1.1 Introduction
Language borrowing refers to the loaning of words from one language to another. It usually occurs when languages come in contact either physically (English and Hausa) or through writings or some new objects or institution developed for which the borrowing language has no such word in its vocabulary or the institution does not exist or evolve from the society of the borrowing language (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2010). Language borrowing is as a result of cultural contact between two language communities. Borrowing of words can go in both directions between the two languages in contact, but often there is lop-sidedness, such that more words go from one side to the other. In this case the source language community usually has some advantage of power, prestige and/or wealth that makes the objects and ideas it brings desirable and useful to the borrowing language community.
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Research questions, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
Language loaning has become a continuous happening in most languages of the world. It is as a result of contact between languages. That brings about new lexical borrowings that were not in existence in language. And which results to borrowing and imploring them into their languages. This therefore, shows no language community is immune from borrowing from another. The actual process of borrowing is complex and involves many usage events (i.e. instances of use of the new word).
Generally, some speakers of the borrowing language know the source language too, or at least enough of it to utilize the relevant words. They adopt them when speaking the borrowing language. If they are bilingual in the source language, which is often the case, they might pronounce the words the same or similar to the way they are pronounced in the source language. For example, English speakers adopted the word garage from French, at first with a pronunciation nearer to the French pronunciation than is now usually found. Most probably the very first speakers who used the word in English knew at least some French and heard the word used by French speakers (Kemmer, 2009).
The borrower words are often referred to technology e.g. machine, engine, telephone e.t.c. language which is the major need of any society. It is almost impossible for any language to remain purely on its own unless the speakers do not leave their domain for another and similarly do not allow speakers of another language in to their domain. Lexical borrowing is common in most languages because no language is an inland on its own, it is on this note this project will discuss the phenomenon of language development through lexical borrowing.
Therefore, in Nigeria where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to know the In-depth Study of Loan Words from English to Hausa Language.
1.3 Aim and Objectives of Study
The aim of the study is to examine the language Item loaned from English to Hausa. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:
- To find the lexical items that language of development equally loaned from Hausa;
- To determine the frequency of language development through language loaning from one language to another;
- To investigate the reasons that lead to development of word loaning from one language to another;
- To investigate the internal structure of loaned words from the original from; and
- To determine the meaning of such loaned word into another language as may contrast with the original word meaning before borrowing.
1.4 Research Questions
The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:
- What are the lexical items that language of development equally loaned from Hausa?
- What is the frequency of language development through language loaning from one language to another?
- What are the reasons that lead to development of word loaning from one language to another?
- What is the internal structure of loaned words from the original from?
- What do you understand by loaned words into another language as may contrast with the original word meaning before borrowing?
