Well, this assignment was not as easy as I thought it would be for the simple reason of deciding on a single word from what is an unlimited selection.  At first, I went with the word ‘sayonara’ because it’s a cool word that I use a lot while destroying Moblin’s and Lynel’s in the Legend of Zelda video game. Unfortunately, my research only found small blurbs or short articles about how ‘sayonara’ “may have” transformed over the years in the Japanese vocabulary and found its way into the English language. With such uncertainty I went to my vault of favorite words and came up with ‘tsunami’ as I love watching natural disasters.  

Tsunami, meaning “harbor wave,” is also borrowed from Japanese language and is the combination of two words.  “Tsu” for harbor and “Nami” for wave. The word ‘tsunami’ has a long history in Japan that is over 1000 years, but it wasn’t until the late 1800’s that it would begin being used, scarcely, in the English language.  It would become a more commonly used word after the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami that hit Indonesia, killing 32,000 people.  Strangely, if not amusing, the term ‘tidal wave’ was replaced by the word ‘tsunami’ because ‘tidal wave’ was not an accurate description of what the event was (it has nothing to do with the tide) and it was replaced by the word, tsunami, that  is also not completely accurate to what the natural event is (it does not just happen in harbors).

But I digress, in Japan the word tsunami is pronounced with the ‘t’ as it does not violate their phonotactic constraints but when it became a borrowed word in American English, it did not conform to the word-initial consonant cluster constraints of the English language and thus it was adapted by dropping the sound of ‘t’ just pronouncing it as,  tsunami : /suˈnɑmi/.

One example of a word borrowed from Japanese into English is “karaoke.” In Japanese, it is pronounced /ka.ra.o.ke/ with five syllables and a stress pattern on the first syllable. In English, it is pronounced /ˌkær.iˈoʊ.ki/, with four syllables and a different stress pattern. The adaptation involves simplifying the vowel sounds and adjusting the stress placement to fit English phonology. Additionally, English tends to have fewer syllables in borrowed words, leading to the reduction of syllables from five to four in this case. The pronunciation in the borrowing language reflects the linguistic constraints and patterns of English, making it easier for English speakers to pronounce while retaining the essence of the original word.

There are a lot of words that are borrowed. For instance, for cafe and coffee, the donor language is from France (Donor language), and it is borrowed from English (Borrowed language) However I noticed one word that stood out to me. The borrowed word is “sushi,” which originated from Japanese and was borrowed into English. Donor Language (Japanese) the pronunciation is /sɯɕi/ In Japanese, “su” is pronounced as /sɯ/ and “shi” as /ɕi/. Japanese has a straightforward phonemic list with limited consonants and vowels. Borrowing Language (English) the pronunciation is /ˈsuːʃi/. English pronunciation of “sushi” to fit its phonemic list and phonotactics. Us English speakers tend to put in a vowel sound between the “s” and “h” sounds, giving us  /suːʃ/. The vowel sound /uː/ is similar to the Japanese /ɯ/, and the affricate /ʃ/ replaces the Japanese fricative /ɕ/.In summary, the pronunciation of “sushi” in English involves phonetic changes to accommodate English phonology, such as vowel lengthening and substitution of consonants, while still keeping the core essence of the Japanese word.

There are many words in the English language that were borrowed from other foreign languages in order to create a new yet familiar word. For example, the word “ranch” [raanch] in English is pronounced in IPA as /ræn(t)ʃ/ and was borrowed from the donor language of Spanish using their word “rancho” [ran-choh], pronounced in IPA as /ˈræn(t)ʃoʊ/. The word “ranch” in English refers to a large farm where cattle animals are raised. In Spanish, the word “rancho” was historically used in Latin or Spanish America to refer to a village or hut for travelers to settle in. However, the meaning of this word has changed with the progression of modern times (with the influences of western culture due to borrowing the original word) and is widely correlated with farm land for the most part, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. In terms of pronunciation, these two words differ as “ranch” in English only has one syllable stressed throughout the word, as opposed to “rancho” in Spanish having two syllables; the last one being stressed. Along with this, the English language omitted the last /o/ in “rancho” in order to help adapt it with their phonotactic constraints since the majority of words found end with a consonant rather than a vowel. In Spanish, the /ch/ sound is generally followed by a vowel in order to stress out the final syllable.

As mentioned in the textbook, there are many borrowed words across different languages that have similar yet different pronunciations. One example would be the word lemon [lemən] pronounced as leh+muhn in English. I found out that this word originates from the Arabic word ليمون or līmūn which means a yellow citrus fruit. Another English word that originated from Arabic is coffee [kɑːfi]. This comes from the arabic word قهوة or Kahwa. The middle and ending of the words are different however the beginning sound [Ka] is the same. I also find it interesting that not only does the pronunciation change between languages, it also changes between the dialects of the language as well. For example, in standard Arabic, it is pronounced Kahwa, however in my Egyptian dialect we don’t pronounce the beginning the same. Instead we say Ahwa. So I think its very interesting how pronunciations of the same word differentiate between different dialects as well as different languages.

One word that is borrowed from Arabic, which is the donor language is ‘coffee’. English would be the borrowing language. ‘coffee’ which comes from the Arabic word ‘qahwa’, was originally referred to a type of wine but later came to specifically mean coffee. ‘qahwa’ was then borrowed into Turkish as ‘kahve’, and from there it spread to various other languages. The English word ‘coffee’ entered the language in the 16th century (1582), likely through trade routes and interactions with the Ottoman Empire. In English, ‘coffee’ is typically pronounced as /ˈkɒfi/ or /ˈkɑfi/, with stress on the first syllable and a short vowel sound in the second syllable. The ‘o’ sound is often pronounced as a short ‘o’ or sometimes as an ‘aw’ sound. In Arabic, ‘qahwa’ is pronounced as /ˈqɑː.wæ/ or /ˈqɑː.wɑː/. The ‘q’ sound is a voiceless uvular stop, which is not present in English, and the ‘a’ sounds are pronounced differently from the English ‘a’.

the english word stampede is derived from the spanish word estampida. pronounced /stæm’pi:d/ in english, it’s original pronunciation is /ɛstam’pi:da/. english and spanish have different phonetic inventories and language rules. spanish does not start words with the /st/ sound in the onset, but will use /ɛst/ to keep the flow of the word. estampida ending with an a is because spanish is a gendered language and nouns will end with an o or an a. english does not have gendered nouns, so we did not keep the a ending sound. we kept the stressed syllable the same. spanish pronunciation has the long a sound that we rarely use and we use the æ that we are more comfortable pronouncing.

The word that I will be using is guru. This word was borrowed from the Sanskrit language for the English language. In the donor language, this word is pronounced as gu-ru (guːruː). In the borrowing language, it is pronounced as GOOR-oo (ɡʊˌru). There is a difference between the two pronunciations. In the donor language (Sanskrit), guru is said much quicker than it is in English. In English (borrowing language), the letters g and u are exaggerated (said like “goo”) and held while then transitioning to the letter r. The letter r is also somewhat exaggerated as well. After that, the letters r and u are also exaggerated (said like “roo”). Notice that most words beginning with the letters g and u are not said like this in English. This could be due to the fact that we tend to stress certain letters or symbols when we talk. In this case, the letter u was very stressed, although the letter r was also slightly stressed as well.

One word that has been borrowed from one language to the English language is the word “cookie”.  The word originates from the Dutch to them it means a small cake or biscuit. In Dutch, “cookie” is pronounced as “koekje” the phonetic translation being, [ kʊk.i ]. The difference between the pronouncing is that the first syllable koekje sounds like cook. The “e” here is a schwa and the “j” is pronounced like “y.” The pronunciation of the word was modified to fit the phonemic inventory chart by adding a schwa sound. The English language continues to borrow from various languages across the world some words are pronounced the same but depending on how it is spelled.

One word originating somewhere else and borrowed by English is “illusion.” The word was borrowed from the French in the 14th century, which itself was derived from the Latin; it has many meanings but the most common is “deceptive appearance.” Similarly, this is close to our English definition of something the senses are likely to perceive incorrectly. When looking at the word “illusion” (English vs. French) the spelling on the IPA chart changes while the spelling of the actual word does not. In English, the IPA version of the word is / iˈluʒən / while the French version is / illyzjõ /. Despite both words being spelled the same, the pronunciation is clearly different. The English pronunciation is “(ill-ou-shun)” while the French pronunciation is “(ill-lou-ze-un).” From centuries of education and literature, it is interesting to see how far one word has traveled.