Anglicisms in Brazil; multilingual etymological dictionary?
I occasionally read Portuguese translations of the NYTimes. They tend to be very literal, so some of the meaning is surely lost on readers who don't know English expressions and mannerisms (Paul Krugman's puns come to mind).
Anglicisms have been penetrating Portuguese (and most big languages) for many decades now. Were the concepts of "marketing", "design" and "nerd" obscure in Brazil before they made their way from the anglophones? If not, why would these English words take over so successfully? Can cultural colonialism be successful when there isn't a vacuum to fill?
I am guilty of using words like "approach" and "standard"; because "abordagem" and "padrão" are too inaccessible in my brain... but the latter are most likely still Anglicisms, only they are dressed up to look like locals. I am guilty of using "deadline" when perfectly a good translation exists ("prazo"). I come up short when I want to express:
* "pattern" ("padrão" again? really?)
* "unhealthy" ("insalubre"? WTF? Why not "in-saudável"? The lack of a word here is clear evidence that PT speakers don't feel the freedom to modify words through affixes)
* "unlike" ("ao contrário de" is too long!)
* "outdone" ("superado"? meh!)
* "range" ("alcance" is far too narrow)
* "quack" ("charlatão" is too formal)
my notes on Portuguese
---
On different types of loans
Between semantic loans and loan translations, it is remarkable how often words, metaphors and expressions translate exactly between European languages, leaving us puzzled about the history of a word or phrase. An etymological dictionary can tell you the first mention of "responsibility" in the English language, but it usually won't tell you if it was (a) a straightforward borrowing from another language, e.g. "responsabilité" (French), (b) a structural borrowing/rederivation based on e.g. Dutch "ver-antwoord-elijk-heid" (-response-ly-hood). There is also the possibility that such rederivations are a coincidence, i.e. independent reinventions... the likelihood of which should depend on how much you believe in the universality of the human conceptual system.
I suspect that educated speech uses a greater proportion of type B loans, whereas informal speech type uses more type A loans.
Another example (to borrow SAT analogy notation):
* community : common :: gemeenschap : gemeen
my notes on Dutch
mirror of this post
Anglicisms have been penetrating Portuguese (and most big languages) for many decades now. Were the concepts of "marketing", "design" and "nerd" obscure in Brazil before they made their way from the anglophones? If not, why would these English words take over so successfully? Can cultural colonialism be successful when there isn't a vacuum to fill?
I am guilty of using words like "approach" and "standard"; because "abordagem" and "padrão" are too inaccessible in my brain... but the latter are most likely still Anglicisms, only they are dressed up to look like locals. I am guilty of using "deadline" when perfectly a good translation exists ("prazo"). I come up short when I want to express:
* "pattern" ("padrão" again? really?)
* "unhealthy" ("insalubre"? WTF? Why not "in-saudável"? The lack of a word here is clear evidence that PT speakers don't feel the freedom to modify words through affixes)
* "unlike" ("ao contrário de" is too long!)
* "outdone" ("superado"? meh!)
* "range" ("alcance" is far too narrow)
* "quack" ("charlatão" is too formal)
my notes on Portuguese
---
On different types of loans
Between semantic loans and loan translations, it is remarkable how often words, metaphors and expressions translate exactly between European languages, leaving us puzzled about the history of a word or phrase. An etymological dictionary can tell you the first mention of "responsibility" in the English language, but it usually won't tell you if it was (a) a straightforward borrowing from another language, e.g. "responsabilité" (French), (b) a structural borrowing/rederivation based on e.g. Dutch "ver-antwoord-elijk-heid" (-response-ly-hood). There is also the possibility that such rederivations are a coincidence, i.e. independent reinventions... the likelihood of which should depend on how much you believe in the universality of the human conceptual system.
I suspect that educated speech uses a greater proportion of type B loans, whereas informal speech type uses more type A loans.
Another example (to borrow SAT analogy notation):
* community : common :: gemeenschap : gemeen
my notes on Dutch
mirror of this post