A loanword or borrowing is a lexical item which enters language A from language B due to language contact. Words may be imported from one language to another by speakers travelling abroad, scientific explorations, colonization or immigration, trade activities between countries, information exchange in modern times, etc.

With its several thousand identifiable loanwords, French has abundantly borrowed over the centuries from about 170 languages (Tardivel 1991:497–499), the majority of which belong to the Indo-European family. However, about 20…