A pseudo-anglicism is a word in another language that is formed from English elements and may appear to be English, but that does not exist as an English word with the same meaning.[1][2][3][4][5]

For example, English speakers traveling in France may be struck by the "number of anglicisms—or rather words that look English—which are used in a different sense than they have in English, or which do not exist in English (such as rallye-paper, shake-hand, baby-foot, or baby-parc)".[6]

This is different from a false friend, which is a word with a cognate that has a different main meaning; in some cases, pseudo-anglicisms become false friends.[7]

Definition and terminology

Pseudo-anglicisms are also called secondary anglicisms,[8] false anglicisms,[9] or pseudo-English.[10]

Pseudo-anglicisms are a kind of lexical borrowing where the source or donor language is English, but where the borrowing is reworked in the receptor or recipient language.[11][12]

The precise definition varies. Duckworth defines pseudo-anglicisms in German as "neologisms derived from English language material."[11][13] Furiassi includes words that may exist in English with a "conspicuously different meaning".[14]

Typology and mechanism

Pseudo-anglicisms can be created in various ways, such as by archaism, i.e., words that once had that meaning in English but are since abandoned; semantic slide, where an English word is used to mean something different than its English meaning; conversion of existing words from one part of speech to another; or recombinations by reshuffling English units.[15]

Onysko speaks of two types: pseudo-anglicisms and hybrid anglicisms. The common factor is that each type represents a neologism in the receptor language resulting from a combination of borrowed lexical items from English. Using German as the receptor language, an example of the first type is Wellfit-Bar, a combination of two English lexical units to form a new term in German, which does not exist in English, and which carries the meaning, "a bar that caters to the needs of health-starved people." An example of the second type, is a hybrid based on a German compound word, Weitsprung (long jump), plus the English "coach", to create the new German word Weitsprung-Coach.[11]

According to Filipović, pseudo-anglicisms can be formed through compounding, suffixation, or ellipsis. For example, the Serbo-Croatian word none: голман was created from the English word goal, which the word man was added to. Alternatively, suffixes such as none: -ер or none: -ист(а) may be added to an English word to create a new word in Serbo-Croatian, such as none: тенисер or none: ватерполист(а). Ellipsis may also occur, wherein a component of an English word is dropped, such as the suffix -ing; examples include none: бокс from boxing, or none: хепиенд from happy ending.[16]

Another process of word formation that can result in a pseudo-anglicism is a blend word, consisting of portions of two words, like brunch or smog. Rey-Debove & Gagnon attest tansad in French in 1919, from English tan[dem] + sad[dle].[17]

Scope

Pseudo-anglicisms can be found in many languages that have contact with English around the world, and are attested in nearly all European languages.[18]

The equivalent of pseudo-anglicisms derived from languages other than English also exist. For example, the English-language phrase "double entendre", while often believed to be French and pronounced in a French fashion, is not actually used in French. For other examples, see dog Latin, list of pseudo-French words adapted to English, and list of pseudo-German words adapted to English.

Examples

Many languages

Some pseudo-anglicisms are found in many languages and have been characterized as "world-wide pseudo-English",[19] often borrowed via other languages such as French or Italian:[20]

Korean

Main article: Konglish
Further information: List of Konglish terms
  • one shot – "bottoms up" (원샷 [wʌn.ɕjat̚])[33]
  • hand phone – "cellphone" (핸드폰 [hɛn.dɯ.pon])[34]
  • skinship – platonic hand-holding, hugging, etc. (스킨십; [sɯ.kʰin.ɕip̚])[35]

Romance

French

French includes many pseudo-anglicisms, including novel compounds (baby-foot), specifically compounds in -man (tennisman), truncations (foot), places in -ing (dancing meaning dancing-place, not the act of dancing), and a large variety of meaning shifts.[36]

Italian

Portuguese

Spanish

Germanic

Danish

Dutch

German

See also: Denglisch

German pseudo anglicisms often have multiple valid and common ways of writing them, generally either hyphenated (Home-Office) or in one word (Homeoffice).[61]

More examples:[68]

Norwegian

Swedish

  • afterski – après‐ski[71]
  • afterwork – a meeting for drinks after the workday is finished[72][73]
  • backslick – a wet, combed‐back hair style[74]
  • mail – e‐mail[75]
  • pocket – a paperback book[76][77]
  • public service – public broadcasting[78]
  • speaker – an announcer (such as at sporting events)[79]

Slavic

Serbian

Polish

Russian

Austronesian

Malaysian Malay

Indonesian

Other languages

Maltese

See also

References

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  2. ^ Ilse Sørensen, English im deutschen Wortschatz, 1997, p. 18, as quoted in Onysko, 2007, p. 53: "words that look English, but which deviate from genuine English words either formally or semantically"
  3. ^ Sicherl 1999, p. 14.
  4. ^ Duckworth 1977.
  5. ^ Onysko 2007, p. 52.
  6. ^ Nicol Spence 1976, as quoted in Ayres-Bennett, 2014, p. 335
  7. ^ Henrik Gottlieb, "Danish pseudo-Anglicisms: A corpus-based analysis", p. 65 in Furiassi 2015
  8. ^ Filipović 1990.
  9. ^ Saugera 2017, 54.
  10. ^ Picone 1996, p. 316.
  11. ^ Onysko 2007, p. 52.
  12. ^ Carstensen 2015, p. 77.
  13. ^ Duckworth 1977, [page needed].
  14. ^ Furiassi 2010, p. 34.
  15. ^ Anderman 2005, p. 164.
  16. ^ Filipović 1990, pp. 138–139.
  17. ^ Rey-Debove 1990, p. 1018.
  18. ^ Furiassi 2015, p. 17.
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Sources

Further reading

  • James Stanlaw 2004, Japanese English: Language And The Culture Contact, Hong Kong University Press.
  • Laura Miller 1997, "Wasei eigo: English ‘loanwords' coined in Japan" in The Life of Language: Papers in Linguistics in Honor of William Bright, edited by Jane Hill, P.J. Mistry and Lyle Campbell, Mouton/De Gruyter: The Hague, pp. 123–139.
  • Geoff Parkes and Alan Cornell 1992, 'NTC's Dictionary of German False Cognates', National Textbook Company, NTC Publishing Group.
  • Ghil'ad Zuckermann 2003, ‘‘Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew’’ Archived 1 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, (Palgrave Studies in Language History and Language Change, Series editor: Charles Jones). ISBN 1-4039-1723-X.