Language Mixture—Words

The first language’s 6,000 branches have not only diverged into dialects but have constantly been mixing with one another on all levels. The level of words is the first: most of English’s vocabulary is borrowed from Viking invaders, French rulers, and Latin and Greek. This is a common situation: 30 percent of Vietnamese’s words are from Chinese. Often words are borrowed as “high” versions of native ones: thus English pig and French pork. This kind of word mixture is the essence of Spanglish today, although seeing the process at close hand often occasions discomfort.

So far, I have implied that the first language has developed like a bush, with a single sprout branching into a mass of twigs decorated with leaves. But this metaphor can take us only so far, because in actuality, languages and dialects have mixed with one another constantly. The relationship between the world’s languages is analogous to a stew.

Languages mix to various extents. We will examine how they mix on the level of words (which is only the first, and least transformative, level possible).