[Corpora-List] foreign words in German

[amsler at cs.utexas.edu]

The issue of "foreignness" is complicated. I once assembled a list of  
words in American English based on their nationalities of origin. The  
determining factor for 'foreignness' was geographic point of origin;  
however, there were many native American words adopted into American  
English which raised the issue of the "nationality" of the originators  
such that the second factor for 'foreignness' was whether the  
originator was themselves a foreigner who originated the term while  
within the geographic region itself; or even the introduction by a  
native speaker of a word that they created or adopted for use while  
outside the geographic region. Time played a factor as well, since  
American English initially started out as British English and words  
that were already in British English before America was colonized were  
strictly speaking imported from England and not from wherever British  
English adopted them. (This latter factor was conveniently ignored to  
pad the number of languages from which American English could be said  
to have imported words).

I don't think 'foreignness' is impossible to measure; nor do I like  
the idea of it being a matter of degree; it does, however, require  
answers to questions of origin that may not be known due to the lack  
of precise knowledge of when and where and by whom a word starting  
being used.

A rather interesting case was 'cosplay' (a contraction of 'costume  
play') which is, as far as I can tell, an English word originated in  
Japan by English-speakers in response to the lack of a translation  
into English of a Japanese expression... Is 'cosplay' a foreign word  
or an English word? It's basically a foreign English word.

It's a bit like asking for the International version of the Oxford  
English Dictionary, which would list for all words in all languages  
their first occurrences and periodic reuse over time and geography and  
sources (not to dismiss the problems of translation and re-translation  
of sources). Sounds like a fun project, although the Letter A may take  
a few generations to compile if history is any indicator.



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