The above formula was developed in 1954 by Walter Isard to give a very good estimation of how much trade (numbered by currency, usually dollars) goes on between two countries. I won't get into the specifics, but the formula basically says this: given the distance between two countries (physical distance is a huge barrier to trade) and the relative sizes of both countries' economies, Fij will be equal to how much trade goes on between the two countries. The formula has turned out to be a pretty reliable one, consistently predicting the correct figures that we would expect to see.
But I would like to take the formula out of its economics box and bring it into contemporary linguistics. Namely, with sufficient work, a formula could be devised to predict how much a language will borrow from another language due to contact.
i = Submissive language, the language that imports itself
j = Dominant language, the language that exports itself
D = the economic mass of a culture
G = a constant ~ 1
F = total language exported from j to i
Mij = total distance between two countries equal to MiMij
So...
Fij = G(Mij/Dij)
The important thing that this equation predicts is the amount of language export upon a submissive language, but not the other way around. Sociologists have long noticed that language exchange is never equal. Iberian Latin absorbed almost no local words during the Roman Empire, yet Latin quickly demolished all local tongues in the peninsula to the point where it is impossible to know what languages once existed in these villages. For a contemporary example, look at Mexican-United States relations and their languages: Mexican Spanish uses an incredible breadth of 'Americanisms,' from retiro (in the sense of 'to retire from a job') to 'dippear' ('to dip'). Yet how many Spanish words have entered the General American English lexicon? Not many, probably none.
Probably none? Seriously? How about these for a start: embargo, sombrero, alligator, canasta, bonanza, cilantro, pueblo, fandango, flotilla, tornado, flamenco, vigilante, cabana, peccadillo, filibuster, vanilla, fiesta, anchovy, mesa, cafeteria, bongo, oregano, lariat, buffalo, sassafras, sarsaparilla, ...........
ReplyDeleteI stand corrected, Lynne. Except you're wrong about buffalo - I don't even know why you thought it was from Spanish, it's from Middle French 'buffel'. Furthermore, I would argue some of those words are hardly English words, like pueblo and fiesta, but are used by the speaker, knowing full well that they're not English but a borrowed word that with no real permanence. How many times have you heard someone say, "I'm going to the pueblo"?
ReplyDeleteAnd for every word you think of that has entered English from Spanish, one could think of twice as many words that entered Spanish from English. Off the top of my head: carwas, computadora, retiro, carro, gringo, slang, gobierno (as in governor), movil, fax, telefono, tele, in (as in cool), retiro (for retire), laser, chaqueta (as in masturbation), gay, guau, etc...
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