from Hungarian kosci. Turkish words in English include: fez, shish, kebab.

From Native American languages have come: moccasin, toboggan, tomahawk, skunk. And many American places have their origin in these languages, e. g. Chicago, Michigan, Saratoga, Tallahassie.

28.The problem of distinguishing set expressions from compound words has not been solved yet. There are several criteria to make the difference seem obvious, though they are not applicable in all cases.

Graphic criterion. Unlike set expressions (higher school) compound words are usually written either as a single word or with a hyphen (waterproof, air-line). However, there are a lot of examples when a compound may have several graphic variants: loud speaker, loudspeaker, loud-speaker.

Phonetic criterion. Unlike set phrases, most compounds are characterised by unity stress on the first word (‘blackboard). Although we know the types with double stress and level stress (‘arm-‘chair).

Another distinguishing criterion may be found in morphological integrity of compounds. Thus, all compound nouns form the plural with the suffix -s: forget-me-nots незабудки, good-for-nothings бездельники.

To sum up all said about the problem, we should point out that none of the criteria is absolute and the issue remains disputable.

34 Sources of most recent loans

English still borrows, and is likely to continue borrowing from other languages in the world. However, borrowing in recent times is characterized by two main factors: the frequency of borrowing is considerably reduced; and English seems to be spreading its tentacles to reach and borrow from less and less known languages. A study by Garland Cannon (1987) of more than a thousand recent loanwords from 84 languages shows that “about 25% are from French, 8 % each from Japanese and Spanish, 7 % each from Italian and Latin, 6 % each from African languages, German and Greek, 4 % each from Russian and Yiddish, 3 % from Chinese, and progressively smaller percentages from Arabic, Portuguese, Hindi, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Afrikaans, Malayo-Polynesian, Vietnamese, Amerindian languages, Swedish, Bengali, Danish, Indonesian, Korean, Persian, Irish, Norwegian, and 30 other languages.”

French is still the largest supplier of words to English, which may be because of the geographical proximity of France and Britain. We would, therefore, expect more French words to enter via British English than American. Similarly, Spanish loanwords are often borrowed from African Spanish into American English. The increase in the importance of Japanese as a source of loans is probably a consequence of the increased commercial importance of Japan in the world generally. The decline of Latin as a source of loanwords may have a dual explanation: on the one hand, it may be argued that English has already borrowed so much of Latin vocabulary that there is relatively little left to be borrowed; on the other hand, rather than borrowing directly from Latin, English now often makes new Latinate words from English morphemes originally from Latin.