The word ” ballet” has been actually borrowed and adapted not only in the English vocabulary but also in french. The word “ballet” actually originated around 1500 in Italy. The term “ballet” and “ball” stem from the Italian word “ballare” which means “to dance”. The the term “ballet” made it the french vocabulary which then came into the English vocabulary from the french, while the french borrowed it from Italy. The term “ballet” which again means ” to dance” or “jump up” comes from the Greek word “ballizo”. We can see how a word can be borrowed and adapted from not only one place but to many to fit the phonetic vocabulary of that adopting language. In the english IPA format, the word ballet is spelled like ” [(bal] + [ay)]. In french, they also pronounce it as “balay” also with an unstressed syllable.

In examining the adaptation of words borrowed from one language to another, let’s delve into the examples of “café” from French to English and “pasta” from Italian to Japanese. When “café” made its way into English, its pronunciation shifted from /kafe/ in French to /ˈkæˌfeɪ/ in English. The elongation of the /e/ sound at the end of the word and the change of the initial vowel from /a/ to /æ/ highlight adjustments to fit English phonotactics. Similarly, “pasta” underwent modifications upon being borrowed into Japanese, transitioning from /ˈpɑːstə/ in Italian to [pasɯta] in Japanese. The addition of a short vowel sound, [ɯ], between the consonants “s” and “t” to adhere to Japanese phonotactic rules exemplifies adaptation. While the original meanings remain intact, these examples illustrate how pronunciation adapts to suit the phonemic inventory and phonotactics of the borrowing language. Likewise, when considering words in Spanish and Arabic, one might explore how terms like “café” or “pasta” undergo similar transformations to align with the linguistic structures of these languages.

One word that I found that is borrowed by the english language is sabotage. It was borrowed from the French language, and now it is being used very often in the English language. What the word means is to betray someone, or stab them in the back, so to speak. Sabotage is usually planned beforehand, and it is carried out to be a negative outcome. In the IPA, sabotage looks like /ˈsæ.bəˌtɑːʒ/. The onset is “sa” the nucleus is “bo” and the coda is “tage”. The “tage” at the end is what the last symbol is making, and that sound is not used too frequently in the English language.

As an English and Spanish speaker, there are many words that are spelt the same in English and in Spanish but the pronunciation is different and they either mean the same thing or could mean something totally different. Growing up speaking both of the languages, mainly English, I would get confused and assume that it’s the same pronunciation in Spanish and my mom would teach me the difference. For example, the word “chocolate”, spelled the same in both languages but different pronunciation. In English it’s “chak – liht” and its IPA is “tʃak – lɪt”. In Spanish it’s “choh – koh – lah – teh” and its IPA is “tʃo – ko – la – te”.

One of the words I would like to consider is “café” which was borrowed from french to English. Pronounced /ˈkæˌfeɪ/ in English, whereas in French, it’s pronounced /kafe/. The pronunciation was adapted to fit the phonemic inventory and phonotactics of English.In French the word café usually doesn’t have elongation of the /e/sound at the end however in English there’s elongation at the end of the word where it is pronounced as the diphthong /eɪ/. The vowel /a/ In the beginning of the word is also pronounced differently in English than French, the pronunciation is /a/ rather than the open vowel /a/ . However, the English phonotactic has stuck with the constant-vowel-constant- vowel rule (CVCV) which makes it easier for English speakers to adapt to using the word as well as the constant cluster /f/ followed by /eI/. Both constants In English and French are pronounced similarly and the word overall has been adapted to fit in the English phonotactic retaining its form and meaning from French (donor language ).

One word that I found that Japanese (borrowing language) borrowed from English (donor language) is milk. When milk, pronounced as /mɪlk/ was adapted to Japanese phonotactics and phonemic inventory, the pronunciation was changed to /miɾɯkɯ/. Several changes were made to adapt English phonotactics and phonemic inventory to Japanese phonotactics and phonemic inventory. In Japanese, there cannot be consonant clusters so to fix the English pronunciation, the vowel sound [ɯ] was added in between consonants. Along with that, the [l] sound was changed to an alveolar tap [ɾ], a sound kind of between “r” and “l” as Japanese doesn’t have the [l] sound. Finally, the syllable structure was changed. From one syllable, “milk”, to three syllables “mi ru ku”. This change allows native Japanese speakers to easily pronounce the word as there usually aren’t one syllable words in Japanese.

A word I want to talk about is “pasta”. When the Italian word “pasta” /ˈpɑːstə/ was borrowed into Japanese, its pronunciation changed to fit the Japanese language, resulting in [pasɯta]. In Italian, the word is pronounced with a “st” sound in the middle, which is okay in Italian. But in Japanese, you can’t have two consonants like “s” and “t” together in the middle of a word. To fix this, the Japanese pronunciation adds a short vowel sound, [ɯ], between the “s” and “t” sounds, making two separate parts: “pasu” and “ta.” This change follows the Japanese rule that usually doesn’t allow two consonants together in the middle of a word. Also, the Italian “a” sound is a bit different from the Japanese “a” sound, but they are similar enough that the “a” sound in “pasta” stayed the same in Japanese. In summary, when “pasta” was borrowed into Japanese, it changed to fit the rules of the Japanese language. The addition of the [ɯ] vowel to separate the “s” and “t” sounds is a clear example of how Japanese rules affect the pronunciation of foreign words which ties into when words are borrowed from other languages.

A word that I found out was borrowed from one language to another is the word, Doctor. In Spanish, it is spelled the same way as in English. However, the words are pronounced quite differently because the r rolls in Spanish while in English it doesn’t. The word in English is pronounced as dak-duhr while in Spanish the pronunciation differs, it is dohk-tohr. Though the way this is said can change due to gender roles, if the word is describing a man it stays the same but if the word is describing a woman then we would use the feminine noun. It would look like Doctora and sound like dohk-tohra. The [d] is produced in a different part of the mouth. For example, when we say Doctor in Spanish our tongue touches the roof of our mouth and then slightly pushes our teeth and alveolar ridge. While in English our tongue hits the roof of our mouth and falls back down. The origins of word doctor came from the agent noun ducere which is Latin for someone who is a leader, the word was used to describe men and teachers then it transformed into a word that describes people who graduated college and eventually over time it turned into what we now know as a doctor which was used as as a way to show respect to any professionals who have PhDs.

A word that has been borrowed from the donor language, Greenlandic, into the borrowing language, English, is the word, “kayak.” In Greenlandic, “kayak” is pronounced “qajaq.” The q is like a voiceless stop but further back in your mouth and the “a” is pronounced like the “a” in the English pronunciation of the word “father”. In English we pronounce the word kayak like “kaɪæk.” We pronounce the “q” like a “k” and the “j” like a “y”. This is because when a word is borrowed from one language into another, its pronunciation is adapted to suit the phonotactics and phonemic inventory of the borrowing language. 

One word or phrase that I found that was borrowed from one language to another is the word cliché. This word is originally from the French which is the donor language. The word Cliché is defined as something that is very common an idea or phrase that gets overused so much it ends up being less interesting. In French the word Cliché is pronounced as /kli.e/. Now the English version is pronounced as //kliːˈʃeɪ/. Although the word Cliché means the same thing in both languages, The stress patterns are very different. In English the stress pattern falls on just one syllable while in French it’s the second. The pronunciation of the word was adapted to fit the phonemic inventory by adding a schwa sound to the end of the word to match the stress paterns in English