Lexical borrowing from
modern European languages
Sources
include OED analysis by former students JRS and ZP—thanks!
Fields?
see Millward and the encyclopedia
articles by Jurcic, Schwarz, and Ward for generalizations
§
French
includes arts, fashion, food
§
Italian
includes trade, architecture, the arts (musical terms esp.)
§
Spanish/Portuguese
often the medium for “many of our terms for the exotic products and life-forms
found in the Far East and the New World”
Today:
use some specific examples to illustrate general
concepts
Remember
requirements for borrowing
§
some
bilingualism
§
projected
gain (linguistic/objective or social/subjective)
Let’s
look at hors d’œuvres
§
not
thoroughly adapted to English spelling! I had to use the ‘symbol’ chart to get
the <oe> ligature
§
italicized
in all OED quotations: still felt to be foreign?
o marked with || as not naturalized
(do you agree, though?)
o certainly hard to spell for
many anglophones
Origin:
French phrase meaning ‘outside (the) work’
First
came in with a meaning closer to this ‘[something] out of the ordinary course
of things’
§
adverb:
Addison’s Spectator 1714 “The Frenzy of one who is given up for a
Lunatick, is a French hors d’œuvre, something which is singular in its
kind”
o notice that it’s glossed
(for his wannabe audience?)
§
noun:
Walpole, letter (1783): “This is a hors d’œuvre, nor do I know a word of
news”
But
that meaning has been superseded by the specific meaning we’re now familiar
with: “an item of food served as a relish to whet the appetite”
§
between
the courses of a meal or before it as an appetizer (c19th)
§
instead
of a meal: at a cocktail reception, etc.
OED
quotations imply pretension (and the second one perhaps anticipates inevitable
pejoration? need to see context)
1742 POPE Dunc. IV. 317 He..Try'd all hors-d'
uvres,
all liqueurs defin'd, Judicious drank, and greatly-daring din'd.
1771 SMOLLETT Humph. Cl. 8 Aug., I have seen turnips
make their appearance, not as a dessert, but by way of hors d'uvres,
or whets.
1898 Pall Mall Mag. Jan. 85 The more unpalatable is an
hors d'uvre
[to him], the more fashionable is the dinner which it precedes.
More elevated
than whet “something that whets the appetite; chiefly, light refreshment
taken as an appetizer or to stave off hunger till the next meal”
1769 MRS. RAFFALD Engl.
Housekpr. (1778) 139 To make a nice Whet before Dinner. Cut some slices of
bread.., fry them in butter, [etc.].
1852 W. JERDAN Autobiogr. I. xxiii. 189 He..swallowed
his two dozen of green oysters as a whet, and proceeded to dine.
But
whet mostly denoted an appetizer in the form of a small draught of
liquor; a dram, a drink (cf. wet).”
1688 SHADWELL Sqr. Alsatia II. 23 Let's
whett; bring some Wine. Come on; I love a Whett.
1741 RICHARDSON Pamela (1785) III. 360 They whipt
out two Bottles of Champaigne instantly, for a Whet, as they called it.
-interesting
that “sarvant” Pamela isn’t familiar with the concept: can we infer therefore
that whet isn’t a ‘low’ word?
Integration:
figurative use
fig. 1877 L. W. M. LOCKHART Mine is
Thine xiii, Art and literature were for him the hors d'uvres
of life.
Let’s
look at connoisseur
§
from
French (now spelled connaisseur)
§
ultimately
from Latin cognoscitor-em (from cognoscere): “one who knows a
subject thoroughly”
Cognate
with cognoscente (sg.), cognoscenti (pl.)
§
“a
discerning expert”, “one who knows a subject thoroughly; a connoisseur; chiefly
in reference to the fine arts”
o 1778: “The cognoscenti allow
that Ireland is a school of music”
o 1862: “Turner neglected by
the rich cognoscenti of the day”
Seems
to have come in with two senses
§
original
“somebody well versed in a subject” (OED obs.)
o a1734: “no ordinary
connoisseur in the sciences”
§
specialized:
“an expert judge in matters of taste”, “a person knowledgeable in one of the
fine arts and competent to judge”
o 1719: “Two Discourses on the
Art of Criticism, as it relates to Painting and the Sciences of a Connoisseur”
§
why
not use critic or judge?
·
prestige
of French
·
association
of France with art, neoclassicism
Its
users’ knowledge of French made it easy to integrate?
§
early
uses not glossed
§
spelling
difficult but not too variable
o a few errors? connoissuers
(1796, in a quotation extending it from art to cider)
§
interesting
that the error is in this example!
o can we infer from the
relative accuracy of the spelling that its users tend to know their written
French?
Has
generalized from art to “other matters of taste”
§
cider
(1796), (1834) “Merton was a connoisseur in ladies’ dress”
§
anything
connoting “refinement, culture”... (from web)
o cannabis, Low-carb connoisseur,
cigars, wines
o cars, Caribbean islands, cruises,
koi, sundials, Web connoisseur
Occasionally
used as a verb (more current in early 19th century?)
§
a1821:
‘a connoisseuring look’
§
a1828:
‘connoisseured out of his senses’
Lexercise: let’s look at sherry
What
language is it from? (Spanish)
What’s
the etymon? (Xeres) How was it pronounced in the c16th ?
(/š/)
Semantic
field: it’s a specific kind of white wine
§
sack
“a general name
for a class of white wines formerly imported from Spain and the Canaries”
§
sherris = sherris sacke originally “the still white wine made near
Xeres”
1597 SHAKES. 2 Hen.
IV (Qo. 1600) IV. iii. 104 A good sherris sacke hath a two fold operation
in it.
1597 SHAKES. 2 Hen.
IV, IV. iii. 111 The second propertie of your excellent Sherris,
is, the warming of the Blood:..the Sherris warmes it, and makes it course from
the inwards, to the parts extremes.
-can we infer that sherris and sherris sacke are interchangeable for this speaker?
Do
these early examples show ‘adoption’ (pronunciation)? ‘adaptation’ (spelling)?
How was the word subsequently adapted? (back-formed singular sherry from reanalysis of sherris as plural)
1608 MIDDLETON Mad World v. H1, Some Shirry for my
Lords players there
What
were the C17th spellings? sherry, shirry, shery, sherree
§
more
oral borrowing (no attempt to replicate Spanish place name)
§
variation
also reflects state of English spelling, e.g.
o double consonants <r>
/ <rr>
o final <-y> /
<-ee> / <-ie>
Motive:
need or prestige?
§
commercial
need: distinguish particular product or class of sack
§
prestige
of foreign name (source of superior product)
1614 B. JONSON Barth. Fair V. iv, Cok.
Sack? you said but e'en now it should be Sherry. Pvp. Io. Why so it is;
sherry, sherry, sherry.
Process
of nativization
§
immediately
compounded with sack
§
used figuratively
(once)
fig. 1619 Pasquils
Palinodia title-p., A pleasant pynte of Poeticall Sherry.
§
more
recently, generalized to denote fortified wines similar to those of
Xeres
o made in Spain
o made elsewhere (usually
signified with a prefixed word,i.e. Cape Sherry)
o . 1967 Times
1 Aug. 6/5 ‘Sherry’ means a wine coming from the Jerez district of Spain. The
Court, giving judgment,..decided that it would be unjust now to restrain Vine
Products Ltd...from using the expressions ‘British sherry’, ‘English sherry’,
‘Cyprus sherry’, ‘South African sherry’, and ‘Australian sherry’, used for
certain wines in England.
-cf. champagne vs sparkling white wine,
cognac vs. brandy
Rendezvous is from French, ultimately
from the imperative plural meaning ‘present or betake yourselves’
It
entered English in the 1590s
·
as
a military term, denoting a place appointed for assembling troops (or
ships)
o
1591 Our army was marched, within a myle of Roan, where the
rendevous was appointed
o
1732 It was highly necessary to have a place of arms, a place of
defence, and a rendezvous
·
but
also in more general use denoting a place for meeting
o
1594 A tauerne is the Randeuous, the Exchange, the staple for
good fellows
o 1613 The bed
is the best Rendevou of mankind
o 1711 Steele Spectator
The Coffee-house is the Place of Rendezvous to all that live near it
·
‘a meeting held by arrangement’ (i.e.
not just the place)
[Dead-end
meaning of ‘place of retreat or refuge’ (not for meeting)
· 1596 A
Randeuous, a Home to flye vnto]
Semantic
subtleties
·
newer
(but historical) specialized sense: “pre-arranged meeting and docking of two or
more spacecraft
o
1959 “Many proposed space missions will require achieving
rendezvous of two bodies in an orbit about a planet”
·
military
origins of space program?
·
technological
challenge: positive focus on meetings?
·
researchers’
involvement: personification of spacecraft
Wildly
varying spellings
·
oral
borrowing
·
general
borrowing
o ignorance of French and its
morphology
§
rende(z),vou(s)
·
challenge
of representing the nasal vowel (Ran-, Ren-)
Foreign
affixes: a case study of –eer (engineer, volunteer)
You
can borrow
§
words
§
affixes:
-eer is a case study of one mildly productive one
Suffix
–eer an Anglicization of French –ier (itself from Latin
–iarius > -ary)
·
forms
nouns from other nouns
·
sense
“person concerned with or engaged in”
o except for a few words like gazetteer
and muffineer “device for putting sugar on muffins”
First
found in loanwords from French in the C16th
·
interchangeable
with –ier: muletier/muleteer (and tons of other forms: -er,
-our...)
·
though
charioteer and engineer come in earlier (ME engineour) and
get assimilated to –ier, -eer
In
C17th, -eer and –ier become distinct: brigadier, grenadier,
gondolier
And
–eer starts to be productive within English
·
privateer “armed vessel (and its commander) owned and officered by private
individuals holding a government commission and authorized for war service”
·
though
mostly with Romance forms
Many
early examples have military connotations: cannoneer, volunteer
Extends
to non-physical forms of combat: pulpiteer, pamphleteer
o derogatory context
o ironic hyperbole?
And
can be derogatory without denoting combat : waistcoateer ‘prostitute’, profiteer
But
some words are neither derogatory nor agonistic: auctioneer, mountaineer
Tends
to occur with –ing (and occasionally to be backformed from these forms)
·
engineering, pamphleteering
·
parliamenteering, revolutioneering (OED has no entry for revolutioneer)