Many Arab students are currently pursuing their education at Malaysian institutions and they have to study Bahasa Malaysia as a university requirement to be able to communicate with people in the local community. Therefore, this study aims to help Arab students learn Bahasa easily as Bahasa contains many loan words from Arabic and English. This…

The study investigates educated Arab's preference for using foreign words in Arabic oral discourse. A corpus of commonly used English/French words was collected. A sample of language and translation students and faculty was tested and surveyed to find out whether they were familiar with the Arabic equivalents to foreign words commonly used,…

An analysis of recent proposals concerning the typologies of language change attempts to provide a synthesis identifying the major types of change that need to be distinguished. The three major types of language change discussed are spontaneous change, borrowing, and imposition. Upon analysis, it is concluded that these three types of change…

The difficulties presented by the semantic baggage that a word/phrase carries as it is translated from one language (French) into another language (Greek) are discussed. Numerous examples of these difficulties, drawn from magazines and works of fiction, are provided. The phenomenon of linguistic borrowing is highlighted. (SR)

Analysis of a specific language change--the loss of the Balkan infinitive--demonstrates the inadequacy of either a language-internal or a language-contact explanation in accounting for the change. A composite explanation, in which the infinitive-loss process is explained through multiple causation, seems more appropriate. Whithin the language,…

This paper discusses research on bilingualism, describing how language development proceeds under exceptional circumstances (for example, when processing must be shifted to another modality, and in abnormal development of one kind or another). It examines exceptional bilingualism, focusing on research on deafness (e.g., hearing children of deaf…

Linguistic borrowing from English to Jordanian Arabic at the lexical level is described, focusing on phonology and the extent to which Jordanian Arabic has affected the phonetic structure of English loans assimilated partially or completely into it. Conspicuous distinctive sound features in the two languages that may affect non-native speakers'…

Observation of language change caused by language contact tend not to support theories put forth by Meillet, Jakobson, Weinreich, and others that there are linguistic prerequisites for such change. A theory of the social factors that determine what kinds of language change will take place as a result of contact begins with the recognition of two…

The typical pattern of Chinese word formation is to have native material adapt to changed circumstances. The Chinese language neither borrows nor lends words, but it does occasionally borrow concepts. The larger cultural pattern in which this occurs is that the Chinese culture borrows, if necessary, but ensures that the act of borrowing does not…

The standard view of language attitudes in a creole continuum is that the creole is considered bad and the standard language is considered good. This standard view fits with the theory of decreolization by which such continua are thought to have come about. A study was carried out in Guyana in an effort to overcome the perceived limitations of the…

This study investigated the extent to which foreign words have become assimilated into the Japanese lexicon during the decade of the 1990s. Since the 1980s, a number of linguists and educators have argued that the rate of loan word absorption into Japanese has increased dramatically. However, most of the studies are speculative or anecdotal. This…

Discusses government intervention in language matters in Quebec, particularly in the area of terminology. A language planning model developed by the "Office de la langue francaise" consists of internal neologistic planning followed by the extension of these efforts to other francophone communities, particularly those in Europe.…

Critical analysis of three cases of grammatical borrowing of Frisian from Dutch leads to the specific conclusion that the Frisian grammatical system does not "Dutchify," and to general conclusions concerning the ways that minority languages can and cannot be influenced by dominant languages. (Author/CB)

An analysis of lexical innovation in Ghanaian English uses ten linguistic categories identified in earlier research on Nigerian English, offering an explanation of each category and a number of examples. The categories include: loanshifts (English words manipulated to produce and transmit meanings beyond purely denotative reference and conveying a…

The pronunciation and use of /s/ in the isleno dialect of Spanish, a dying language spoken in a small ethnic enclave in southeast Louisiana, is examined. Today, there are fewer than 20 fluent speakers of isleno Spanish, which has been described as a fossilized derivative of the speech of Canary Island peasants with additions from Spanish sailors.…