Classification of borrowings according to the degree of assimilation

The degree of assimilation of borrowings depends on the following factors:

a) from what group of languages the word was borrowed (if the word belongs to the same group of languages to which the borrowing language belongs it is assimilated easier),

b) in what way the word is borrowed: orally or in the written form (words borrowed orally are assimilated quicker),

c) how often the borrowing is used in the language (the greater the frequency of its usage, the quicker it is assimilated),

d) how long the word lives in the language (the longer it lives, the more assimilated it is).

Accordingly borrowings are subdivided into: completely assimilated, partly assimilated and non-assimilated (barbarisms).

Completely assimilated borrowings are not felt as foreign words in the language, c.f. the French word sport and the native word start. Completely assimilated verbs belong to regular verbs, e.g. correct - corrected. Completely assimilated nouns form their plural by means of s-inflexion, e.g. gate - gates. In completely assimilated French words the stress has been shifted from the last syllable to the first one, e.g. capital, service.

Semantic assimilation of borrowed words depends on the words existing in the borrowing language. As a rule, a borrowed word does not bring all its meanings into the borrowing language if it is polysemantic, e.g. the Russian borrowing sputnik is used in English only in one of its meanings.

Partly assimilated borrowings are subdivided into the following groups:

a) borrowings non-assimilated semantically, because they denote objects and notions peculiar to the country from the language of which they were borrowed, e.g. sari, sombrero, sarafan, taiga, steppe, borshch, kvass, shah, rajah, tsar, rickshaw, troika, rupee, zloty, peseta etc;

b) borrowings non-assimilated grammatically, e.g. nouns borrowed from Latin and Greek retain their plural forms: bacillus - bacilli, phenomenon - phenomena, datum -data, genius - genii etc;

c) borrowings non-assimilated phonetically. Here belong words with the initial sounds [v] and [z], e.g. voice, zero. In native words these voiced consonants are used only in the intervocalic position as allophones of sounds [f] and [s] (loss - lose, life - live). Some Scandinavian borrowings have consonants and combinations of consonants which were not palatalized, e.g. [sk] in the words: sky, skate, ski etc (in native words we have the palatalized sounds denoted by the digraph sh, e.g. shirt); sounds [k] and [g] before front vowels are not palatalized e.g. girl, get, give, kid, kill, kettle. In native words we have palatalization, e.g. German, child.

Some French borrowings have retained their stress on the last syllable, e.g. police, cartoon. Some French borrowings retain special combinations of sounds, e.g. [a:] in the words: camouflage, boulevard some of them retain the combination of sounds [wa:] in the words: memoir, bourgeois.

d) borrowings can be partly assimilated graphically, e.g. in Greek borrowings y can be spelled in the middle of the word (symbol, synonym), ph denotes the sound [f] (phoneme, morpheme), ch denotes the sound [k] (chemistry, chaos), ps denotes the sound [s] (psychology, psychiatry).

Latin borrowings retain their polysyllabic structure, have double consonants, as a rule, the final consonant of the prefix is assimilated with the initial consonant of the stem (accompany, affirmative).

French borrowings which came into English after 1650 retain their spelling, e.g. consonants p, t, s are not pronounced at the end of the word (buffet, coup, debris), Specifically French combination of letters eau [ou] can be found in the borrowings: beau, chateau, trousseau. Some digraphs retain their French pronunciation: ch is pronounced as [ ], e.g. chic, parachute, qu is pronounced as [k] e.g. bouquet, ou is pronounced as [u:], e.g. rouge. Some letters retain their French pronunciation, e.g. i is pronounced as [i:], e,g, chic, machine; g is pronounced as [ ], e.g. rouge.

Modern German borrowings also have some peculiarities in their spelling: common nouns are spelled with a capital letter e.g. Autobahn, Lebensraum, some vowels and digraphs retain their German pronunciation, e.g. a is pronounced as [a:], e.g. Dictat, u is pronounced as [u:], e.g. Kuchen, au is pronounced as [au], e.g. Hausfrau, ei is pronounced as [ai], e.g. Reich. Some consonants are also pronounced in the German way, e.g. s before a vowel is pronounced as [z], e.g. Sitskrieg, v is pronounced as [f], e.g. Volkswagen, w is pronounced as [v], ch is pronounced as [h], e.g. Kuchen.
Non-assimilated borrowings (barbarisms) are borrowings which are used by Englishmen rather seldom and are non-assimilated, e.g. addio (Italian), tete-a-tete (French), dolce vita (Italian), duende (Spanish), an homme, a femme (French), gonzo, ciao (Italian) and many others.

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