Calque

From Free net encyclopedia

Template:Not verified

In linguistics, a calque (pronounced [kælk]) or loan translation is a phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word translation. For example, in some dialects of French, the English term "weekend" becomes la fin de semaine ("the end of week"), a calque, but in some it is left untranslated as le week-end, a loanword. "Loan translation" is itself a calque of German Lehnübersetzung.

The word is also used as a verb: to calque means to loan translate from another language to create a new lexeme in the target language. The term comes from the French word calquer, "to copy."

Contents

[edit]

English

[edit]

Calques from Chinese

[edit]

Calques from French

[edit]

Calques from German

[edit]

Calques from Italian

  • English side-sword calques Italian spada da lato, referring to a versatile one-handed sword of 16th and 17th century Europe.
[edit]

Calques from Latin

  • English commonplace calques Latin locus commūnis (referring to a generally applicable literary passage), which itself is a calque of Greek koinos topos
  • English devil's advocate calques Latin advocātus diabolī, referring to an official appointed to present arguments against a proposed canonization or beatification in the Catholic Church
  • English dog days calques Latin diēs canīculāris
  • English wisdom tooth calques Latin dēns sapientiae
  • English vicious circle calques Latin circulus vitiōsus
  • English Milky Way calques Latin via lactea
  • English in a nutshell calques Latin in nuce
  • English foot in the sense of a unit of metrical verse (e.g. in the fourth foot of the verse...) calques Latin pes which is used in both senses; the transferred use in Latin is itself a calque on Greek pous.
[edit]

Calques from Spanish

  • English blue-blood calques Spanish sangre azul
  • English moment of truth calques Spanish el momento de la verdad. This originally referred to the time of the final sword-thrust in a bullfight.
[edit]

Latin

  • Latin compassio calques Greek sympathy
  • Latin insectus calques Greek entomos
[edit]

Romance Languages

Examples of Romance language expressions calqued from foreign languages include:

  • French lune de miel, Spanish luna de miel and Portuguese lua-de-mel calque English honeymoon
  • French gratte-ciel, Spanish rascacielos and Portuguese arranha-céus calque English skyscraper
  • French sabot de Denver calques English Denver boot
  • French jardin d'enfants, Spanish jardín de infancia and Portuguese Jardim de infância calque German Kindergarten
  • French laissez-faire calque Chinese wu wei
  • Mexican Spanish fritas francesas calques English French fries
[edit]

Afrikaans

  • Afrikaans aartappel calques French pomme de terre
  • Afrikaans hardeskyf calques English hard disk
  • Afrikaans kleurskuifie calques English colour slide
  • Afrikaans pynappel calques English pineapple
  • Afrikaans sleutelbord calques English keyboard
  • Afrikaans tuisblad calques English homepage
  • Afrikaans wolkekrabber calques English skyscraper
[edit]

Finnish

  • Germanic passive agent marker — There is no passive voice in Finnish, but an impersonal, where the agent is never mentioned. Due to the influence of Germanic languages, the word toimesta "from the action" has been constructed in order to mention the agent, i.e. to function like the word "by". (It is impossible to translate the word "by" itself, because there is no direct equivalent.) For example, "Lentokonetta lennetään ohjaajan toimesta", approximately "The plane is being flown, from the action of the pilot." This is grammatically incorrect, but used abundantly in legal documents and sloppy translations.
  • Swedish future marker kommer att or German werden calqued as tulla + (verb in third infinitive illative) — There is no future tense in Finnish, and the calque is produced by translation from Swedish and German. Note that the verb tulla takes up the inflection, and is to be placed into the appropriate tense and person. The calque corresponds to English "is going". For example, tullaan muuttamaan "is going to be changed". This is considered incorrect grammar, but perfectly understandable and found in translations, political speech and even in legal documents.
  • English you-impersonal calqued; e.g. sä et elä jos sä et syö is word-for-word "you don't live if you don't eat", unlike the native Syömättä ei elä. Note that this phenomenon is not always traceable to English.

Since Finnish, a Finno-Ugric language, differs radically in pronunciation and orthography from Indo-European languages, most loans adopted in Finnish either are calques or soon become such. Examples include:

  • from Greek: sarvikuono (rhinoceros, from Greek "rinokeros"),
  • from Latin: viisaudenhammas (wisdom tooth, from Latin "dens sapientiae"),
  • from English: kovalevy (English "hard disk"),
  • from French: kirpputori (flea market, French "marché aux puces"),
  • from German: lastentarha (German "Kindergarten"),
  • from German: panssarivaunu (German "Panzerwagen"),
  • from Swedish: moottoritie (highway, from Swedish "motorväg"),
  • from Chinese: aivopesu (brainwash, from Chinese "xi nao"),
  • from Spanish: siniverinen (blue-blooded, from Spanish "de sangre azul")
[edit]

Russian

  • from French: влияние (French "influence")
  • from French: впечатление (impression)
  • from Latin: насекомое (insect, from Latin "insectum")
  • from German: полуостров (peninsula, from German "Halbinsel")
  • from French: трогать (verb "touch" as semantic calque in meaning of "touching the emotions")
  • from Latin: современный (contemporary, from Latin "contemporarius")
[edit]

Ukrainian

  • from Russian: velyke spasybi (a big thank you, Russian "bol'shoe spasibo")
  • from Russian: neobxindnyj (necessary, Russian "neobxodimyj")
[edit]

See also

es:Calco semántico eo:Paŭso fr:Calque nl:Leenvertaling pl:Kalka (językoznawstwo) ru:Калька (лексика)

Retrieved from "http://www.netipedia.com/index.php/Calque"