In
linguistics
, a
calque
(
) or
loan translation
is a
word
or
phrase
borrowed from another
language
by
literal
word-for-word or root-for-root
translation
. When used as a
verb
, “to calque” means to borrow a word or phrase from another language while translating its components, so as to create a new
lexeme
in the target language. For instance, the English word "skyscraper" has been calqued in dozens of other languages,
[1]
combining words for "sky" and "scrape" in each language, as for example,
German
:
Wolkenkratzer
,
Portuguese:
Arranha-ceu
,
Turkish
:
Gokdelen,
Swedish
:
Skyskrapa
. Another notable example is the Latin
weekday names
, which came to be associated by ancient Germanic speakers with their own gods following a practice known as
interpretatio germanica
: the Latin "Day of
Mercury
",
Mercurii dies
(later
mercredi
in modern
French
), was borrowed into
Late Proto-Germanic
as the "Day of
W?đanaz
" (
Wodanesdag
), which became
W?dnesdæg
in
Old English
, then "Wednesday" in Modern English.
[2]
Calquing is distinct from
phono-semantic matching
: while calquing includes
semantic
translation, it does not consist of
phonetic
matching?i.e., of retaining the approximate
sound
of the borrowed word by matching it with a similar-sounding pre-existing word or
morpheme
in the target language.
[3]
Proving that a word is a calque sometimes requires more documentation than does an untranslated loanword because, in some cases, a similar phrase might have arisen in both languages independently. This is less likely to be the case when the grammar of the proposed calque is quite different from that of the borrowing language, or when the calque contains less obvious imagery.
One system classifies calques into five groups. This terminology is not universal:
[4]
- Phraseological calques
:
idiomatic phrases
are translated word for word. For example, "
it goes without saying
" calques the French
ca va sans dire
.
[5]
- Syntactic calques
:
syntactic functions
or constructions of the source language are imitated in the target language, in violation of their meaning. For example, the use of "by" instead of "with" in the phrase "fine by me" is thought to have come from Yiddish
bei
, namely from the 1930s Yiddish Broadway musical song title
???? ??? ????? ????
/
Bei Mir Bistu Shein
/
lit.
'
To Me You're Beautiful
'
.
[6]
- Loan-translations
: words are translated
morpheme
by morpheme, or component by component, into another language.
- Semantic calques
(also known as
semantic loans
): additional meanings of the source word are transferred to the word with the same primary meaning in the target language. As described below, the "computer mouse" was named in English for its resemblance to the animal; many other languages have extended their own native word for "mouse" to include the computer mouse.
- Morphological calques
: the
inflection
of a word is transferred. Some authors call this a
morpheme-by-morpheme translation
.
[7]
Some linguists refer to a
phonological calque
, in which the pronunciation of a word is imitated in the other language.
[8]
For example, the English word "radar" becomes the similar-sounding Chinese word
雷?
(
pinyin
:
leida
),
[8]
which literally means "to arrive (as fast) as thunder".
Partial calques, or loan blends, translate some parts of a compound but not others.
[9]
For example, the name of the Irish digital television service
Saorview
is a partial calque of that of the UK service "
Freeview
", translating the first half of the word from English to Irish but leaving the second half unchanged. Other examples include "
liverwurst
" (< German
Leberwurst
)
[10]
and "
apple strudel
" (< German
Apfelstrudel
).
[11]
The "
computer mouse
" was named in English for its resemblance to the
animal
. Many other languages use their word for "mouse" for the "computer mouse", sometimes using a
diminutive
or, in
Chinese
, adding the word "
cursor
" (
?
), making
sh?bi?o
"mouse cursor" (
simplified Chinese
:
鼠?
;
traditional Chinese
:
鼠標
;
pinyin
:
sh?bi?o
).
[
citation needed
]
Another example is the Spanish word
raton
that means both the animal and the computer mouse.
[12]
The common English phrase "
flea market
" is a loan translation of the French
marche aux puces
("market with fleas").
[13]
At least 22 other languages calque the French expression directly or indirectly through another language.
The word
loanword
is a calque of the
German
noun
Lehnwort
. In contrast, the term
calque
is a loanword, from the French
noun
calque
("tracing, imitation, close copy").
[14]
Another example of a common morpheme-by-morpheme loan-translation is of the
English
word "
skyscraper
", which may be calqued using the word for "sky" or "cloud" and the word, variously, for "scrape", "scratch", "pierce", "sweep", "kiss", etc. At least 54 languages have their own versions of the English word.
Some
Germanic
and
Slavic languages
derived their words for "translation" from words meaning "carrying across" or "bringing across", calquing from the Latin
transl?ti?
or
tr?d?c?
.
[15]
Since at least 1894, according to the
Tresor de la langue francaise informatise
, the
French
term
calque
has been used in its
linguistic
sense, namely in a publication by Louis Duvau:
[16]
Un autre phenomene d'hybridation est la creation dans une langue d'un mot nouveau, derive ou compose a l'aide d'elements existant deja dans cette langue, et ne se distinguant en rien par l'aspect exterieur des mots plus anciens, mais qui, en fait, n'est que le
calque
d'un mot existant dans la langue maternelle de celui qui s'essaye a un parler nouveau. [...] nous voulons rappeler seulement deux ou trois exemples de ces
calques
d'expressions, parmi les plus certains et les plus frappants.
|
Another phenomenon of hybridization is the creation in a language of a new word, derived or composed with the help of elements already existing in that language, and which is not distinguished in any way by the external aspect of the older words, but which, in fact, is only the
copy
(
calque
) of a word existing in the mother tongue of the one who tries out a new language. [...] we want to recall only two or three examples of these
copies
(
calques
) of expressions, among the most certain and the most striking.
|
Since at least 1926, the term
calque
has been attested in English through a publication by the linguist
Otakar Vo?adlo
?[
cs
]
:
[17]
- [...] such imitative forms are called
calques
(or
decalques
) by French
philologists
, and this is a frequent method in coining abstract terminology, whether nouns or verbs.
Notes
- ^
Gachelin, Jean-Marc (1986).
Lexique-grammaire, domaine anglais
. Universite de Saint-Etienne. p.?97.
ISBN
978-2-901559-14-6
.
- ^
Simek, Rudolf (1993).
Dictionary of northern mythology
. D.S. Brewer. p.?371.
ISBN
0-85991-369-4
.
- ^
Zuckermann, Ghil'ad
(2003).
Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew
. Palgrave Macmillan.
ISBN
1-4039-1723-X
.
- ^
Smith, May.
The Influence of French on Eighteenth-century Literary Russian
. pp.?29?30.
- ^
Fowler, H. W.
[1908] 1999. "
Vocabulary § Foreign Words
." chap. 1 in
The King's English
(2nd ed.). New York:
Bartelby.com
.
- ^
Shapiro, Michael (25 January 2013).
"
"It's OK by Me" as a Syntactic Calque"
.
Language Lore
.
Archived
from the original on Sep 28, 2022.
- ^
Gilliot, Claude. "The Authorship of the Qur'?n." In
The Qur'an in its Historical Context
, edited by
G. S. Reynolds
. p. 97.
- ^
a
b
Yihua, Zhang, and Guo Qiping. 2010. "An Ideal Specialised Lexicography for Learners in China based on English-Chinese Specialised Dictionaries." Pp. 171?92 in
Specialised Dictionaries for Learners
, edited by P. A. F. Olivera. Berlin: de Gruyter.
p. 187
.
ISBN
9783110231328
- ^
Durkin, Philip.
The Oxford Guide to Etymology
. § 5.1.4
- ^
"liverwurst"
.
Oxford English Dictionary
(Online?ed.).
Oxford University Press
.
(Subscription or
participating institution membership
required.)
- ^
"apple strudel"
.
Oxford English Dictionary
(Online?ed.).
Oxford University Press
.
(Subscription or
participating institution membership
required.)
- ^
"raton"
.
Diccionario panhispanico de dudas (DPD), 2.ª edicion (version provisional)
(in Spanish). Real Academia Espanola y Asociacion de Academias de la Lengua Espanola
. Retrieved
30 May
2024
.
- ^
"flea market"
.
Bartleby
. Archived from
the original
on March 11, 2007.
- ^
Knapp, Robbin D. 27 January 2011. "
Robb: German English Words
."
Robb: Human Languages
.
- ^
Christopher Kasparek
, "The Translator's Endless Toil",
The Polish Review
, vol. XXVIII, no. 2, 1983, p. 83.
- ^
Duvau, Louis (1894). "Expressions hybrides".
Memoires de la Societe de linguistique de Paris
.
8
. Paris:
191
.
- ^
Vo?adlo, Otakar (1926). "Slav Linguistic Purity and the Use of Foreign Words".
The Slavonic Review
.
5
(14): 353.
JSTOR
4202081
.
Bibliography
Look up
calque
in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Look up
calque
in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.