A Wanderwort (German:[ˈvandɐvɔʁt], 'migrant word', sometimes pluralized as Wanderwörter, usually capitalized following German practice) is a word that has spread as a loanword among numerous languages and cultures, especially those that are far away from one another. As such, Wanderwörter are a curiosity in historical linguistics and sociolinguistics within a wider study of language contact.[1] At a sufficient time depth, it can be very difficult to establish in which language or language family a Wanderwort originated and into which it was borrowed.
Frequently, they are spread through trade networks, sometimes to describe a previously unfamiliar plant, animal or food.
^Trask, Robert Lawrence (January 2000). The Dictionary of Historical and Comparative Linguistics. Psychology Press. p. 366. ISBN 1-57958-218-4. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
A Wanderwort (German: [ˈvandɐvɔʁt], 'migrant word', sometimes pluralized as Wanderwörter, usually capitalized following German practice) is a word that...
Semitic language, as both saif and xiphos go back to an old (Bronze Age) wanderwort of the Eastern Mediterranean of unknown ultimate origin. Richard F. Burton...
abandon it for another target language (the superstrate).[relevant?] A Wanderwort is a word that has been borrowed across a wide range of languages remote...
grammatical form. ⟨%⟩ A generalized form, such as a typical shape of a wanderwort that has not actually been reconstructed. ⟨#⟩ A word boundary – e.g. ⟨#V⟩...
to new areas, via the Dravidian languages of India, into Arabic as a Wanderwort. The word "banana" is thought to be of West African origin, possibly from...
*mayVr (whence the Tamil word for peacock மயில் (mayil)) or a regional Wanderwort. Many Hindu deities are associated with the bird, Krishna is often depicted...
origin, although their morphology rather suggest a non-Indo-European Wanderwort. Some scholars have thus proposed a Paleo-Hispanic origin, pointing to...
(*kuru or *kolo) which meant castle or fortress. The word was possibly a Wanderwort like the Middle Mongolian qoto-n. Several possible cognates for 忽 exist...
kakumei ('revolution'). Gairaigo Inkhorn term Language contact Loanword Wanderwort Word coinage Imperative form of the verb tenir, "to hold". figuratively...
analogous phonetic changes in Gothic, North Germanic and modern Faroese Wanderwort, "migratory term/word", a word which spreads from its original language...
viewed language as an organic system and warned against loan words and Wanderworts, which spread as loanwords among languages and cultures, and which can...
forming a linguistic area sensu strictu [sic?].” Epps (2015) shows that Wanderwort are spread across the languages of Amazonia. Morphosyntax is also heavily...
Global Information