Cultural hybridity: Multisourced neologization in 'reinvented' languages and in languages with 'phono-logographic' script

This paper analyses an important but hitherto neglected method of borrowing between languages. It introduces the term ‘phono-semantic matching’ (henceforth PSM) to describe the technique whereby a foreignism is reproduced in the target language, using pre-existing native elements that are similar to the foreignism both in meaning and in sound, and it traces its occurrence in two key language groups: () ‘reinvented’ languages, in which language-planners attempt to replace undesirable loanwords e.g., Israeli (a.k.a. ‘Revived Hebrew’ or ‘Modern Hebrew’) and Revolutionized Turkish; and () languages using a “phono-logographic” script e.g., Chinese and Japanese (to the extent that kanji are used). Such multisourced neologization is an ideal means of lexical enrichment because it conceals foreign influence from the future native speakers, ensuring lexicographic acceptability of the coinage, recycles obsolete autochthonous roots and words (a delight for purists) and aids initial learning among contemporary learners and speakers. Linguists have not systematically studied such camouflaged hybridity. Traditional classifications of borrowing ignore it altogether, and categorize borrowing into either substitution or importation. However, as this paper demonstrates, PSM is a distinct phenomenon, which operates through simultaneous substitution and importation. Its recognition carries important implications not only for lexicology and comparative historical linguistics, but also for sociolinguistics and cultural studies. Website © 2009 Ingenta

The wolf in sheep's clothing: Camouflaged borrowing in Modern German

This article addresses a phenomenon of language contact that has not received much attention in mainstream contact linguistics, namely borrowing via a mechanism Zuckermann (2003) calls MULTISOURCED NEOLOGISATION. Multisourced neologisation is a subtype of Zuckermann's larger class of CAMOUFLAGED BORROWING, and constitutes a special form of calquing in which the calque is phonetically similar to the source language material: It has much in common with folk etymology and is sometimes identified with it, but there are good theoretical reasons to keep the two phenomena apart. Though German is well known for its calquing ability, the application of this special type of calquing has gone virtually unnoticed in the literature as well as in the ongoing public debate over the excessive influx of loanwords. This paper shows that multisourced neologisation is not uncommon in the integration of elements borrowed from English into German, and argues that factors favouring its use include lexical and structural congruities between both languages as well as the relatively high transparency of English to the average speaker of German. Thus, though German does not belong to the protypical language groups using multisourced neologisation that are described by Zuckermann (2003), special circumstances prompt the application of this and other methods of camouflaged borrowing

Sleeping beauties awake : towards the establishment of revival linguistics

"An Author event presented by The Friends of the University of Adelaide Library, 17 May 2012, Ira Raymond Room, Barr Smith Library." Recorded at the University of Adelaide, 17 May 2012.Features two songs in Welsh performed by Siobhan Owen.Ghil’ad Zuckerman