[German version]

A linguistic term for words which have been borrowed from one language by another (‘borrowing’) one. The term overlaps with that of a general foreign word, with the differentiation usually made being that a loanword shows extensive adaptation to the system of the borrowing language, which normally goes hand in hand with long-term usage. The existence of loanwords presupposes a certain degree of linguistic contact between the source and the borrowing language. The process may be triggered by the exposure to new realia, whose names then also are…