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From: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: The French word "calque" for loan translations
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Keywords: calque loan translation
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Date: Wed, 15 Jan 1997 05:51:38 GMT
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In article <5bhmvv$g54@panix2.panix.com>, Pierre Jelenc <rcpj@panix.com> wrote:
>STAN MULAIK <pscccsm@prism.gatech.edu> writes:
>> What are the corresponding terms for the French expression "calque"
>> (meaning to trace or copy) with respect to loan translations in
>> Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese.  I've even seen "calque"
>> used by English speakers, I guess as a borrowed term.  

I don't know what the strict linguistic definition of "calque" is, but
I've generally seen it used to mean "literal translation [of a phrase,
etc.]".  "Loan translation," in my experience, most often refers to a
single lexical item.  For instance, such Yinglish expressions as "He knows
from nothing" and "You want it should sing, too?" are "calques" of Yiddish
phrases (as the unnatural word order reveals).  A word like "Passover"
(Hebrew 'pesach' < 'pasach' "to pass over") however, is a loan trans- 
lation.  Also, of the two, only "calque" can be used as a verb.  So one
could say that "He knows from nothing" and "Passover" are both "calqued"
(one on Yiddish, the other on Hebrew).

>> Do the
>> Spanish and Italians use the French term too, or do they translate
>> it to some other term in their language?
>
>French "calque" comes from the Italian "calco" so presumably the Italians
>use their own word.

I'm not sure what you're saying here, Mr. Jelenc.  Do you mean by 'own
word' "the very one from which the French word is derived" or "a different
word unique to them"?  I'd guess the former, but both interpretations are
possible.

It wasn't one of the languages you asked about, but Catalan does indeed
use the word 'calc' in the way you describe.  My Enciclopedia Catalana
dictonary glosses as "tracing; (fig.) plagiarism, copy; (ling.) calque,
semantic/syntactic borrowing".  I know that the first two meanings exist
in Castilian, but I haven't read enough linguistics in the language to
know whether the linguistic definition applies as well.

Miguel?


-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
