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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 August 2019 and 11 December 2019. Further details are available
on the course page. Student editor(s):
Siot0819.
Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 02:46, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
The article is a mess. The section on the classification could be better organised. The section about English should end up at the end of the article. But primarily, the "other languages" section is a mixture of everything, from Jèrriais applying historical processes to recent borrowings to the recent displeasure of the Italian government. Rather than such trivia, the article could use some more core content on e.g. the phonetic adaptation of borrowings or the circumstances in which words are being borrowed. -- 93.105.205.33 ( talk) 16:27, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
I edited the part of the source for the English loan of loanword. In the source itself it's only spoken about German as source for it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.100.62.29 ( talk) 09:45, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
Is it meaningful to talk of terms being "borrowed" from one language? I know this is the term used, but "borrowing" has the sense of depriving with the intention of returning at a later date, and this is not what happens with loanwords. Then again, the same problem arises with the word "loanword", so perhaps "borrowing" is OK after all. — 194.74.1.82 ( talk) 17:09, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
In the Classes section the following appears:
The suggestion that Arabic "borrowed" the word "sabbath" from Hebrew can be most charitably described as inaccurate. Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic (among others) descend from the same language, and the word for Saturday is derived from the Arabic numeral seven in exactly the same way that all other days of the week are derived from the numbers 1-6. Suggesting that the word is borrowed from Hebrew is rather like suggesting that French borrowed the word "Lundi" from Spanish. I'm removing the reference to Arabic, but would also recommend rewriting this section. 76.167.253.199 ( talk) 19:45, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
Saw banner, had a go, but will need several editors to give this article a churn.
In ictu oculi ( talk) 05:03, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
The intro appears rather long, however, a definition can often be clarified by giving the opposite, here "native or inherited word", where I would suggest "native", because also loans can be inherited. HJJHolm ( talk) 10:20, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
I added a citation request on the origin of the English suffix -er due to the possible (and likelier) source alternative in Proto-Germanic -ārijaz. 217.16.133.200 ( talk) 11:01, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
In the introduction, it lists the word borrowed from french "café" as an example of a loan word. Yet, in the linguistic definition diagram it lists "café" as a "foreign word," not a "loadword." This seems like a contradiction? If I'm understanding correctly, since café keeps the original spelling, it is in fact not a loanword? It's all rather confusing, honestly. I think this article could do much better to clarify things. Fritzendugan ( talk) 02:11, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
In keeping all the discussion centralized, I've included discussion from my talk page on this topic from another user:
I would like to add that I think the above suggestion helps to clarify the confusion, and would probably be sufficient. Fritzendugan ( talk) 06:59, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
This branching image seems a little awkward to read, illegible at smaller screen sizes and entirely useless to screen readers. Should it be a table or something instead, perhaps with fewer examples? -- Gnomus ( talk) 18:23, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
Did someone have a field day posting {{ Citation needed}} tags all over the article?
I definitely agree that citations are important to have, especially for information that is not generally known, but some of the information that is here, I may consider common knowledge of the subject. Some of the stuff tagged are things that you would get by simply looking at the two words. From Origins, "[Latin words] missa and communio have entered English as mass and communion". Anyone looking at the English and Latin words would obviously assume that one led to another; the only concern would be a false etymology, and if that is the case, it should be removed, not cited.
At the very least, though, this is an example of overtagging. All but one paragraph in Origins has a "Citation needed" tag on it. Nearly every single paragraph in Transmission Patterns has this tag. This is simply too much.
I would suggest we review the article and think more about what does and does not really need a citation, and remove unnecessary "Citation needed" tags from the article. If there's still a multitude of them, I would suggest we instead post {{ refimprove}} at the top of the article, and write a post in the talk page stating what sections and sentences need citations. JaykeBird ( talk) 13:56, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
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Cheers. — cyberbot II Talk to my owner:Online 16:12, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
I moved some text from the article Transliteration to its Talk page, because I felt it does not belong to transliteration but perhaps to the topic of loanwords. I do not want to insert it into this article because I feel it needs quite some editing before it can be added. I think the author of the removed section wanted to express some thoughts on how loanwords are modified in the goal language. For example, the English "bishop" does not include the nominative suffix "-os" from the Greek original "episkopos". My guess at the reason is that the nominative marker was, in a sense, translated (to an empty morpheme in English) while the main part of the word "episkop-" was borrowed. Is this an example of a loanblend? Is it something to add to this page? -- David N. Jansen ( talk) 12:55, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
In retrospect, my initial edit can be maligned as too limiting (i.e. “has been”) tense-wise. It was also a bit wordy, granted. I’d have accepted the foregoing as rational arguments for reversion. Yet, I stand by the need to supplete the definition not for grammatical sufficiency but for mere readability - a subjective call, but I think it’s the right one. Otherwise, the meaning gets attenuated due to the seven words between “adopted” and “incorporated,” especially with the parenthetical “(the donor language)” intervening.
Concerning style, I’m not impressed with two parentheticals in the definition. I’d be content with, e.g. “A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word adopted from one language (the donor language) a donor language and incorporated into another language without translation into another language.” If you’re somehow wedded to the reduced relative clause fetish in the original definition, I recommend substituting that more concise articulation instead of simply undoing the conjunctive “as” that I added in my most recent edit. Upon disregarding that suggestion, you might also consider editing the lead (and redundant) sentence in the Examples and related terms section, i.e. “A loanword is distinguished from a calque (or loan translation), which is a word or phrase whose meaning or idiom is adopted from another language by word-for-word translation into existing words or word-forming roots of the recipient language”.
Cheers. -- Kent Dominic·(talk) 00:01, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
Hello Kent Dominic, I've moved your comment about the lead of this article here, so other interested editors may participate if they wish to; they are unlikely to find it on my Talk page.
Your remarks are apparently in response to this revert of your edit to the lead sentence. You graciously accepted it, but I wanted to explain my original rationale, and point out an additional problem. In the edit summary, you said it provided phrasal suppletion for readability and semantic clarity. I wouldn't say it made it much worse, but every edit should improve the article in some way, no matter how small. There's an argument that your edit made it slightly worse for our foreign readers, because the original version of the sentence is simpler, and closer in form at least to Romance languages like Spanish, [a] French, [b] Italian, [c], or Portuguese [d] for example. Slavic languages also follow this pattern. Given that that does double-duty in English as both a relative and a demonstrative, including it where it is not needed might lead a foreign reader down the garden path assuming a demonstrative that wasn't there and requiring back-pedaling to reparse and understand the sentence, especially where the original sentence is complicated by various appositives or parentheticals, as you rightly pointed out. This was a major factor in my original revert; I apologize for the brevity of my "better before", as I usually err on the side of being too wordy (of which this post may be a good example!) rather than too brief. Like you, I also am not too crazy about overly telegraphic responses that don't indicate what the objection is. Part of my excuse, if you want to call it that, is that you never know who's actually going to read or consider a longer, more well thought out response, or whether you're just wasting your time, and a couple of words suffice. I can see that you are someone who is definitely reading and considering the meaning of the summary, and I'll try to do better next time as far as being more informative in the summary.
That said, I don't think the word as added to the lead sentence in the follow-up edit helps at all—what is it even doing there?—and may be worse. However, I don't wish to revert again, and I'll let someone else get involved with it, should they care to.
Finally, I'm in full agreeement with you about the seven interpolated words; that's almost a pet peeve of mine, and if I ever get around to writing a bot, it will be one that counts the number of useless words between the subject of the lead sentence and its verb, and tags it for copyediting when it exceeds some threshold. I keep mental notes when I see them, and I well remember one that had 37 words between the bolded topic noun phrase, and the verb is. In cases like that, I just imagine people falling asleep on their keyboard, waiting for the verb to arrive; this is something that the Germans have a patent on, and English speakers shouldn't have to put up with it. Now you'll have to excuse me, as my fetish for reduced relatives (tiny cousins struck by my magic shrinking ray gun?) demands my attention... Cheers, Mathglot ( talk) 03:16, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
Notes
I am trying to get a clue when it comes to WP. With editing and WP policy, it's becoming clearer there are as many styles and interpretations as there are editors. I understand the general, but there are sometimes remarks made shortly after an edit that leave me unsure.
On this page for example, I made edits to what was, in my view, some very under-developed concepts, some using expression I would contend was not encyclopedic in tone. The issues I tried to edit out had been present in the article for a considerable time. Another editor made changes to my edit very soon after. Their edit summary made some fair-enough points, but those points would equally apply to the base material I changed - again, I mention, of longstanding presence. So, I become a bit unsure: Do they realise this? Was it me moving it around that brought it to their attention? Do they think it's actually worse now? Hard to say, but for the removal of (my) doubt, I explain, in tiresome detail, the edits. AukusRuckus ( talk) 09:07, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
Sorry Kent Dominic for the "wall-o'-text". My edits, though, were merely variations and re-positioning of text in existence long before my changes. I realise your ES may well be just generalised, not-specifically directed, comments, but as they came so quickly after my change, thought I would address your comments directly anyway. This here is truly a wall of text! For which, in advance, my apologies.
Firstly, this statement, in the body of the article since at least 2015:
of 30 words, I re-wrote to the more encyclopedic voice (imv) using 14 additional words:
this metaphorical use implies the foreign origin and utility in the recipient language.
As explication of the term, I thought it a better fit in the lead than where it was. However, "lead follows body", so perhaps it is out of place there too. It clearly does not fit into the section from which it came, "Examples and related terms". It's the term, not a related one. Whatever the case, again, not a very recent addition.
Included in the removed wall of text was:
and
this sentence:
Again, these are of fairly longstanding. (How long they've been in the lead, I'm not sure, but I think since well before your most recent edits to the article). As it is, I think the lead may now verge on too short to be "a concise overview" of article. However, YMMV! AukusRuckus ( talk) 09:07, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
Forget the stricken part. I mistook what was removed from the lead when looking at the diff. Still not sure what "attempting to distinguish 'loanwords' from 'loaned words'" means, though. Not anything I was trying to do ... AukusRuckus ( talk) 10:59, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
An editor, in 2017, included something about routes of transmission of loanwords, contrasting "popular" loanwords with "learned" ones:
To me, this was ill-defined (what's "popular", what's "learned"?), but it was cited, so I thought it best to only alter its tone, substituting, "spread orally" with "by word-of-mouth" (among other changes). As with the original material, I presumed that the source given by earlier editor covered both statements. That was tagged citation needed, with the ES saying "the 'w-o-m' verbiage smacks of WP:OR". If it were up to me only, I would remove this part entirely, until a fully developed section -or at least paragraph- on the incorporation of borrowings into languages could be written.
My question is: Is it the phrase I used that suggests OR? If not, why was it not tagged before, in its former state? I would be fine with changing it back to "spread orally", if that would help, as that was not the crux of my changes. In any case, I added another cite and another instance of the existing cite (although I do not have access to that source.) AukusRuckus ( talk) 09:07, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
Popular loanwords are spread orally. Learned loanwords are first used in written language, often for scholarly, scientific, or literary purposes." [1][previous version]
Popular loanwords are spread orally." considered unattested? (is what I was trying to get at.) I took it as a part-and-parcel of a unified premise, cited at the end of par, as normal. You don't address that. And that was my query, not some need to keep it included because it's common sense!
References
I don't know the correct dates so I can't fix it, but when I read 'The studies by Werner Betz (1971, 1901)' I thought it seemed improbable that he wrote studies 70 years apart. So I clicked on the link to see that he would have written the first study 11 years before he was born. Assuming his birthdate is correct, the 1901 study date is impossible. I hope someone can correct this. Werner August Josef Betz (1 September 1912 – 13 July 1980) 2601:58A:8E7F:6F60:6876:7251:E529:EDA1 ( talk) 03:03, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
"Examples of loanwords in the English language include café (from French café, which means "coffee")"
Not true... Le café also means the place, not only the drink. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/french-english/caf%C3%A9
See it says "établissement" But it's arguing that the establishment doesn't exist in French in the sentence. Can this be better fixed with a reference? — Preceding unsigned comment added by KimYunmi ( talk • contribs) 18:45, 28 March 2024 (UTC)