Native tongue

[Matthew Ward]

What Andre writes pretty much hits the nail on the head.  It doesn't
matter if the words are loanwords, or loan-translations, or entirely new
words created from native roots:  the important thing is that the words
are created.

I do think it's desirable to create new words from native roots, but
historical attempts to keep a language's vocabulary "pure" by relying
ONLY on native roots have met with only partial success.  Turkish, for
example, retains many Arabic loanwords despite extensive attempts to
"purify" it.  When Israel revived Hebrew, huge numbers of new words were
created using Hebrew roots, but auto mechanics, for whatever reasons,
refused to use the words that had been created for their field, and used
English loanwords instead.  The end result, however, is exactly the same
as it would have been if the native-derived words had been adopted:
people can discuss auto mechanics in Hebrew, which is a very wonderful
thing indeed.

It's important to remember that when loanwords enter another language,
their pronunciation, usage, and meaning become nativized as well--they
essentially become a totally legitimate part of the borrowing language.
It's as valid a means of vocabulary-creation as any other.  English
speakers, for example, have absolutely no problem with useful words like
"ski," "tattoo," or "guerrilla," despite the fact that they are all
fairly recent loanwords from other languages.  It's not as if anyone
feels "English speakers are forced to use Maori to express the concept
of "tattoo,"" because, of course, "tattoo" has become an English word.
There is no reason why speakers of minority languages should not be the
same way.  Thus, if "vitamin," has become a standard Yupik vocabulary
item, then it is a Yupik word, regardless of its origin.

Seeing that the dominance of major languages has done enormous damage to
the position of minority languages around the world, I see no reason why
speakers of minority languages should not feel that they have every
right to use the lexical resources of the major languages to help keep
their own native languages alive.  If a term is difficult to
"translate," (I don't believe that translation is ever impossible, but
it can be difficult and time-consuming) then a loanword can save time
and resources that would have otherwise been spent trying to form a new
word from native roots.  Considering the lack of resources that many
speakers of minority languages face, loanwords can thus prove to be
quite useful.

At any rate, failure to create new vocabulary, from whatever means, is
deadly indeed, because it forces speakers of minority languages to
actually switch languages (which is very different from using loanwords)
when talking about certain topics.  It's important to remember that one
of the things associated with language death is the gradual replacement
of functions by the dominant language.  With that in mind, all
vocabulary creation should be regarded a positive sign that the language
is alive and changing with the times, because it allows the language to
continue to be used in a variety of situations.  At any rate, all living
languages borrow words, unless their speakers are completely isolated.

I do understand why people object to the replacement of perfectly good
native lexical items with equivalent loanwords.  Words, after all,
reflect the history of the language as well as the culture of its
speakers, and can be legitimately seen as a legacy to be preserved.
But, gradual replacement of vocabulary items happens to all languages,
whether the words are replaced by loanwords or by words created from
native roots.  If people value their own languages, then they are less
likely to feel that loanwords are "better," and they will be more likely
to retain older words.  Still, in the final analysis, living languages
are always changing, and vocabulary replacement is part of that process.


Andre Cramblit wrote:

>If you don't use loan words or cognates or create new words in your
>language for the modern things around us, then your language can only exist
>in the past and does not maintain current relevance
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