ENGLISH BORROWINGS - MEANS OF RE-LATINISATION OF THE ROMANIAN

LANGUAGE
Sim Monica Ariana
Universitatea din Oradea, Facultatea de tiine Economice, Str. Universitaii nr. 1, Oradea 3700, Tel. 0259408407, e-mail: msim@uoradea.ro
The present paper focuses mainly on the impact of the English borrowings on everyday Romanian speakers
discussing the necessity of adopting them as well as the reiteration of the idea that they do not represent a threat
to our language. International words borrowed from English are very common in most of the languages
throughout the world. Nevertheless they do not alter or destroy these borrower languages, they only help them
be linked to the nowadays ever-changing reality.
Key words: neologism, borrowing, language
If there were no new words in a language, we could definitely consider that language as a dying one. The
continuous progress of arts, techniques, sciences bring along a great number of new words. Each new thing,
object must bear a name; for instance: virus, appendicitis, motor etc. And these new words are either borrowings
from other languages or creations of new words from old words by means of all the internal means of enriching
vocabulary: derivation, conversion, composition etc. It is interesting to notice that all these items were not
registered in the first dictionaries. Nowadays we can no longer communicate efficiently without them. Still, like
most of the things in this world, there is a reverse of the process: all these new words that appear in a language
must be thoroughly monitored so as not to suffocate the borrowing language.
Due to a daily, intensive use and to the numerous real or conceptual situations that a language has to express, its
structure evolves, changes continuously reflecting each and every stage, phenomenon, transformation that occur
either following the language rules or patterns or avoiding them and thus, tending to create new norms or rules.
Nevertheless, the vocabulary gets rid of all the obsolete, not useful words when they do not meet its needs any
longer. That is why it is not necessary to worry too much or to become scared that our language is going to be
altered, to be totally changed as a result of this borrowing process.
The means of enriching vocabulary are diverse, both internal and external. The problem of updating,
modernizing, enriching the vocabulary has preoccupied linguists a lot. The necessity or, on the contrary, the lack
of necessity of neologic borrowings has determined several controversies.
Speaking of borrowings, Iorgu Iordan considers this word designating the concept, as improper stating that it
should be redefined it we want to use it as a meta-language term. He says that the basic meaning of the term 'to
borrow' seems completely inadequate to the linguistic meaning we give it; 'to borrow' means 'to take something
from somebody' but promising to give it back. Thus, it can not happen to words taken from another language,
for instance, as we cannot and should not give the words back to the language that lent them. [cf. Iordan, I.,
Limba romn contemporan, ed. a II-a, Editura Academiei, Bucureti, 1956, p. 310]
The idea is that borrowings are not deliberate actions; they are not like material things. The linguistic patrimony
of a lender language does not suffer when another language borrows a word. That particular word does not leave
the origin language for good does not disappear from the language. That word is added to the borrower
language, namely Romanian language, as a fresh and hopefully useful acquisition without affecting the lender
language.
The terms lexical borrowing and neologism are tightly connected, without being interchangeable. Not all the
neologisms are actually borrowings and not all the borrowings are neologisms. Historically speaking, up to the
end of the XVIIIth century we usually mention these new items as borrowings whereas after that they are called
neologisms. People usually call them neologisms because they are felt as being still foreign words and are not
very spread in the common language.
Theoretically a neologism is a word, a term or phrase recently created or borrowed - usually in order to express
new concepts or to update older terms in a new, modern linguistic shape. Neologisms are extremely useful to
denote new inventions, phenomena, or even old ideas re-evaluated within a new, modern cultural context. The
term neologism itself appeared around the 1800s. Neologisms usually appear in cultures that are changing
rapidly and in those cultures where information is easily and efficiently spread.
According to specialists, neologisms become popular through mass media, Internet, words of mouth (especially
the youths speaking). Each word was, at a certain point, a neologism, and they stopped being considered
neologisms in time and due to usage. If a new word becomes part of the language system, it is series of factors
that work for that, and, most of all, it is the public, the people who greatly decide upon it.
The word inventory of any language has been increasing throughout history, the vocabulary dependence on
extra-linguistic phenomena or events greatly deciding upon its growing rhythm pace, uneven from one period of
time to another. Most of the times, the lexical borrowings are a gain of the language, standing for new words
created so as to meet the communication needs of speakers at a certain period of time. Anyway, there are cases
when new words are completely useless, sometimes even polluting the language.
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The radical, extreme tendencies regarding neologisms should be avoided, as they are neither sane nor fair. Any
abuse is damaging as long as it prevents speakers from communicating clear, fluent ideas, and consequently,
people feel them as a negative presence in the language. On the other hand, a crowded vocabulary, full of
neologisms does not necessarily lead to the language headway, it is not a proof of evolution; on the contrary, it
can determine the regress. Equilibrium and measure are the key words and should characterize this aspect of
enriching vocabulary.
As it has always happened throughout history, the present period of time is part of an evolution cycle
characterized on one hand, by an abundance of borrowings, and on the other hand, by new lexical creations,
innovations.
The origin of neologisms in Romanian is diverse, but they mainly come from classical languages: Latin and
Greek, from neo-Latin languages: French, Italian, and from Germanic languages such as German and English as
well.
Words pass from one language to another as a result of a contact of any type between the two languages,
cultures. This contact could be a bilingual situation; in the past, this bilingual circumstance claimed a direct
contact, a geographical neighborhood between the users of the two languages; nowadays things have
substantially changed together with the evolution of techniques, sciences and media. Neologisms do not come
into Romanian in a chaotic manner. They were determined by the speakers preferences. The social, political
aspects have greatly influenced the borrower language.
There is also a tendency towards modernization and, as a consequence, we have to deal with a special category
of neologisms: luxury neologisms. The fight between the necessary and unnecessary neologisms, the line
between what is useful and what is useless is rather fragile, dominated by subjectivism; it is merely time and the
language usage that can eventually decide more clearly upon this matter. It is very well known that there have
been phases of the Romanian language when there were borrowing floods that led to excess. A lot of language
specialists, culture people have spoken against such excesses, combating, ridiculing the Latin exaggerations or
the French word mania, or more recently, the English word invasion, in their literary works, newspaper articles,
television shows etc.
Most nowadays lexical borrowings are still of Roman or Latin origin; what is different are the diverse channels
of penetration the Romanian language. It is no longer the turn of French to ease the adoption of recent terms;
currently they can reach our language by means of neo-Latin languages: German and English. The evolution and
formation of the modern literary Romanian language can not even be considered without this intense reLatinisation process a conscious, programmatic process that has ensured its progress, synchronization with the
Western European cultural values. This phenomenon has been continuously developing up to present, even
though today we must accept neologisms of other origin than Latin, especially English words that are quite
numerous in certain domains of activity. This fact is being sustained by analyzing the neologisms in the
economic language as they appear in DEX, DN and other specialized dictionaries.
Subscribing to the idea sustained by many important Romanian linguists (e.g. Mioara Avram, Rodica Zafiu etc.)
we can say that the English influence on Romanian Language is not so recent as some may think, coming after
1990. In fact, behind this superficial judgement of facts, we see that this influence has been a more or less
constant one, even if words of English origin were introduced through other languages, French in particular.
Belonging to a language family other than Latin, the borrowings from English may create difficult adaptation or
acceptance by a great deal of speakers. Still, let us not forget that English itself has got a powerful Latin
component (e.g. audit, bonus, item), and thus, some of these English loans do not harm our language, they only
continue the old process of re-Latinisation of Romanian. Therefore, we do not have to worry and be afraid of the
English influences, as some of us do the English influence is not a structurally negative phenomenon, it does not
have to be considered as more dangerous than other foreign influence.
The years coming after the 1989 events were characterized by an important afflux of neologisms that invaded the specific
specialized professional languages that use technical terms coming from French, German and English. Out of these, the
most numerous are, by far, of English origin. Nevertheless, their great number does not necessarily means that they have
gained a permanent place within the Romanian vocabulary; their selection will be completed in time only after they have
proved their utility for our language.
The international technical and scientific terminology has a special place among neologisms. Their number is ever
growing due to all the rapid changes and extraordinary development of technique and sciences. Most of these terms are
of Latin origin and they came into Romanian mainly through French, but also through English. Their presence in the
Romanian vocabulary is a natural outcome of the language development.
The lexical borrowings of English origin has recently become very intense in the European languages, Romanian
included. The English influence has changed into the most powerful source of enriching vocabulary.
Romanian linguistic researches focusing on the English neologism are quite recent and are not very numerous.
Some of them deal with the neologism adaptation process, the way these international items are tolerated by the
Romanian vocabulary; others present phonetic, phonological, morphologic aspects of English neologisms
words are still felt as being foreign words for the phonologic, morphologic etc. systems of the Romanian
language. The present situation seems rather tense due to certain phenomena like: the multitude of very recent
neologisms, the frequent brake of the rules guiding the clear, correct and fair means of expression, the spoken
language becomes more and more colloquial and less literary.
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Nowadays the English influence over Romanian is so powerful and obvious that it determines different attitudes
among common users, speakers and among specialists, linguists as well. It is a unidirectional influence, has a
deliberate character and mainly consists of cultivated, savant borrowings as compared to the bi-directional,
popular, spontaneous, and conditioned by the community coexistence that spoke different languages or by the
natural bilingual characteristics of regional contacts.
The English borrowings characterize most of the important current domains of activity: the economic,
technological (meaning computers, Internet), cultural, advertising, press, sportive etc. areas. These borrowed
English items penetrate both by means of words of mouth and using the written texts, taking the place of French
as the main lender source language for Romanian. Yet, their abundance does not really affect the cultural,
intellectual aspect of Romanian, here French keeps its position as the main lender language for these domains.
There were different opinions and attitudes among Romanian linguists regarding the topic. Some of them
opposed this trend of adopting so many English terms; others were less vehement, even relaxed about the issue,
considering this to be a normal, natural phenomenon that should not be blamed any longer as polluting,
endangering the Romanian language. Among the latter category there is Mioara Avram who considers the new
English elements as necessary for a proper communication nowadays; what is not to be neglected in her opinion,
is the great number of such neologisms that appear in one and the same communication- be it oral or written.
[cf. Avram, M., Anglicismele n limba romn actual, Editura Academiei Romne, Bucureti, 1977, p. 13]
The number of the Romanian words of English origin can not be precisely stated, as there are daily borrowings
and thus their number is increasing. Most of these terms are considered international terms, designating
concepts, phenomena, processes, belonging mainly to technology, science etc. They are terms, the so-called
bricks terminology operates with.
Even if today the Romanian language is sometimes flooded with Anglo-Saxon neologisms, they do not come to
alter the Latin character of our language, they do not change its appearance, as most of these borrowings are
Latin words themselves, even if, this time it is English that helps them penetrate into Romanian; our language
gains, becoming a modern one, capable to express any concept, idea, and remaining a dynamic, alive language
just like al l the other Latin or Roman languages.

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