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    STUDIA PHILOLOGIA - Issue no. 1 / 2000  
         
  Article:   FRENCH LOANWORDS IN THE ENGLISH.

Authors:  DORIN CHIRA. 		 
       
         
  Abstract:  Any language ‘borrows’ lexical material from other languages, usually absorbing the items or translating them into native equivalents. The term ‘borrowing’ is a new label for what was called by some linguists ‘mixing of languages’. It is a major aspect of language change, but the term itself is an inappropriate name because it presumes repayment, whereas there is no ‘something for something’ or ‘something given back for something’ between languages. The item borrowed, the loanword, is not given back, because it never left the source language and in many cases it changes in the transfer. In the technical language of linguistics the process is called’borrowing’and the borrowed terms are known as ‘loanwords’. French has influenced fundamentally the English lexicon. Because of its geographical position and cultural prestige, France has exported many words to its neighbours;England has absorbed the highest proportion. As a result, hundreds of words have the same spelling in both languages;they also have in common an impressive collection of Latin affixes.  
         
     
         
         
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