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When a a language gets a word from another language, linguists call it either a loanword or a borrowed word. They're odd terms, because loaning and borrowing m
by dlcarrier 1y ago
When a a language gets a word from another language, linguists call it either a loanword or a borrowed word. They're odd terms, because loaning and borrowing mean it'll be given back, which isn't expected when a langauge adopts a word from a different language.
Japan loves to give words back to English though, with cosplay, anime, emoticon, and now micom all originally being from English, then used in Japanese, and brought back to English from their Japanese form.
- comex 1y agoNit: ‘Emoji’ is actually a native Japanese word, not a loanword based on ‘emoticon’. The resemblance was originally pure coincidence, though it probably does help explain ‘emoji’’s rapid adoption in English.
- JdeBP 1y agoIt isn't expected until one then learns enough comparative linguistics and etymology to discover that loanwords coming back has happened throughout history. And not just with European languages, although for obvious historical reasons the borrowings and weird routes that some words have travelled across multiple languages is far better documented for European languages. It's a thing that happens with linguistic contact, and the deeper learning is that it's odd to expect it not to happen to the same word twice between languages with long-standing contact on occasion, given how often it happens and for how many millennia the process has been active.