Barbarism is a word from a foreign language or speech circulation, which is built on the model of another language, which are considered a morphological error. This article will talk about this lexical concept.
Definition
This term was originally used to define words that fell into ancient Greek or Latin from other languages. The term gradually expanded and began to denote any words that violate the purity of speech. This term is mainly used for written language. Beyond the modern technical meaning in modern linguistics, this one is little used by modern philologists. Although the term “barbarism” does not have an exact technical definition, this concept is still used to describe a particular word as incorrect, non-standard.
Origin of the term
The word barbarism was originally used by the Greeks for foreign terms that existed in the Greek language. This concept is closely related to the word "barbarian". In fact, this term was the ancient Greek equivalent of the modern English “blah blah blah”, which sounds like some kind of gibberish. Hence the negative connotation of the concepts of "barbarian" and "barbarism."
The earliest use of the term to describe the improper use of words was recorded in the sixteenth century in England to mean mixing other languages with Latin or Greek, especially in classical texts. By the XVII century, the concept of "barbarism" has acquired the meaning of gross profanity. For example, in the History of Philosophy, Thomas Stanley states that among the shortcomings of speech there are so-called "barbarisms" - phrases that are not used by worthy people.
Hybrid words combining affixes or other elements borrowed from several languages were sometimes perceived as barbarisms. For this reason, many philologists have criticized the French word linguistique ("linguistics"), believing that this is not just ordinary barbarism, since the Latin substantive linguistic connection here is combined not only with one, but with two Greek particles. Such a mixture is currently considered standard in modern English.
The use of barbarism
Over time, a foreign word or expression may cease to be used and forgotten. An example of this kind of barbarism is the word comme il faut. They can also be spread in limited areas (professional terms, slang), as the modern words “pager” or “hacker”, or become universally used, such as “umbrella”, “special” or “information”.
Gallicisms (the use of French words or idioms), Germanism, the Spanishism of Anglicism in the Russian language can be interpreted as examples of barbarism. This category of loan words became the basis of the lexical stock.
Borrowings in Russian
In the 18th and 19th centuries, it was very fashionable for Russian high society to speak French. In addition, this was a hallmark of a noble aristocratic man. You can see a striking example of barbarism in Russian in the book "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy. The cream of high society could afford a real French governess, and the provincial "upper class" did not have enough funds for this. Nevertheless, the desire to demonstrate his education led to the fact that Griboedov in his “Woe from Wit” mentions “a mixture of languages: French with the Nizhny Novgorod dialect”. This mixed “talk” was often used for a comic effect in literature and theater.
Exoticism
These are words borrowed from foreign languages to denote the realities of the life of another people or country. Examples can be found in various names of various types of housing, dishes, drinks, cultural phenomena and the like. For example, in Russian these are the words bullfight, torero (Spanish), kimono, sakura (Japanese). And vice versa, in many languages of the world there are Russian exoticism: companion, borsch, matryoshka, etc. Such words are most often used in fiction to give the work a certain flavor. In fact, exotic is barbarism, which refers to a narrow category of borrowed words.
Thus, the French writer P. Merimet actively uses exotisms directly related to Spanish life in the novel Carmen, because the work takes place in Spain: alcadas, gazpacho, mantilla. In the poem "The Caucasus" by the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko, such words as churek (unleavened bread of the Caucasian highlanders) and sakl (housing of the Caucasian highlanders) are used. Exotisms and barbarisms have thoroughly entered into use in almost all languages of Europe.
Foreign lexical borrowing is one of the methods of developing a modern language, which always promptly and flexibly responds to social needs. Borrowing is the result of contacts of peoples, professional communities, and states.