As Bill Bryson observed in the quotation presented earlier, one of the most common sources of new words in English is the process simply labeled borrowing, that is, the taking over of words from other languages. (Technically, it’s more than just borrowing because English doesn’t give them back.) Throughout its history, the English language has adopted a vast number of words from other languages, including croissant (French), dope (Dutch), lilac (Persian), piano (Italian), pretzel (German), sofa (Arabic), tattoo (Tahitian), tycoon (Japanese), yogurt (Turkish) and zebra (Bantu).

Other languages, of course, borrow terms from English, as in the Japanese use of suupaa or suupaamaaketto (“supermarket”) and taipuraitaa (“typewriter”), Hungarians talking about sport, klub and futbal, or the French discussing problems of le stress, over a glass of le whisky, during le weekend. In some cases, the borrowed words may be used with quite different meanings, as in the contemporary German use of the English words partner and look in the phrase im Partnerlook to describe two people who are together and are wearing similar clothing. There is no equivalent use of this expression in English.

A special type of borrowing is described as loan-translation or calque (/kælk/). In this process, there is a direct translation of the elements of a word into the 54 The Study of Language borrowing language. Interesting examples are the French term gratte-ciel, which literally translates as “scrape-sky,” the Dutch wolkenkrabber (“cloud scratcher”) or the German Wolkenkratzer (“cloud scraper”), all of which were calques for the English skyscraper. The English word superman is thought to be a loan-translation of the German U¨ bermensch, and the term loan-word itself is believed to have come from the German Lehnwort. The English expression moment of truth is believed to be a calque from the Spanish phrase el momento de la verdad, though not restricted to the original use as the final thrust of the sword to end a bullfight. Nowadays, some Spanish speakers eat perros calientes (literally “dogs hot”) or hot dogs. The American concept of “boyfriend” was a borrowing, with sound modification, into Japanese as boyifurendo, but as a calque into Chinese as “male friend” or nan pengyu.