borrowedlanguage

Borrowed language refers to the recipient language that incorporates lexical items, phrases, or semantic extensions from another language as a result of language contact. In linguistics, the related process is borrowing, and the terms loanword, calque, and semantic loan describe different routes of influence. While the phrase borrowed language is sometimes used, it more accurately describes the outcome of contact rather than a fixed category of languages.

Borrowings can be lexical (nouns, verbs, adjectives), calques (literally translated phrases), or semantic loans (new meanings taken from another language). Phonological and morphological adaptation often follows borrowing, with the incoming form adjusted to fit the recipient language’s sounds, stress patterns, and inflectional system. Some borrowings become fully integrated over time, while others retain a marked foreign character.

Factors shaping borrowing include prestige and power differences between languages, social and economic contact, technology, and colonization. Borrowing tends to be more extensive when communities are bilingual and when one language has higher status or broader use in education and media. Contact situations such as trade, religion, or administration also drive the flow of terms.

Historical and contemporary examples illustrate the pattern. English has many borrowings from French, Latin, and Greek, and more recently from various languages due to globalization. Other languages, such as Arabic in Swahili or Dutch in Indonesian, show similar contact-driven influence. In modern times, English continues to absorb terms from many languages through science, business, and popular culture.

Borrowings can enrich a language by expanding expressive capacity and utility, though they may raise questions about language purity or identity. See also loanword, calque, language contact, pidgin, and creole languages.