A Survey on Loanwords from English to Kurdish

Özet

In this going-over study, words borrowed from English to Kurdish are scrutinized. More than 350 words are found to be derived from English to Kurdish as loanwords. In conformity with the wordlist which accompanies this research, the patterns of these words are categorized with reference to phonological-oriented criteria as assimilated, partially-assimilated, and non-assimilated borrowings. The assimilated genres were noticed to be the most frequently borrowed types of words from English to Kurdish. The meanings of each loanword from the donor (English) to the receiver language (Kurdish) are unchanged. However, the pronunciations of certain forms of loanwords are changed partly or naturalized. That is, the halfway assimilated loanwords may still be recognized as borrowings, but the non-assimilated ones are somewhat unrealizable. Keywords: English language, Kurdish language, Sorani dialect, loanwords, borrowing