The cyclicity of reborrowing and the ping-pong effect: The case of Arabic–Hebrew

Abstract

Aims and objectives:

The nature of the effect of language contact has been a source for extensive investigation in the linguistic field. More specifically, the case of reborrowing, that is, the shift from language A to language B and then cyclically back to language A, often involving a change in meaning and/or form, has been a source for extensive interest. In this paper, we examined the word ṣabāba/sababa ‘o.k’ as a case study of reborrowing from Classical Arabic into Israeli Hebrew and then back to Spoken Palestinian Arabic. We show that while language contact does motivate and affect change, it does not necessarily take part in internal changes exhibited in the target language itself, but can, in turn, later be exhibited back in the original language or one of its dialects. In addition, as language-contact change operates according to more general principles of linguistic change, such as grammaticalization, we shall demonstrate both intra- and inter-language changes.

Methodology and data:

We used the Lisān al-ʿArab (لسان العرب, ‘Tongue of Arabs’) dictionary for the etymological investigation in Arabic,¹ the corpus of the Quran for historical Arabic data, scripts and poems from the Mamluk Arabic period for the Middle Ages’ Arabic data,² and for contemporary spoken Arabic, we used a corpus of 100 random WhatsApp messages of Israeli Arab Bedouin students (such usage exists in all Palestinian Arabic dialects). For the Hebrew data, we used the Israeli Historical Jpress Corpus³ and the Hebrew Historical Maagarim corpus;⁴ and finally, for contemporary Hebrew data, we used 100 random examples from the hetenten corpus.⁵

Analysis:

We found a reborrowing ‘ping pong effect’, from classical Arabic to 20th-century Hebrew, and in the contemporary 21st century back to Spoken Palestinian Arabic. We also found a phonetic change from Classical Arabic ṣabāba صَباَبة to Contemporary Arabic sababa صبابا. A similar phonetic change occurred in Hebrew, from sabaaba סבאבה to sababa סבבה. Thus, this was not a diachronic shift from Classical Arabic to Spoken Arabic, but rather the classical Arabic word was borrowed into Hebrew and then, in a ‘ping-pong’ reborrowing shift, went back to spoken Arabic. This process involved mechanisms of metonymy, bridging contexts, and lexicalization.

Conclusions:

While language contact does motivate and affect change, it does not necessarily occur through internal changes exhibited in the target language itself but rather can be transferred back, in a cyclical fashion, to the original language. These results focused on a bilingual community, shedding additional light on the nature of linguistic processes of reborrowing and language contact.

Keywords

Language-contact reborrowing grammaticalization cyclicity discourse marker

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The cyclicity of reborrowing and the ping-pong effect: The case of Arabic–Hebrew–Arabic ṣabāba/sababa ‘ok’

Abstract

Aims and objectives:

Methodology and data:

Analysis:

Conclusions:

Keywords

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References