27.2129, Review: Historical Ling; Lexicography: Durkin (2015)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-27-2129. Mon May 09 2016. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 27.2129, Review: Historical Ling; Lexicography: Durkin (2015)

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Date: Mon, 09 May 2016 13:33:20
From: Jessie Sams [samsj at sfasu.edu]
Subject: Borrowed Words

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/26/26-1922.html

AUTHOR: Philip  Durkin
TITLE: Borrowed Words
SUBTITLE: A History of Loanwords in English
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
YEAR: 2015

REVIEWER: Jessie Sams, Stephen F. Austin State University

Reviews Editor: Robert Arthur Cote

SUMMARY

Philip Durkin’s goal throughout his book entitled “Borrowed words: A history
of loanwords in English”  is to demonstrate to the reader that investigating
the history of any loanword in English is a complex pursuit that involves
understanding both the linguistic and external (non-linguistic) histories of
English. He writes for an advanced audience who is familiar with linguistics
and, more specifically, to those who have at least a basic background in
historical linguistics. This is demonstrated through the extensive use of
footnotes to guide the reader to even more in-depth research, incorporation of
empirical data, and dearth of family trees or maps that might aid the reader
in understanding more of English’s external history. In the first chapter,
Durkin addresses the specific goal he has for his reader: “the reader who
perseveres should have a much more informed understanding of some of the
assumptions, hypotheses, and uncertainties that underlie the sometimes rather
bland statements made about how many words English has borrowed from other
languages” (14). 

The book is broken into six parts. The first two parts provide introductory
information to terms used, data sources, and the pre-history of English, while
the final four parts focus on the periods with the most extensive borrowing in
English’s history. Parts III-VI offer the reader brief introductions, and
Parts III-V have short concluding sections. After the lists of references and
general index, the book provides a word index so that readers can more easily
find the pages where specific loanwords are discussed.

Part I is comprised of two chapters, which introduce the reader to the
concepts and empirical data used throughout the rest of the book. Chapter 1,
“Introducing concepts,” focuses on terms used, typical processes for how words
are borrowed, and differences in the types of loanwords (e.g., core vocabulary
versus vocabulary specific to a field). Chapter 2, “Introducing the data,”
turns the focus to the empirical data and the main sources from which that
data was collected, including the third edition of the ‘Oxford English
Dictionary’ (which is, as of yet, incomplete), frequency lists from corpora,
and lists of basic or core vocabulary across languages. Durkin also justifies
his strong focus on Latin and French in his analyses by providing quantitative
data to demonstrate the unparalleled influence both Latin and French have had
on English’s vocabulary.

Part II has three chapters and provides the reader with information on early
contact with other languages in continental Europe and Britain; in other
words, it focuses on the “pre-English” stages of English. Chapter 3,
“Historical and cultural background to c.1150,” primarily focuses on the
external history of English prior to 1150, as well as the differences between
loanwords and semantic borrowings. Chapter 4, “Very early borrowings into
Germanic,” discusses early borrowings from continental Europe with a focus on
comparative reconstruction as the evidence for these borrowings, as very
little (if any) written records exist from that timeframe, while Chapter 5,
“Old English in contact with Celtic,” focuses on Celtic contact and the “major
incident of non-borrowing” from Celtic languages, which leads to “the sobering
conclusion that this is largely a result of the relatively low esteem in which
speakers of Celtic languages have generally been held by speakers of English
over many centuries” (425).

The three chapters of Part III open with a discussion of Latin contact with
Old English, both on the continent (Proto-OE) and in Britain, followed by more
thorough examinations of the data to better isolate the types of loanwords
that scholars can be most confident about. Chapter 6, “An overview of Latin
loanwords in Old English,” provides evidence for early and late borrowings
from Latin, providing semantic, phonological, and comparative criteria to best
distinguish between those early and late borrowings. In this chapter, the
reader is introduced to the first of many extensive word lists found
throughout the book. Chapter 7, “Interrogating the data from Chapter 6,”
examines the difficulties of relying on written data to determine if a word is
truly borrowed or is an instance of a “single-word code switch” (124) from
English to Latin and also compares loanwords in terms of word frequencies and
distributions (based on ‘The Dictionary of Old English’). Chapter 8,
“Methodologies,” then provides more extensive information about how to apply
the semantic and phonological criteria from Chapter 6, bringing into the
discussion complications that arise from the potential for Latin words to be
borrowed through another Germanic language and not directly from Latin itself.
It also returns to the issue of semantic borrowing, which “was a much more
common process in Old English than borrowing of loanwords” (162). The data
presented throughout Part III demonstrate to the reader “that little is
inevitable in borrowing and there can be very different outcomes from very
similar contact situations” (167).

Part IV has two chapters and changes the focus to the influence of
Scandinavian on English. Chapter 9, “Introduction to Scandinavian loanwords in
English,” provides historical context for borrowings from Scandinavian and
focuses on one of the most shocking types of loanwords taken from
Scandinavian: core vocabulary, such as ‘they’ and ‘take.’ These types of
loanwords indicate a far different type of contact between English and
Scandinavian, perhaps caused by a situation in which many speakers were
bilingual. Chapter 10, “Identifying Scandinavian borrowings and assessing
their impact,” incorporates word lists from Scandinavian, primarily organized
by sound change evidence, though other considerations are included, such as
features of derivational morphology and the lack of native cognates. A primary
theme from Part IV is that, “Whatever yardstick we adopt, it is clear that
borrowing from early Scandinavian has ultimately had a very significant impact
on the core vocabulary of modern English, including even the closed-class
grammatical category” (221).

The three chapters of Part V explore the largest explosion of borrowing in
English’s history: Middle English and the loanwords from Latin and French,
specifically focusing on how difficult it can be to confidently separate
French loanwords, Latin loanwords, and words that are Latin in origin but
potentially borrowed through French. The information in Part V demonstrates
that “English borrowing from French and from Latin (frequently via French in
the medieval period) is different and really rather unusual both in extent and
kind” (223). In Chapter 11, “Exploring the contact situation and identifying
loans,” Durkin focuses on two primary difficulties in tracing loanwords: (1)
the inability to find the actual date (or date range) of entry of a particular
loanword into English (because scholars are limited only to written
records—what few there are), and (2) loanwords that fall into a category of
“French and/or Latin.” He demonstrates how semantic, morphological, and
phonological evidence can indicate a loanword’s route into English and
provides lists of words that fit into three different categories: French only,
Latin only, and French and/or Latin. He continues using those three categories
in Chapter 12, “Quantifying French and Latin contributions to Middle English,”
to quantify just how many words French and Latin contributed to Middle English
and breaks the data down by 50-year increments. He further adds one last
category (and another complication): Anglo-French loanwords (as distinguished
from continental French loanwords). Chapter 13, “Example passages from English
and multilingual texts,” provides sample Middle English texts with loanwords
bolded and subsequent commentaries about each bolded word. One key aspect of
Part V is to demonstrate the importance of a multilingual society when working
with Middle English and its lexicon, especially when determining whether a
word is truly borrowed or an instance of code-switching.

Finally, Part VI, which is comprised of four chapters, considers loanwords
that have been borrowed in the last 500 years (i.e., borrowings after 1500),
the impact of those loanwords, and advice for researchers who want to conduct
their own historical studies. This part separates loanwords by source
language, focusing first on Latin and French and then shifting to examples
from languages that are among the 25 most frequent source languages for
English loanwords. The last 500 years have shown a decreasing trend in the
amount of words borrowed into English, as well as an increasing trend of
borrowing from languages other than Latin and French. Chapter 14, “Borrowing
from Latin and French after 1500,” discusses some changes in how English
borrowed words after 1500, specifically focusing on borrowings from Latin and
French. One of the major changes discussed is the difference in attitude
speakers had toward loanwords. The chapter also highlights ways in which Latin
and French loanwords have introduced changes in English, such as stress and
derivational morphology.

In Chapter 15, “Loanwords from other languages: test cases,” Durkin focuses on
the differences between direct and indirect borrowing (e.g., borrowing a Greek
word through Latin) and the importance of being able to identify a direct from
an indirect borrowing. He splits this chapter into two sections: (1) loanwords
from European languages and (2) loanwords from languages outside Europe, such
as Arabic and Malay. Throughout, he provides ample examples and demonstrates
that loanwords that have entered English in the last 500 years are commonly
associated with food, culture, imported goods, and flora or fauna native to a
specific region. Chapter 16, “Long-term effects of loanwords on the shape of
the English lexicon,” turns the focus to meanings rather than the words
themselves, and words provided as examples are organized into semantic
categories (e.g., the senses, the physical world). He writes, “the
availability of full or near synonyms has often been exploited in order to
realize finer distinctions in meaning, or to establish different stylistic
registers” (400). Finally, Chapter 17, “General conclusions and pointers for
further investigation,” offers concluding thoughts on the different types of
contact situations in English’s history and the emphasis on loanwords from
Latin and French throughout its history. Returning to the uncertainty of
working with loanwords, he points out, “English is a particularly
well-documented language for most of its history, although some of the most
important episodes of borrowing fell in precisely those periods for which we
have least documentation” (428).


EVALUATION

Durkin achieves his goal of reaching “the reader who perseveres” (14) and
demonstrates that etymologies are neither certain nor stale. It is refreshing
to read a history of the English language from such a focused perspective, and
Durkin is clearly passionate about the subject. Because the study of loanwords
is also a study of political and socio-cultural history, he strives to bring
past speakers and communities to life, reminding the reader that they were
much more complex than a surviving document can capture. Furthermore, he does
not try to present information as if it were clear-cut—he unabashedly points
out hidden complexities and gray areas.

Some readers may feel frustrated by the fact that throughout the book, the
quantitative data presented is primarily based on an incomplete edition of the
OED, thus making it possible that the numbers presented are incorrect—not just
due to gray areas but also due to incomplete data sets. However, in the final
chapter, Durkin mentions that he will continue to update information on the
book's companion website. Furthermore, readers not engaged with the material
itself will most likely not be engaged by the writing; Durkin provides dense
information and multiple lists of examples, making it easy for the reader to
get lost in lists of words. By targeting a more specialized audience, though,
he is able to skip quite a bit of introductory material and really focus on
the finer points, thus enriching the content and supporting his overall goal
for the book.

Ultimately, Durkin's book is a good research tool for those who have already
had an introduction to the field; in other words, it is not meant for the
uninitiated reader. Durkin nicely summarizes the importance of this book in a
paragraph near the end of the final chapter:

Loanwords have a key role in the development of the lexicon, whether they
offer ways of expressing new concepts or new ways of expressing existing
concepts. They may lead to the loss of an existing word, or to semantic
narrowing or specialization, or to a split between different registers.
Investigating their history opens up new perspectives on the historical
development of a culture and a society. Indeed, finer-grained analysis offers
the potential to gain insight into a plurality of cultures and societies that
share a common core of vocabulary but within which there are significant
differences in the lexicons of particular groups or individuals. Ultimately,
language is a vehicle of thought and expression, and the reception of
loanwords into the system of a language is one of the ways in which a language
changes and develops, and with it the resources of that language for
formulating thoughts and communicating them to others. (428)


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Jessie Sams is an Associate Professor of Linguistics at Stephen F. Austin
State University. Her primary research interests include the interface of
syntax and semantics, especially the intersection of the two within written
English quotatives; history of the English language and English etymology; and
constructed languages.





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