Transmission in the Ottoman Empire ) During more than 600 years of the
Ottoman Empire, the literary and administrative language of the empire was
Turkish, with many
Persian and
Arabic loanwords, called
Ottoman Turkish, considerably differing from the everyday spoken Turkish of the time. Many such words were adopted by other languages of the empire, such as
Albanian,
Bosnian,
Bulgarian,
Croatian,
Greek,
Hungarian,
Ladino,
Macedonian,
Montenegrin and
Serbian. After the empire fell after
World War I and the
Republic of Turkey was founded, the Turkish language underwent an extensive
language reform led by the newly founded
Turkish Language Association, during which
many adopted words were replaced with new formations derived from
Turkic roots. That was part of the ongoing cultural reform of the time, in turn a part in the broader framework of
Atatürk's Reforms, which also included the introduction of the new
Turkish alphabet. Turkish also has taken many words from
French, such as
pantolon for
trousers (from French
pantalon) and
komik for
funny (from French
comique), most of them pronounced very similarly. Word usage in modern Turkey has acquired a political tinge:
right-wing publications tend to use more Arabic-originated words,
left-wing publications use more words adopted from Indo-European languages such as Persian and French, while centrist publications use more native Turkish root words.
Dutch words in Indonesian Almost 350 years of Dutch presence in what is now
Indonesia have left significant linguistic traces. Though very few Indonesians have a fluent knowledge of Dutch, the Indonesian language inherited many words from Dutch, both in words for everyday life (e.g.,
buncis from Dutch
boontjes for (green) beans) and as well in administrative, scientific or technological terminology (e.g.,
kantor from Dutch
kantoor for office). The Professor of Indonesian Literature at
Leiden University, and of Comparative Literature at
UCR, argues that roughly 20% of
Indonesian words can be traced back to Dutch words.
Dutch words in Russian In the late 17th century, the
Dutch Republic had a leading position in shipbuilding. Czar
Peter the Great, eager to improve his navy, studied shipbuilding in
Zaandam and
Amsterdam. Many Dutch naval terms have been incorporated in the Russian vocabulary, such as
бра́мсель (
brámselʹ) from Dutch for the
topgallant sail,
домкра́т (
domkrát) from Dutch
dommekracht for
jack, and
матро́с (
matrós) from Dutch
matroos for sailor.
Romance languages A large percentage of the lexicon of
Romance languages, themselves descended from
Vulgar Latin, consists of loanwords (later
learned or scholarly borrowings) from Latin. These words can be distinguished by lack of typical sound changes and other transformations found in descended words, or by meanings taken directly from
Classical or
Ecclesiastical Latin that did not evolve or change over time as expected; in addition, there are also semi-learned terms which were adapted partially to the Romance language's character. Latin borrowings can be known by several names in Romance languages: in French, for example, they are usually referred to as , in Spanish as , and in Italian as . Latin is usually the most common source of loanwords in these languages, such as in Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, etc., and in some cases the total number of loans may even outnumber inherited terms (although the learned borrowings are less often used in common speech, with the most common vocabulary being of inherited, orally transmitted origin from Vulgar Latin). This has led to many cases of etymological
doublets in these languages. For most Romance languages, these loans were initiated by scholars, clergy, or other learned people and occurred in medieval times, peaking in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance era in an effort to modernize the language, often adding concepts that did not exist until then, or replacing words of other origins. These common borrowings and features also essentially serve to raise mutual intelligibility of the Romance languages, particularly in academic/scholarly, literary, technical, and scientific domains. Many of these same words are also found in English (through its numerous borrowings from Latin and French) and other European languages. In addition to Latin loanwords, many words of Ancient Greek origin were also borrowed into Romance languages, often in part through scholarly Latin intermediates, and these also often pertained to academic, scientific, literary, and technical topics. Furthermore, to a lesser extent, Romance languages borrowed from a variety of other languages; in particular English has become an important source in more recent times. The study of the origin of these words and their function and context within the language can illuminate some important aspects and characteristics of the language, and it can reveal insights on the phenomenon of lexical borrowing in linguistics as a method of enriching a language. ==Cultural aspects==