Internationalism: Examples in History

The emergence of states often occurs according to the principle "if the stars are lit, then someone needs this." Each time this process is accompanied by tangible changes in the world. Fashion, foundations, traditions change, and sometimes the structure of the language undergoes changes. The trendsetter has always been the center of the cultural and political life of the world, which tended to change its geographical position. Greece, Italy, France, Germany, England for many centuries passed each other "palm". The result was the assimilation of many professional terms and commonly used words in the system of the peoples of Europe and Asia, which became examples of internationalism. However, the process has been going on for many decades.

The meaning of the term

The presence of foreign or borrowed words in the native language does not bother anyone. Meanwhile, internationalism occupies a special place among them. Examples allow us to conclude that such words have common semantics in a large number of languages, and also completely (or partially) coincide in meaning and often denote terms of international significance.

Examples of internationalist words sometimes preserve the sound composition from language to language, along with semantics.

There are so-called pseudo-internationalisms - words that practically do not differ in pronunciation and spelling, but with different meanings. They can be called interlanguage paronyms. They are found quite often in all languages. This is clearly seen in a comparative analysis of the words of the Russian and English languages.

There are several reasons for the appearance of pseudo-internationalism:

• random harmony;
• both words are formed from the same root, some ancient language, but carry different semantic load;
• after borrowing, the meaning of the word has changed due to adaptation to the language.

The historical background of the emergence of internationalism

The life and development of individual peoples does not pass by the attention of the general public. Thus, the development of the Greek school of philosophy and culture has left a rich legacy of examples of internationalism in the Russian language. The appearance of capitalism influenced the peoples of the whole world, introducing new words into the composition of languages ​​that were pronounced approximately the same and had the same semantic and semantic load.

The enthusiasm of the Russian aristocracy in the French language also contributed to the development of the language. Many French words in modern society are not even perceived as borrowed and are an example of internationalism in the Russian language.

The dominance of England in the political, economic and cultural life of Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries opens the door for the flow of English words into the national languages ​​of the whole world.

Geography of loan words

The supplier of internationalism is not only the dominance of individual peoples, but also the useful properties of objects and customs or the uniqueness of phenomena that manifest themselves in certain geographical conditions. This happens if the uniqueness and universality of things and events is recognized for most of humanity. An example of internationalism from history is the small words used in the modern world almost everywhere.

The listed list is not exhaustive, but only approximate.

Greek-Latin sources of internationalism

Borrowed words differ not only in the degree of assimilation, preservation of semantics and semantic load, but also in origin. A large number of examples of internationalism in the modern world have Greek and Latin roots. With a detailed analysis, you can see that borrowing refers to professional terms, exact sciences, and philosophy. Examples of internationalism are both words and whole phraseological expressions. The Latin language, although they call it “dead”, is successfully used in medicine, physics, biology and other sciences. Known forms of borrowing are:

• Greek and Latin roots of words;
• prefixes and affixes;
• the whole word.

The universality of the Latin language is that in the preparation of new terms, you can use any of its elements.

Italy

The change in the direction of economic development towards capitalism contributed to the enrichment of European languages ​​with examples of internationalism in the financial sphere, construction, painting and music. Italy in this case was a trendsetter.

France

The 17-18th centuries were marked by new examples of the manifestation of internationalism in the linguistic culture of Europeans. France has become the dominant state in the field of fashion, social life, and cooking. Many Greco-Roman words became internationalism thanks to the French revolutionary movements, such as: revolution, constitution, patriotism, the proletariat and many others.

England

The social, political and economic life of Europe is generously replenished with words from the English language. It should be noted that England once possessed the most powerful navy and was the leader in trade relations with the whole world. Trade and diplomatic missions carried with them a part of English culture and traditions to each colony and allied countries.

Germany

Despite the conflicting opinion that there are numerous borrowings from the German language, linguists state the opposite trend. It is in Germany that 40% of the words are internationalisms, and the vast majority of them are Anglo-Americanisms. In this regard, the Anglizismenliste reference dictionary was released. It is designed to search for and replace Americanisms with equivalent German words, leaving users the choice. The problem of losing the originality of the German language is relevant today. Some words of everyday life still come from Germany.

Conclusion

Borrowed words appeared in the Russian language not suddenly. This is a progressive, systematic centuries-old process. The renewal of words by examples of internationalism in the Russian language was facilitated by various extralinguistic factors (resettlement of peoples, change of political, economic, social system, etc.). The topic of the presence of borrowed words in the native language causes debate among linguists. On the example of Germany, it can be argued that disputes are not groundless and compliance with the “golden mean” is mandatory.