What borrowing means
A lexical borrowing is a word copied from one language into another at some stage of its history. The language into which it enters is the recipient; the source used by the recipient is the immediate donor. The earlier history of that donor word may involve yet another language. WOLD records these as distinct fields precisely because an ultimate etymology does not by itself identify the route by which a community received a word.
The label “loanword” does not mean that speakers temporarily borrowed an item and returned it. Once integrated, it belongs to the recipient language’s lexicon. Nor is borrowing confined to names for new objects. It can coexist with an inherited synonym, specialize in a technical register, or displace an older term. WOLD distinguishes insertion, coexistence, replacement and unknown effects; this is more careful than saying that contact always “fills a gap.”
The comparative test
Begin with the earliest securely dated forms on each side. Compare the proposed donor and recipient forms using the historical sound systems, not a modern English spelling. Test whether the recipient’s shape is compatible with its own sound patterns or with a sequence of documented changes. Then compare meaning in actual contexts. “Similar sound and similar meaning” is a candidate-generating observation, not an etymology: short words can resemble one another by chance, and related languages may have inherited the resemblance from a common ancestor.
For related languages, regular sound correspondences across many words and shared morphology are especially important. A candidate that fits the inherited correspondences may be inherited; an otherwise anomalous shape may point to borrowing, but only after analogical change, dialect mixture, scribal spelling and uncertain reading have been considered. For unrelated languages, establish a plausible historical route and avoid assigning a donor more precisely than the evidence permits. A later attestation can reflect an older oral form, so dates set constraints rather than an automatic direction arrow.
Levels of confidence
WOLD classifies candidate words from clearly borrowed through no evidence for borrowing, rather than pretending every case is binary. “No evidence” is not the same as “proved inherited”: a prehistoric loan can later pass normally into descendants. State the basis for your own confidence. Is the item actually present in both corpora? Is the recipient spelling secure? Is an immediate donor identifiable? Are the dates compatible? Does the proposed semantic change appear elsewhere in the record?
Source exercise: WOLD’s glossary contrasts English dish, borrowed from Latin discus before Old English, with English discus, borrowed from the same Latin word in the seventeenth century. The example is modern, but the methodological distinction is historical: the two English forms entered in different contact settings. Identify the immediate donor and explain why similar ultimate etymology does not make the borrowing date or route the same. Then list the dated attestations you would seek if investigating a comparable ancient case.
| Field | Question for the historian | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Recipient | Which language has the candidate loan? | The form must be shown in that language’s own dated evidence. |
| Immediate donor | Which language directly supplied the model? | A word can pass through more than one community. |
| Earlier donor | What is known of the model’s prior history? | Ultimate origin need not be the route into the recipient. |
| Borrowed status | How strong is the evidence? | Uncertain and negative evidence should not be collapsed. |
Modern-language examples on this page clarify a linguistic pattern. They do not establish unattested sounds or forms for an ancient language. Follow the cited sources below and keep editorial readings separate from the surviving trace.