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The paper examines the ways how the concept of ”synagogue” has been verbalized in the Veps and Karelian translations of the Gospels according to Matthew and Mark, comparing it with the expression of this concept in Hebrew and Ancient Greek. The study employs a comparative method addressing the ways of expressing one concept in different languages, as well as analysis of semantics and word-formation. The authors find that the concept of ”synagogue” was most diversely verbalized in the text of the Gospel according to Matthew from 1820 in the Tver dialect of Karelian (a different situation is observed in the text of the Gospel according to Mark of the same translators). In Veps, a neologism was introduced through loan translation of the Hebrew word, while in other Karelian texts, a lexeme borrowed from Ancient Greek via Russian was used.

Lexical borrowing, the transfer of words from one language to another, is one of the most frequent processes in language evolution. In order to detect borrowings, linguists make use of various strategies, combining evidence from various sources. Despite the increasing popularity of computational approaches in comparative linguistics, automated approaches to lexical borrowing detection are still in their infancy, disregarding many aspects of the evidence that is routinely considered by human experts. One example for this kind of evidence are phonological and phonotactic clues that are especially useful for the detection of recent borrowings that have not yet been adapted to the structure of their recipient languages. In this study, we test how these clues can be exploited in automated frameworks for borrowing detection. By modeling phonology and phonotactics with the support of Support Vector Machines, Markov models, and recurrent neural networks, we propose a framework for the supervised detection of borrowings in mono-lingual wordlists. Based on a substantially revised dataset in which lexical borrowings have been thoroughly annotated for 41 different languages from different families, featuring a large typological diversity, we use these models to conduct a series of experiments to investigate their performance in mono-lingual borrowing detection. While the general results appear largely unsatisfying at a first glance, further tests show that the performance of our models improves with increasing amounts of attested borrowings and in those cases where most borrowings were introduced by one donor language alone. Our results show that phonological and phonotactic clues derived from monolingual language data alone are often not sufficient to detect borrowings when using them in isolation. Based on our detailed findings, however, we express hope that they could prove to be useful in integrated approaches that take multi-lingual information into account.

The article deals with the role of the German language in the transfer of loanwords from French into Slovene. The process of borrowing is illustrated with examples from German and Slovene. An overview of the history of German-French and German-Slovenian language contacts and the resulting borrowings is presented, with numerous examples showing German as a mediating language for French borrowings. Finally, the criteria for internationalisms are discussed, and many French loanwords in Slovenian can be classified as international words.

We present the first proposal of detailed internal subgrouping and higher-order structure of the Pama-Nyungan family of Australian languages. Previous work has identified more than twenty-five primary subgroups in the family, with little indication of how these groups might fit together. Some work has assumed that reconstruction of higher nodes in the tree was impossible, either because extensive internal borrowing has obscured more remote relations, or because the languages are not sufficiently well attested (see, for example, Bowern & Koch 2004b, Dixon 1997). With regard to the first objection, work by Alpher and Nash (1999) and Bowern and colleagues (2011) shows that loan levels are not high enough to obscure vertical transmission for all but a few languages. New data remove the second objection. Here we use Bayesian phylogenetic inference to show that the Pama-Nyungan tree has a discernible internal subgrouping. We identify four major divisions within the family and discuss the implications of this grouping for future work on the family.*

The present article initially covers the meaning of Pomānǝ, a noun loaned from the Romanian language into certain idioms and collocations of the Transylvanin-Saxon vernacular. It goes on to cover this loan word‘s constructions documented in the North-Transylvanian craft vocabulary, mainly hybrid formations, including their meaning and their type of word formation. The verb pomenin loaned from the Romanian language into the Transylvanian-Saxon vernacular is presented in its transitive, intransitive as well as reflexive usage in meaningful vernacular records and outlines its morphological integration into the Transylvanin-Saxon language. Both loan words come with etymological explanations. The vernacular records are taken from South Transylvanian and North Transylvanian specialist and vernacular literature as well as from the Transylvanian-Saxon Dictionary.

The Brazil nut, Bertholletia excelsa, is a colossal tree of terra firme forest whose seeds represent the most important non-timber forest product in Amazonia. Its peculiarly inefficient dispersal strategy and discontinuous distribution have led some to hypothesize anthropogenic origins, but evidence to date has been inconclusive. Here we present results of a multidisciplinary study addressing this question. A review of the geographic distribution of B. excelsa and comparison with that of similar Lecythis species suggest a number of anomalies that are consistent with a recent and wide colonization of Bertholletia. Published studies and field observations indicate that anthropogenic disturbance facilitates Brazil nut regeneration. Recent genetic studies showing no sequence diversity and no geographical structuring of within-population variability support a rapid and recent irradiation from an ancestral population. Historical linguistic analysis of indigenous terms for Brazil nut suggests a northern/eastern Amazonian origin for Bertholletia, with a concomitant spread of Brazil nut distribution or cultivation to the south and west. Such an expansion would have been particularly facilitated by the emergence of intensive bitter manioc cultivation and networks of interethnic trade beginning in the first millennium C.E. Together, ecological, phytogeographic, genetic, linguistic, and archeological data reinforce the hypothesis that ancient Amazonian peoples played a role in establishing this emblematic and economically important rainforest landscape.

This thematic issue of the Nordic Journal of Linguistics is dedicated to the emerging field of pragmatic borrowing. The term was introduced by Andersen (Reference Andersen2014) as an umbrella term for words and phrases borrowed from a source language (SL) into a recipient language (RL), that do not add to the propositional content of an utterance. Instead, the borrowed item functions as a discourse structuring device or indexes speakers’ attitude. Thus, pragmatic borrowing includes the incorporation of items that have been categorized as, for example, response particles, discourse markers, address terms, swearwords, interjections, and apologies. In addition to direct borrowing of single words and phrases such as yes and oh my god, speakers may also use indirect borrowing or calques, which are word-for-word translations of pragmatic items, and non-lexical features such as specific prosodic patterns and gestures (see Andersen Reference Andersen2014). In recent years, the term has become used in a broader sense referring to the ‘scientific meeting ground between contact linguistics and pragmatics’, also referring to the pragmatic issues regarding borrowing of lexical items that have a referential meaning (Andersen, Furiassi & Mišić Ilić Reference Andersen, Furiassi and Mišić Ilić2017:72).

\"Repeated borrowing\" refers to the incorporation of elements of a preexisting work in several new compositions. While various studies have focused on songs that have been frequently borrowed, such as \"L'homme arme\" and \"Apache,\" they have not considered what the numerous uses of those songs say about the practice of borrowing. This article discusses quotations of the chorale \"Es ist genug\" in Alban Berg's Violin Concerto (1935), Bernd Alois Zimmermann's \"Ich wandte mich und sah an alles Unrecht, das geschah unter der Sonne\": Ekklesiastische Aktion (1970), David Del Tredici's Pop-Pourri (1968), and Christopher Rouse's Iscariot (1989). As these works illustrate, repeated borrowing enhances aspects of borrowing. In repeated borrowing, borrowing becomes prolific and increasingly referential. Works not only borrow the same melody but also borrow from the ways in which other works use that melody. The works by Zimmermann, Del Tredici, and Rouse, for example, refer to the way Berg's concerto connects a chorale to a twelve-tone row or a secret program. They also expand upon various aspects of borrowing that are emphasized by the concerto: the importance of the cultural meanings of a borrowed work (in the case of \"Es ist genug,\" associations of death); the internal and external dimensions of borrowing (whether it operates at a deep structural level or appears as an outside element); and the declamatory power of borrowing, which emerges when a borrowing disrupts a work with such force that it seems to be announcing a particular image or idea.

Abstract This short notice suggests an explanation of mwrh and kmāšyr, two opaque terms which are occasionally referred to in Arabic pharmacognostic literature, but whose etymology and meaning have not yet been established.

This book is the first work to address the question of what kinds of words get borrowed in a systematic and comparative perspective. It studies lexical borrowing behavior on the basis of a world-wide sample of 40 languages, both major languages and minor languages, and both languages with heavy borrowing and languages with little lexical influence from other languages. The book is the result of a five-year project bringing together a unique group of specialists of many different languages and areas. The introductory chapters provide a general up-to-date introduction to language contact at the word level, as well as a presentation of the project's methodology. All the chapters are based on samples of 1000-2000 words, elicited by a uniform meaning list of 1460 meanings. The combined database, comprising over 70,000 words, is published online at the same time as the book is published. For each word, information about loanword status is given in the database, and the 40 case studies in the book describe the social and historical contact situations in detail. The final chapter draws general conclusions about what kinds of words tend to get borrowed, what kinds of word meanings are particularly resistant to borrowing, and what kinds of social contact situations lead to what kinds of borrowing situations.