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Words borrowed from other languages and the meaning of Tingo

Loanwords are words adopted by the speakers of one language from a different language. A loanword can also be called a borrowing. The abstract noun borrowing refers to the process of speakers adopting words from a source language into their native language. " Loan" and " borrowing" are of course metaphors, because there is no literal lending process. There is no transfer from one language to another, and no " returning" words to the source language. The words simply come to be used by a speech community that speaks a different language from the one these words originated in.

Borrowing is a consequence of cultural contact between two language communities. Borrowing of words can go in both directions between the two languages in contact, but often there is an asymmetry, such that more words go from one side to the other. In this case the source language community has some advantage of power, prestige and/or wealth that makes the objects and ideas it brings desirable and useful to the borrowing language community.

Jacot de Boinod’s book is not only amusing, but, he claims, shows that way in which a language is inextricably linked to the culture in which it is spoken. Is it really true, then, that in Germany there are a lot of people who have faces which other people want to punch? Or that Japan has more than its share of ofbakku-shan? The reader may not at first be convinced by this, but when you read that Hawaiians have 108 words for sweetpotato, 65 for fishing nets and 47 for banana (simply because in Hawaii there are indeed 108 different kinds of sweet potato, 65 fishing nets and 47 different types of banana), it makes more sense. Albanians are famous for their moustaches – and indeed the Albanian language contains 27 different words for “moustache” - madh, for example, is a bushy moustache, posht is a moustache hanging down at the ends while a fshes is a long moustache with short hairs. People from Holland and Belgium appear to be more fun-loving.

So, what exactly does “tingo” mean then? Well, to find that out, you’ll just have to find the book. No, not really! It's from the Pascuense language of Easter Island, meaning " to borrow objects from a friend's house, one by one, until there's nothing left".