Lists terms from current sociopolitical language, continuing from an earlier issue of "Yelmo" and covering the second half of the alphabet, "J" to "X". Provides definitions and context quotations for all items, and in some cases, notes on their historical origin. Includes borrowings from English and from some regional…

Examines the rendering of personal, commercial, and geographic foreign names in Chinese, in order to make some observations about Chinese script. (AM)

A study of popular attitudes toward and use of Catalan and Castilian Spanish sought to clarify the prestige level of the languages in different areas in Spain. The study focused on the degree to which Catalan has undergone linguistic normalization by extension to all social levels and situations. (Author/MSE)

Examines recent lexical innovations in Nigerian English, focusing on loanshifts, ellipses, conversions, translation equivalents, analogical creations, and coinages. Various examples of each phenomenon are presented. (Contains three references.) (MDM)

Describes a project whose purpose is to set up a computerized database of bilingual texts to be used by researchers in the field of language interaction (i.e., codeswitching, borrowing, and other outcomes of contact between varieties). Current work includes adaptation of the CHILDES system to take account of the different needs of researchers in…

In historical linguistics, there are features that can have endogenous or contact origins. One argument is that if the informal probability weightings of both source types converge for a given character, then the choice goes to endogeny. Intensive language contact may produce characteristics that cannot be accounted for in terms of binary…

Suggests that in acquiring two languages from birth, bilingual children separate their grammars from very early on. Focuses on the acquisition of syntax in a generative framework. Argues that cross-linguistic influence can occur if an interface level between two modules of grammar is involved, and the two languages overlap at the surface level…

Quantitative and qualitative data from two Irish-speaking communities in Ireland (F, a core community within the heartland of Irish-speaking Galway and B, a peripheral community on the edge of Galway city) are examined in order to investigate the role of location in language contact. The analysis of the observed linguistic outcomes based on…

This study is an investigation of the development of vocabulary knowledge during study abroad (SA), intensive domestic immersion (IM) and academic-year formal classroom (AY) learning. Its focus was the growth of vocabulary knowledge in Japanese--a language where little SA research has been conducted to date. Unlike most studies addressing…

To the synchronic linguistic analyst, an idiom is, by nature, semantically noncompositional. However, the language-user-in-culture may know (among other things) how the association between the non-literal and the literal meanings of an idiom is culturally motivated. This paper looks at such cultural knowledge of idiomaticity, with evidence for…

Pidginization and creolization are addressed from a language acquisition perspective. The 18 collected papers are organized around four areas of inquiry: (1) simplification in input to pidginization and second language acquisition, (2) simplification in interlanguage, (3) creolization and language acquisition, and (4) decreolization and language…

The importance of studying the primary context of the relationship between "source" and "influence" in a comparative science of religion and culture is emphasized throughout this article. Focusing primarily on the situation in Muslim and Christian Africa, the article distinguishes between in-coming "sources" and…

The Spanish language incorporates English and other foreign words just as English adopts vocabulary from Spanish to respond to new ideas and objects in the culture. If a Spanish word sanctioned by the Royal Academy is not available, the people will adopt the foreign word that expresses their meaning. (Text is in Spanish.) (CHK)

Examines the changes in French vocabulary due to technological advancement and the need for new terminology to accommodate those changes. The origins of common neologisms and their relationship to English are explored and the pervasive use of acronyms, suffixes, and prefixes is described. (MSE)

A study reveals that lexical borrowing in Spanish, from a variety of languages including Latin, French, Italian, Greek, Arabic, Provencal, and Catalan, accounts for 41 percent of the basic Spanish vocabulary, with variation in source according to historical period. (MSE)