Borrowings in Ukrainian: Etymological, Semantic, and Orthographic Issues

Description

Vakulenko, Maksym. 2015. Borrowings in Ukrainian: Etymological, Semantic, and Orthographic Issues. – Slavia, Praha, sešit 1: 1-24.In the article, the borrowings in Ukrainian as a linguistic and terminological problem are studied on the basis of etymological, comparative, morphosemantic, and acoustic phonetic analysis. It is shown that one of the most prevalent modifications that foreign words undergo in Ukrainian is a shift of values that can lead sometimes to the breach of motivation ties with the etymon meaning, and to irregularities or distortions of lexical semantic relations and to unwanted connotations. Therefore, normalization of foreign words usage is extremely important. In addition, excess of foreign words in Ukrainian – as in many European languages – often causes orthoepic and orthographic difficulties in their mastering. It is expedient therefore to intensify use of native units, minimizing the number of unnecessary borrowings. Relevant spelling propositions are formulated, including the use of the Ukrainian ă and č and expediency of some simplifications in the loanwords.Key words: borrowings, language interference, semantic shifts, etymology, phonetic characteristics, process of adaptation in Ukrainian, Ukrainian orthography, spelling irregularitiesSections: Introduction Borrowing from foreign languages as a linguistic and terminological problem Problems of rendering the Latin "g" and "h" in Ukrainian Rule"ìnine" in the context of borrowing Some other spelling speculations Conclusions