Unnecessary English Loanwords in Albanian Language2

26 Interdisiplinary Journal of Research and Development, Vol. 4, no. 4, 2017

Fatlinda AVDULLAI1

UNNECESSARY ENGLISH LOANWORDS IN ALBANIAN LANGUAGE2

Abstract

The aim of this research is tobring the product and content of a new research study. While the numbers of unnecessary loanwords from English are being used increasingly today in Albanian language, I consider that the main reason for studying this topic is to find out the reasons why these words are being used, are the people of Kosovo aware of using these unnecessary loanwords. Also, to see if these unnecessary loanwords or as we call them ‘Anglicisms’ are being used in the official documents implemented by the government of Kosovo, and in the end to know who is responsible for this phenomenon. It emphasizes the large number of loanwords that have penetrated into Albanian after the war in Kosova, and today the main reason why is happening this phenomenon is because of globalization. This research deals with the history of loanwords, time, causes, their use, and recommendations based on the results that have been found in this research. Keywords: Anglicisms, impact, use, Official documents

Introduction

‘Observim’ or ‘vrojtim’? Or maybe ‘implementim’ instead of ‘zbatim’ since using them is better than using our own words, and into the eyes of the people we are going to look smarter than the others? Today Albanian language is in danger of losing its grammatical norm from unnecessary loanwords, which are being penetrated into the language because of negligence. During its history

1 AAB COLLEGE; FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE Email: [email protected]@universitetiaab.com 2 Paper presneted in “3 International Conference ‘Foreign Languages in a Global World, Linguistics, Literature, Didactics” Durres, June 2017” Interdisiplinary Journal of Research and Development, Vol. 4, no. 4, 2017 27 our language has borrowed many words from other languages, and that was mainly because of occupation from different nations. Today, for many reasons we are abusing the language by using these unnecessary loanwords or as we call ‘anglicisms’ from English language. After the war in Kosovo, while in Albania after 1990 when it was the end of the last communist regime in Europe, a number of loanwords have been entered into the language and some of them unnecessary words. Meanwhile, in both cases we can see that the first reasons for happening this phenomenon was with the coming of International organization,many businesses started using English as a communication tool. On the other hand, this phenomenon is due to the lack of readiness to analyze and control those foreign words, but also because of the lack of readiness of our institutions either the Academy of Science or the government to manage and to control them. We can say that this change that has already affected our language is because of our dynamic life, which is not allowing us to have time to think about our behavior. In the past, every new word first it needed to be analyzed, and then see if it could be used as it is, or not taking it, and just translating with one similar to us. While now we do not know exactly the number of unnecessary loanwords into our language. Another factor which is influencing in this phenomenon and in every single sphere is globalization, which everyday more is changing every aspect of life including its influence into the language. However, do we indeed have the need for these words? Are these words being understandable by everyone in Kosovo, including here generations that have never learned any word in English? Which are the reasons for using them? Do Kosovo’s people accept their use? These foreign words are being part of many researches of many authors, but until now we have not seen any action, either from linguists of from relevant institutions, whose it needed to start immediately with this case. Naturally, the Albanian language has a need for loanwords and to be developed more, but we have to be careful about what we are borrowing, in this case if a word for us is necessary then let it pass on the borrowing processes. On the other hand, if that word is unnecessary it is not reasonable to get it which is already found in our vocabulary and which best expresses that word.

The history of loanwords in English and Albanian languages

The greatest focus to the linguists in all the languages of the world was of course borrowing of words. Some of them started earlier and the others later, but so far no language has left that it had borrowed words from another 28 Interdisiplinary Journal of Research and Development, Vol. 4, no. 4, 2017 language at a time, whether dominant or not. English language which is now being considered a global language, its borrowing history had started very early, since the earliest speakers that entered in England, which were Celtics in about a half century BC. At the beginning, it was the Latin language that was spoken in England, but with the entry of Germanic tribes (the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes) everything changed including here their influence into the language. After that, another great influence it had St. Augustine journeyed to England in 597 AD and Christianized the country. At that time, many words that were related with the religion were borrowed such as: church, devil, minister, and angles. At the end of the 8th century, Scandinavians (“Vikings”) began small raids on England. Many place names, personal names, and general vocabulary from Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian) were established during the next centuries. The next invaders were Normans 1066 AD (French), who became the language of government and of the upper classes in English society. During this time, many words like: government, court, judge, status, defendant, etc. began to be used by English language speaker. From the 14th century Latin and Greek language have been a continuous source of loanwords. Words from Latin were used more in biology, botany, and chemistry. So far, many other languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Italian, Japanese, etc have had an impact on the English language, where the latest it had borrowed many words from these languages. On the other hand, it is worth mentioning that the borrowing was not only from the eastern world, but since the discovery of America, a considerable number of words came mainly from the native people that lived at that time as we call ‘Indians’, who contributed in enrichment of the vocabulary of English language. Even though, it still continues the fact of borrowing word in the English language, today it is considered a global language which is giving to other languages its own words. A global language is defined as: “A language achieves a genuinely global status when it develops a special role is recognized in every country” (D. Crystal, English as a Global Language, 2003). However, what makes a global language, or why do we need that? A language does not become a global language because of its structural properties, or the vocabulary, or because it was once associated with a great culture or region. There is only one reason why a language like English has become a global language, and this is because of the power of its people. On the other hand, the reason why we need a global language it might be because of the necessity of having a language which would act as a lingua franca, or “common language”. On the other hand, unlike English language, the history of borrowing in Interdisiplinary Journal of Research and Development, Vol. 4, no. 4, 2017 29

Albanian does not indicate a certain time when foreign words started to enter into the language, and which influenced our language. But it is said that throughout its history our language has been in contact with other languages. The Lexicology of Albanian language shows the situation of the language over the centuries. During XVI-XVII century, as evidenced by the documents written by the old Albanian authors (Gjon Buzuku, Pjetër Budi, Pjetër Bogdani), the Albanian language had a rich vocabulary and was developed. However, it had also borrowed words, mainly from Latin and Greek. Those words came through the translation of religious books and the use of terms that explained different concepts. In this way, the old authors enriched the vocabulary with international terminology (J. Thomai, Leksikologjia e Gjuhes Shqipe, 2002). Throughout its history, the Albanian language has been in contact with Greeks, Romans, Slavs, Turks, and also with the neighboring countries, which had their influence in our language by losing a considerable part of the inherited words.

Literature Review

Views of foreign linguists on borrowings There are many researchers who have written about borrowing whether foreign or local, and some of them are against of this issue and the others see borrowings as an enrichment of the language. One group see these words as a weakness of a language to avoid unnecessary loanwords, but they are in the same opinion with the second group,who claims that at the moment when a word enters in a language it should be analyzed by its phonetic and phonemic composition, but also in its grammatical norm. Linguist Philip Durkin claims that“the term ‘borrowing’ describes a process in which one language replicates a linguistic feature from another language, either wholly or partly” (P. Durkin, Borrowed words, 2014).Linguists consider that it is easier to borrow a foreign element than to replace it with some adequate language element of the recipient language (Wheinreich: 1953). On the other hand, it is considered that the recipient language should replace a foreign word or expression with some equivalent element of the recipient language, or even to translate it into the recipient language, rather than to borrow it. Hugo Schuchardt opined that there is no language that is clean, unblended and unaffected by another language and to him; the borrowing was something very normal (Schuchardt, H. Contact Linguistics, 1884). While according to Filipovic an Anglicism is every word borrowed from the English language, which refers to an object or concept, when at the moment of borrowing is an integral part of English culture and citizenship (R. Filipovic, English as a word 30 Interdisiplinary Journal of Research and Development, Vol. 4, no. 4, 2017 donor to other languages of Europe, 2006). According to Manfred Görlach, it is a well-known fact that the impact of English on all the major languages of the world is of overwhelming proportions, that it has been for the past few decades, and that it may in fact be increasing. However, he is surprised about that until now there never been a comprehensive attempt to compare this influence across cultural and linguistic boundaries (M. Görlach, The Usage Dictionary of Anglicism in selected European languages, 1997).

Views of Albanian linguists on borrowings

We cannot find any Albanian linguists who has a definite opinion about what is happening with our language vocabulary and how is going to be in the future. This phenomenon is happening because of the large number of the words that are entering each day and their inability to face these drastic changes. However, everyone is in the same opinion that we must take immediately measures to eliminate these unnecessary words since they are abusing our Albanian language norms. Professor Vesel Nuhiu claims that “the dominating principle of allowing or preventing borrowing of foreign language elements should be implemented: not to borrow by all means, but also not to stop borrowing completely”. It is the very use of anglicisms that is the subject of this study, which also professor Nuhiu sees as the greatest violations of literary norm because the violations of Albanian standard language now are of two main kinds: a) It has failed to respect language norms at grammatical – morphological level and even at syntactic level, particularly at vocabulary level, and this particularly in the spoken language, but also in the written language; and b) It uses words of foreign origin, especially English ones. (V. Nuhiu, Shqipja dhe Huazimet Angleze sot, 2008). On the other hand, Rami Memushaj in his book ‘Shqipja Standarde, Si ta flasim dhe ta shkruajmë’ claims that it happens usually than in written and more orally to be used, without need, foreign constructions. He further stated that these constructions, which are due to the lack of linguistic language culture, should be avoided because the Albanian language has instruments to substitute them in all their uses(R. Memushaj, Shqipja Standarde, Si ta flasim dhe ta shkruajmë, 2011). Based in the research made by two professors Sejdi Sejdiu and Aida Alla on the influence of English in the language used by Kosovar media, concluded that the use of anglicisms on speaking and writing does not make one more intellectual than the other, but their use highlights the poverty of the Albanian vocabulary and the lack of vocabulary or disadvantage of their users. They claim that The Albanian language should be developed and concurrently Interdisiplinary Journal of Research and Development, Vol. 4, no. 4, 2017 31 protected via active mechanisms from the uncontrolled anglicisms which are being used instead of words with the same equivalence. However, they agree that some anglicisms are needed as they name new concepts in Albanian language (A. Alla, S. Sejdiu.The influence of English in the language used by Kosovar media, 2015).

Methodology

In order to achieve the results of this research a qualitative research methodology is used that consists in collecting secondary data. Secondary data covers the literature review from foreign and domestic linguistic regarding the borrowing in general, as well as critical thinking of Albanian linguists regarding unnecessary loanwords from English language. The main purpose of this research was to know if the people of Kosovo are aware of the abuse that is being done in their language. Therefore, in order to achieve this goal, besides the qualitative part, a quantitative method has been realized using a questionnaire. The questionnaire has been realized using online networks, and the total number of respondents was 200 64% of them were female, including those over 15 years old with a total of 15 different questions. Moreover, as will be seen in the following analysis, another research has been done in this research that has been taken from one of the questions in the questionnaire, and that was if official documents implemented by Kosovo government use anglicisms? Considering the fact that a research already has been done in media, in this research I wanted to see the truth from people if they have encountered the use of anglicisms in these documents. For this purpose, I have analyzed five strategies implemented by Kosovo government in recent years, knowing their important role in their plans, and the main concern was that these documents are being read by all citizens of Kosovo. The data of the questionnaire were analyzed with STATA statistical program with a total of 15 independent variables.

Results/Discussion

Today the English language is having a great influence in our language. From it we are taking uncontrollably unnecessary words that are taking the place of the words into the Albanian language vocabulary. Many research has been done until now according this issue, but certain actions not. As we mentioned in the above chapter, this research has been done in two parts with the qualitative and quantitative data, using the questionnaire as well as 5 strategies drafted by 32 Interdisiplinary Journal of Research and Development, Vol. 4, no. 4, 2017 the Kosovo government. Based on the results obtained from the questionnaire realized with 200 participants, different links between variables have been analyzed in order to reach different conclusions between the questions. These results will be presented using tables and figures based on their importance on the research and their relationship.

- Level of Education/Level of English Knowing the importance of the English language in Kosovo, we might suppose that those who are at a higher level of English use more these unnecessary words in Albanian language by making adaption with the English because of their influence on them. As we can see from the table below the largest number of them expresses that they know very well the English language.

Table 1 Level of Education/Level of English

How much familiar are the respondents with the word Anglicism it can be seen from the graphic below. More than half of them knew the meaning of the word and its importance. This leaves us in a conclusion that, even though, this word does not exist in our vocabulary, its use is very large, and the number of those who use them constantly is increasing every day.

Figure 1 Percentage of the participant who knew the word Anglicism Interdisiplinary Journal of Research and Development, Vol. 4, no. 4, 2017 33

-How we use these loanwords in our dictionary? Based on current research of unnecessary borrowing into Albanian language from English, it has been made mainly in different media, and also individual research based on what they have heard and seen until now; hence it was considered reasonable to look at this study, using the questionnaire some of the unnecessary words that are already used here and borrowed. I have selected randomly 5 borrowed words and from the results taken surprisingly the majority knew how these words are spelled and written in Albanian. This takes us to another part of the question, if we know these words to write and know their meaning how is that possible that we do not use them? Is this because that people who use these words want to “show” themselves what they know, or just because it can easily be understood by others. Some of them had no idea how to translate them in our language, some of them perhaps unfamiliar with the language or maybe because of their age, did not translate them properly into Albanian. This also sends us to another fact, that there is a part of people in Kosovo who may confuse the borrowed word in Albanian and understand it different, and in this case the message it cannot properly understood. Below you may find in forms of table those 5 selected words and their response.

Table 2 Translation of the loanword Event into Albania

From the table below, the first word was Event which was borrowed from English language and it has not changed at all according to the pronunciation or in writing. It can be seen that the largest of them with 73% translated the word as 34 Interdisiplinary Journal of Research and Development, Vol. 4, no. 4, 2017 it should be in Albanian; some of them as it was mentioned above had different opinion. Only 5.5% of the total translated as it was borrowed, and only 2.5% did not know how to translate.

Table 3 Translation of the Table 4 Translation of the loanword Observation loanword Department

The next word that was chosen was Department. This word was translated in many words in Albanian and most of them were properly with the word that it should be used in our language, and which of course would sound better if the same words that we see in the table 4 is used instead of the word department. 30.5% was not translated at all in Albanian, but with a higher percentage in Albanian was the word Degë with 21.5%. The word Observation in the table above, or as it used in Albanian ‘observim’, was understood in many ways. A large number of them translated the word as it has been borrowed and they could not find a way any word to fit in Albanian. 14.5% of them did not know how this word should be in Albanian, and the other parts were divided in some other words that they were not related with the borrowed word. The following two tables show the translation of two borrowed words chosen in this questionnaire. In the first table, is the word dedication or as it is being used here ‘dedikim’ instead of the word ‘Kushtim’ in Albania. Even in this case there was a division between knowing the right word and translating it as Interdisiplinary Journal of Research and Development, Vol. 4, no. 4, 2017 35 they use already. While in the second table, we have the word implementation or as we know ‘implementim’ in Albanian was translated in different words with its higher percentage of the right word in Albania “Zbatim” with 47%.

Table 5 Translation of the loanword Dedication Table 6 Translation of the loanword Implementation

- Anglicisms used by Kosovar media One of the results expected from this research is that the place and the people who use more unnecessary loanwords from English are media, including here journalists, singers, political subjects etc. From the research made by the professors Aida and Sejdiu have concluded that up to 40% of foreign functional words are used in media. Fields of politics, law, and economics are the areas where our media in general use anglicisms. From the questionnaire realized the main purpose was to show if the people of Kosovo have encountered the use of these words by media, and which media use more than the others. Therefore, with a very high percentage of the participant about 95% responded that they have heard the use of anglicisms in our media. The media that uses them more than the others it is shown in the graphic below, were you can see that Klan Kosova with 34.5%, RTV 21 with 30.5%, and only 9% of them have not heard these words to be used from media. 36 Interdisiplinary Journal of Research and Development, Vol. 4, no. 4, 2017

Figure 2 Anglicisms used by Kosovar media

-The reason why it is happening this phenomenon and if they justify the use of Anglicisms Current research has shown various causes of the use of Anglicisms and from the literature review one of the main factor as a reason to happen this phenomenon was globalization. Therefore, I wanted to know the opinions of the people of Kosovo who they considered to be the cause of this issue. Respondents were asked also if they justify the use of Anglicisms instead of our own words, and from the total respondents 135 of them were against their use and the other part as we can see in the table below justified their use for many reasons. Some of those who thought that they justify their use responded that this is happening because of globalization or because of the lack of words in Albanian language, while the other part responded that they cannot be justified because our vocabulary has a lot of words which could be used instead of them.

Table 7 Reasons and Arguments of using anglicisms Interdisiplinary Journal of Research and Development, Vol. 4, no. 4, 2017 37

Figure 3 Reasons why is this phenomenon is happening

As it was expected, the main reason of this phenomenon from the respondents was because of globalization with 39.5% from the total number. Another reason was considered the development of technology, and the other part responded that they have no idea why this phenomenon is happening.

- Use of Anglicisms in the Official Document implemented by the Government of Kosovo English loanwords can be seen also in the official documents of political and social life in Kosovo. If people of Kosovo have seenunnecessary loanwords in these documents was another question of the questionnaire, where out of 200 participants, 67.5% responded that they have seen using anglicisms in these documents. Since, this percentage was very high, another research has been done, taking some strategies that have been implemented by the government of Kosovo in different sectors of social and political life, that they presented the analysis of the development in a particular sector, which included a plan of activities for the realization of that policy. The main purpose in this research was to find out the use of anglicisms in these strategies. To do this research I have taken some strategies implemented by the government of Kosovo in recent years and which are already approved, and can be read and used by all interested parties. Hence, I have chosen 5 different strategies and analyzed them. Unfortunately, these documents are being used from all the people in Kosovo, which lead to even greater use of anglicisms. From the research made, it is noticed a great number of borrowed words from English. It is supposed that the reason for this is because of the people who do not know very well the Albanian language and write these laws or strategies by 38 Interdisiplinary Journal of Research and Development, Vol. 4, no. 4, 2017 just reading other relevant strategies from other countries, and by not taking their time to find the word and translate as it should be, but they just get that word from English and use it as it is in our vocabulary. From the research, we can find these borrowing categories: - The words that are replaced from English language and for those that Albanian language possesses these words in all manner of expression. So, in these strategies we might find words like: prioritetet-perparesite, negociata-bisedime, mortalitet-vdekshmeri, garantoj-siguroj, publikuan-botuan, instrumenti-mjeti, integrale-perberese, reduktim-pakesim, kontributet-pagesat, performance- shfaqje, etc. - The words that are necessary to use, since in our language we cannot find them, but until now these words are being introduced without analyzing them and see if we might find a word in Albania that best expresses the word borrowed. So, in these documents we might find words like: trajnim, terrorizem, rimbursim, partnere, urban, eksportet, importet, inflacion, etc.

- Risk of using anglicisms and who is responsible for them? While so far there is no action being taken from any institution to stop this phenomenon, respondents responded that the language is every day in danger of deviating from its norm, and as soon as possible it should be taken an action to stop them using. One of the objectives of this research was to know the opinions of people if they knew who is responsible for this phenomenon.

Table 8 Number of participant who claimed about the risk and who is responsible

From the table above we can see that more than half of the respondents with a total of 170 answered that the Albanian language is actually threatened by unnecessary use of English words. They also gave their opinions about who Interdisiplinary Journal of Research and Development, Vol. 4, no. 4, 2017 39 is responsible for this matter and most of them with 40.5% thought that those responsible for this phenomenon are the Academy of Sciences, which so far has not taken any step towards preventing them. Some of them had no idea who was responsible for this, but they thought they should be banned because of the risk that is making to our language. A small number of them were of the opinion that politicians are the ones who should be responsible for their prevention. With 12.5% of respondents responded that we are responsible of this issue, because of our pride and the lack of Albanian words. Moreover, some of them argue that not only the Academy of Sciences or just politicians have to undertake something, but awareness must be on everyone, including all factors. Therefore, if we want to change and stop this process, the change must come from us, normally seeing that our State Institutions and Academia of Sciences are also working in this direction.

Recommendation

In the time that we are living it is very difficult to stay as we were before. Technology development, globalization and many other factors are influencing in many aspects of our lives, whether social, cultural, or economic. Today, it has become almost impossible for two languages not being influences by each other, either for good reasons or bad ones. However, not always the contact between two languages brings positive things; this is mainly because of the fact when a language starts to be influenced so much by another language, which at one point uncontrollably takes words from it even though it has not the need. In the same situation is our language which is borrowing unnecessary English words, and those are becoming an obstacle to maintain our Albanian language norms. From the quantitative and qualitative research findings, the number of Anglicisms is increasing every day. These are most commonly used in our media, by important people, journalists, and artists. We also, find these words in our official documents that are implemented by the government of Kosovo, and for those we should be worried because they are read by a large number of people. People who can deal with this issue, especially the relevant institutions such as the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosovo and that from Albania, perhaps even any other institution should work in this direction as soon as possible. Furthermore, given that the largest number of anglicisms is used in our media, it would be good if the respective media create a commission or even reach an agreement with relevant institutions for this issue, in order to edit the materials before they are going to be published. On the other hand, in case of official 40 Interdisiplinary Journal of Research and Development, Vol. 4, no. 4, 2017 documents it would be appropriate if they create a working group which, while drafting laws, strategies, or any other documents, first to be analyzed in all respects and then to be published. Also, considering the case of France, which has already put laws to ban those who use elements of English in French, such a thing should be done here, because only one law would not stop the phenomenon, but other actions can do.

Conclusion

As it may be seen from data mentioned above, the use of anglicisms is increasing every day more and people are already familiar with this phenomenon. According to the results taken in this research, the use of unnecessary words from English is because of globalization with a percentage 39.5% compared to other factors taken from the questionnaire, as well as the low level of mother tongue by not knowing the source of many Albanian words.The media are the most affected places by this phenomenon, and the people who constantly use anglicisms are exactly those who transmit the news to others. Also, in the official documents of Kosovo almost we can find all the borrowing words, even those which are unnecessary, such as: asistence, monitorim, mortalitet, aktuale, implementim, sociale, instrument, kualitet, influence, and trajnim etc.Most of the people thought that there are no reasons to use anglicisms and the main responsibilities for them are the Academy of Science. Moroever, they do not justify the use of anglicisms and most of them are in the same opinion that we should do something as much as possible to control and manage them. In conclusion, it should be done a seriously research on all the borrowing words in Albanian language from English, and find or approximately find an appropriate word in Albanian with which they can be replaces, until there is no other way but only to borrow that word. Interdisiplinary Journal of Research and Development, Vol. 4, no. 4, 2017 41

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