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Foreign loanwords pretentious | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| sumabeast Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6926 days ago 212 posts - 220 votes  Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written) | Message 1 of 4 13 September 2007 at 4:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In English, loanwords from French of Latin often sound more educated.
for example: domicile = home commence = begin hors d'oeuvres = snack blanche = whiten oddly enough, when you want to sound really super educated you might use an older word of Anglo-Saxon origins, example: feign = fake, pretend loathe = hate woo = love, to court Does this occur in other languages? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| breckes Triglot Groupie Belgium Joined 6799 days ago 84 posts - 89 votes Speaks: French*, English, Russian Studies: Italian, Dutch, Swedish | Message 2 of 4 13 September 2007 at 5:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
The word "feign" is also of French origin, it still exists in French in the form "feindre", which also means fake, pretend. Here is what says the Oxford English Dictionary online :
In French, some loanwords from Latin or Greek sound more educated, but a lot of them are now of everyday use. Edited by breckes on 13 September 2007 at 5:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6665 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil | Message 3 of 4 14 September 2007 at 4:06am | IP Logged | |||||
In German, loanwords from Latin or Greek are definitely used in educated (or pseudo-educated) speech. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6768 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 4 of 4 14 September 2007 at 6:44am | IP Logged | |||||
The reason for this, of course, is that French was the language of the nobility and the aristocracy in England for several centuries. When writing and Buddhism first came to Japan, all the educated nobility studied and wrote in Chinese. Eventually, large numbers of Chinese words were adopted into Japanese for religious, philosophical, and scientific terms. Like French dominion over England, this happened long ago*, but Sino-Japanese words account for close to half of Japanese's vocabulary (like French words in English), and those words tend to be more sophisticated or intellectual-sounding. *With the exception of the more recent Meiji Restoration, during which time Chinese was used like Latin and Greek in English to coin thousands of new technical words. Edited by Captain Haddock on 14 September 2007 at 6:46am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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