loanedborrowed

Loanedborrowed is a coined term used in discussions of language contact to describe a pattern in which a word is transferred between languages in bidirectional or iterative ways, combining the ideas of a loanword (a word borrowed from another language) and reciprocal borrowing. The term does not belong to standard linguistic terminology and is chiefly found in informal glossaries or speculative essays.

Proposed usages describe loanedborrowed as: (a) bidirectional borrowing between two languages in which the same form is established in both directions; (b) a networked exchange in which a word borrowed into one language is later borrowed into other languages and eventually reintroduced into the source language; or (c) a multi-step chain that yields phonological or semantic changes from contact.

Critics note that because it is not standardized, many researchers prefer terms such as bidirectional borrowing, reciprocal loaning, or back-borrowing. Its usefulness depends on having clear criteria for when a loan, back-borrowing, or reciprocal cycle occurs and on evidence from corpora and dictionaries.

See also: loanword, calque, back-translation, language contact.