borrowing

[balakrishnanijk]

Why does English tend to borrow so many words from other languages instead of trying to create words with its own resources? A large number of English words can be traced back to foreign tongues.

 

[bhaisahab]

Why does English tend to borrow so many words from other languages instead of trying to create words with its own resources? A large number of English words can be traced back to foreign tongues.

Is that a serious question? All languages have continually "borrowed" words from other languages. Many other languages have "borrowed" words from English. French, even with the Alliance Français standing guard, "borrows" many words from English, Arabic etcetera.

 

[rj1948]

Could you name a single language without the influence of others.What is malayalam without Sanskrit and Tamil.

 

[BobK]

:up: And I wonder what you mean by 'its own resources'. :-?

b

PS Apologies for the rogue apostrophe. I'm always doing it.

 

[Tdol]

English doesn't only rely on other languages for its words- it has a huge vocabulary of its own and generates new words and new meanings all the time. We borrow when it's handy to do so.

 

[mr_useless]

The disadvantage of creating more words is wasting paper to thicken your dictionary; this will take you longer to learn proper English especially if you are an ESL student. Instead, English borrow words from other laguages is clever and fun. Fun!? I heard a story about an English man came to Australia saw a strange creature jumpping on two leds. He pointed to the creature and asked an oboriginal "what is the creature name?". The oboriginal answer him kindly "kangaroo". The English man then write new-borrowing word in to English dictionary. An Australia native animal, Kangaroo, English meaning. But what does "kangaroo" mean in oboriginal language? It means "I don't understand you".