Review article
https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.47.1.7
Reverse borrowings in the Polish language from a comparative point of view
Krzysztof Tomasz Witczak
; Katedra Filologii Klasycznej, Wydział Filologiczny, Uniwersytet Łódzki
Abstract
The linguistic term reverse borrowings (or back-borrowings, sometimes also reborrowings) defines words loaned to another language, and then borrowed back from that language (or by a mediation) in a different form and often with a different meaning. The problem of reverse borrowings is not unknown in the history of the Slavic languages. In the 19th century, the Bulgarian language received numerous reverse borrowings from Old Church Slavic (or Old Bulgarian) via Russian. Reverse borrowings are also attested in the Polish language. In the present paper, the following three examples are discussed: (1) Pol. gazda ‘rich farmer (in the southern highlands of Poland)’ ← Hung. gazda ‘farmer’ ← Slavic *gospoda; (2) Pol. Lachy a. Lachowie ‘Poles; dwellers of the Polish lowlands’ ← Ukr. Ляхи ‘Poles’ < ORus. Ляхы ‘Poles or Slavs speaking a North-West Slavic language’ ← Old Polish *Lędzane ‘the Lendzanians, the Pre-Polish tribe settled in the Przemyśl region (south-eastern Poland)’ < Slavic *Lędjane; (3) Pol. kwark ‘a kind of elementary particle of matter’ ← E. quark ‘id.’ ← G. Quark ‘cottage cheese’, metaphorically ‘trifle, worthless thing’ < MHG. quarc, twarc, zwarg ‘cottage cheese’ ← OPol. twarog (or ← LSorb. twarog) ‘cottage cheese’) < Slavic *tvarogъ ‘id.’.
Keywords
history of language; contacts; linguistic relations; reverse borrowings
Hrčak ID:
260597
URI
Publication date:
20.10.2021.
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