New worlds for old words / Mundos nuevos para viejas palabras
Autor: Christopher J. Pountain , Bozena Wislocka Breit
Número de Páginas: 305
"New worlds for old words / Mundos nuevos para viejas palabras" is a collection of chapters on the theme of lexical borrowing in the languages of Western Europe with particular focus on borrowing from Latin, or from Greek via Latin, into Spanish. Such cultured, or “learnèd” borrowing—as it has sometimes been designated—, is an especially intriguing feature of the Romance languages, since they also derive from Latin. It is also of particular interest to historical linguists since it is an example of what has been called “change from above”: innovation first evidenced in the written usage of the culturally élite which then diffuses into more general acceptance, with the result that some cultured borrowings (e.g. problem/problema, social, program(me)/programa) are now amongst the most common words in the modern languages. Despite their enormous influence on such major languages as English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian, the mechanisms by which these borrowings become established in their host languages have to date been relatively little studied. This book seeks to make a contribution to this question and revive interest in what has become a neglected area of ...
