ELŻBIETA MAŃCZAK-WOHLFELD

JAGIELLONIAN UNIVERSITY IN KRAKOW

The status of English lexis in the Polish language

ABSTRACT. As the title of the present paper indicates, its purpose is to investigate the
status of English words in the Polish language. To be more precise, it means that we would
like to answer the question whether English borrowings or English foreign words dominate
in Polish. First, a short history of the origin of English vocabulary is presented. This is
followed by the description of English as a lingua franca, whose consequence lies in the fact
that it has become a donor language to a number of tongues, including Polish. Then, a distinction
of two terms: borrowing, loanword or loan vs. foreignism or foreign word is discussed. On
the basis of a questionnaire conducted among Polish students of English, it has turned out
that the borderline between a borrowing and a foreignism is fuzzy, which accounts for
different interpretations of the terms in question as well as for different typologies of the two
terms in the linguistics literature.

KEYWORDS. Borrowing, foreignism, English lexis, lingua franca, the Polish languge;
fuzziness.

1. A short history of the origin of English vocabulary

It is a well-known fact that only three percent of Old English lexis was of
foreign origin. However, the situation drastically changed by the end of 1500
when 60 percent of vocabulary consisted either of Latin or of French-derived
words (Görlach 1994: 224). This fact only indicates that English could be char-
acterized by a vast reception of foreign lexical items. We can only wonder why
Samuel Johnson in the Introduction to his Dictionary (1852: IV) complained:
“Our language, for almost a century, has, by the concurrence of many causes,
been gradually departing from its original Teutonick character, and deviating
towards a Gallick structure and phraseology, from which it ought to be our en-
deavor to recall it”. However, it was quite clear that a return to an exclusively or
predominantly Germanic vocabulary was impossible at that period of time
(Mańczak-Wohlfeld 2007: 18).
The situation of English is nowadays even more complicated. According to
David Crystal (2007: 590), 350 languages are to be considered as contributors
to English word system. As Donald Winford, quoted by Marek Kuźniak (2009:
89), notices:

most English speakers would be surprised to learn that 75 percent of the words in their
language are “borrowed” from other languages during the course of its history … A great
deal, perhaps the majority of lexical borrowing results only from marginal contact with other

LANGUAGES IN CONTACT 2011

166 Elżbieta Mańczak-Wohlfeld

languages. Such contact may be due to travel, exploration, or conquest or it may be due to
exposure to the donor language in the mass media, foreign language instruction, and the like.

The above quotation only supports the claim that any language undergoes
changes including the change and increase of vocabulary. Hans-Jürgen Diller
(2011: 249), in turn, argues that:

In his Explaining Language Change, Croft (2000: 82f.) identifies two kinds of “directional
[language] evolution at a … global level.” One of them is “a massive increase of
vocabulary;” this he attributes to “technological advances of the past century which require
the naming of new entities.” The other is an increase in “syntactic complexity” which he
attributes to “the advent of writing”.

The latter reason is outside the scope of this paper, although it is reasonable
to suspect that the advent of writing is responsible not only for increased com-
plexity but also for the growth of the lexicon. Nevertheless, Diller (2011: 250)
further observes that:

The growth of the English lexicon is a fairly continuous trend that can be observed from
about the year 1200, not only in the 19th century … The dent at 1200 is clearly due to the
interruption of the written transmission of English in the wake of the Norman Conquest.
“New entities” have to be named not only in the field of technological advances, but
whenever new concepts emerge. I use the word emerge advisedly: a new word is introduced
not only when a new concept is explicitly introduced in a manner which resembles the
introduction of a technical product. It is also introduced when traditional words are quite
vaguely felt to be insufficient.

2. The position of English

In the past English exerted no impact on other languages. Therefore, the
famous observation of an English writer expressed in the 16th century, cited by
Otto Jespersen (1948: 227): “The English tongue is of small reach stretching no
further than this island of ours, nay not there over all” was of no surprise.
It has to be said that the position of English was to be changed only in the
course of the 19th century and later (especially after World War II) when it
became a donor language to a number of European tongues. This was due to the
growth of the British Empire, the industrial revolution which took place in Eng-
land, as well as the subsequent economic development and success of the Unit-
ed States of America. These are the reasons why England is often referred to by
some linguists as the Word Bank of English (cf. Mańczak-Wohlfeld 2007: 18).
 The status of English lexis in the Polish language 167

3. The influence of English on Polish

It seems that the subject of the present article cannot be discussed without
some reference to instances of contact between the English tongue and Polish.
The process proper of borrowing from English into Polish began during the
18th century.
It is only in the 19th century, however, that a gradual increase in the impact of
English on Polish becomes apparent in the sociolinguistic scene in Poland – a de-
velopment reflecting the general trend in Europe at that time. The 20th century
saw a steady increase of anglicisms in Polish, but it was not until the second
half of the 20th century that the influence of English took on a noticeable sig-
nificance.
Since the middle 1960s, the heyday of the Beatles and the start of the spread
of “pop-culture”, English has become ever more popular the world over. In
Poland, however, for the most part of the communist era, it was fairly difficult
for Poles to establish contact with the English language either via the mass me-
dia or via visits to English-speaking countries – notably, Great Britain and the
United States of America.
The changes in the political system in Poland in 1989 altered all that. Since
then Polish society has become open to Western influences and, as a conse-
quence, interest in the culture, new technologies, and other aspects of life in
Great Britain and the United States in particular has grown noticeably. Large
numbers of people, especially among the younger generation, have begun to
learn English.
These factors, along with the fairly easy access to English mass media, in-
cluding the Internet, have promoted contact between English and Polish and,
consequently, have increased the influence of English on the Polish language.
The impact has for the most part been in the area of lexical borrowing, although
there is evidence of other types of influence, which is beyond the scope of the
present paper. We can, therefore, conclude that due to a considerable inflow of
Anglicisms as well as of other linguistic elements connected with the English
language the visage of Polish has somewhat altered.
To be more precise, given the closed-society situation in the communist era,
it is not surprising that the renowned scholar of Polish linguistics, Jacek Fisiak
(1961) would find only a little over 700 English loans in Polish at that time. By
1986, however, again according to Fisiak, the number of attested anglicisms had
risen to 1 000. My own findings in 1994 show about 1 600 documented angli-
cisms (Mańczak-Wohlfeld 1994). A year later, according to my calculations,
there were over 1 700 such loanwords attested in A Dictionary of Anglicisms in
Selected European Languages edited by Görlach (2001).
The number of English loans in standard Polish today, documented in my
dictionary of English borrowings in the Polish language (Słownik zapożyczeń
168 Elżbieta Mańczak-Wohlfeld

angielskich w polszczyźnie, ed. by Mańczak-Wohlfeld 2001) is about 2 000. The

above data is indication of the degree to which English lexemes have penetrated
the Polish language’s corpus in recent years.
The above-mentioned list of about 2 000 anglicisms was arranged on the
basis of lexical items found in recent national dictionaries, lexicons of foreign
words, in the current press as well as in other media and, to a lesser extent, in
some text corpora as there are always some doubts connected with their repre-
sentativeness (cf. Mańczak-Wohlfeld 2008). It is evident that, while collecting
a list of English borrowings in Polish, in a number of cases, I had to rely on my
linguistic intuition.

4. Borrowings vs. foreignisms

We can now answer the question signaled in the title of this article concern-
ing the status of English lexis in the Polish language. In order to provide an
answer to it, we should define two crucial terms, namely, borrowing (the term
used above) and foreignism. Most linguists do not follow this distinction as they
are mainly interested in the process of borrowing and its result which is called
either a borrowing, a loan or a loanword.
A number of different definitions of the term borrowing have been pro-
posed; however, it seems that Einar Haugen’s (1950: 212) suggestion, although
a very old one, is most adequate: “The heart of our definition of borrowing is
the attempted reproduction in one language of patterns previously found in an-
other.” This definition is considered to be the most appropriate due to its gen-
eral character as it covers different types of borrowing including lexical items,
which are of our concern, but also affixes, structures or even phonemes, since
the word pattern encompasses every linguistic unit.
It is worth stressing that new loans are introduced by bilinguals who first try
to imitate “models” as closely as possible. That is the reason why we are con-
fronted with so-called citations at first and only later does the process of assimi-
lation start on four linguistic levels of analysis, i.e., the phonetic, graphic, mor-
phological and semantic.
It is clear that the adaptation does not always take place on all the levels.
Therefore, following Haugen (1950), we distinguish loans that are either im-
ported or substituted on different planes of linguistic description. To give an
example, the lexical item dżinsy < E jeans in Polish exhibits substitution on the
phonetic, graphic and morphological levels and importation on the semantic
plane.
It has to be mentioned that some loanwords never undergo any process of
assimilation in the borrowing language and they remain quotations (often referred
to by the German term Gastwörter); the second category concerns Fremdwörter,
 The status of English lexis in the Polish language 169

i.e., borrowings, which are partly adapted and finally, the third group contains
loans, which are assimilated and, sticking to the German terminology, we would
call them Lehnwörter. Some of these are so well-integrated that they are not felt
as loanwords, particularly by those speakers who do not know the language of
origin of a borrowing, which may be illustrated by the “Polish” word rum < E rum
already recognized at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries in Polish. It is ob-
vious that the loans which are well assimilated often undergo derivational proc-
esses typical of the borrowing language (Mańczak-Wohlfeld 2006b: 48–49).
To come back to the definition of the term foreignism, let me first refer the
reader to Mirosława Podhajecka’s (2006: 294) understanding of the term:

In some cases, they [foreign borrowings] tend to be associated with something deliberately
foreign and exotic. Such words, called foreignisms, are usually fairly isolated in the
borrowing language, as they are neither members of a semantic field nor are they self-
explanatory from the etymological point of view. Foreignisms in English are generally used
for special effect, or local colour, or to demonstrate special knowledge. In print, they
typically appear in italics and are glossed. Foreignisms are often encountered in translations
of foreign literature.

In turn, Marek Kuźniak (2009: 95) suggests the following definition of the
concept foreignism: “the presence of the pronunciation of the language of origin
constitutes a prerequisite to classifying a particular form as foreign”.1 Kuźniak
stresses the importance of distinguishing foreign words and phrases from bor-
rowings. Therefore, the linguist does not limit his discussion of foreign words
and phrases to the above definition but he also concentrates on the typology of
borrowings and foreignisms.

Borrowings

Assimilated lexical items Non-assimilated but frequently occurring Citations

borrowings (unadapted borrowings)

Figure 1. A typology of borrowings proposed by Mańczak Wohlfeld (2006a)

Thus, Kuźniak (2009: 134) contrasts the typology of borrowings suggested by,
among others, the present author (2006a – Figure 1) or a similar one put for-

1
In his definition of the term foreignism Marek Kuźniak (2009) also takes into account atti-
tudes to foreign words which are rather negative.
170 Elżbieta Mańczak-Wohlfeld

ward by Ulrich Busse and Manfred Görlach (2007 – Figure 2): These two ty-
pologies are contrasted with Marek Kuźniak’s proposal (2009: 136):

Borrowings

Quotation words, code- Fremdwörter Lehwörter

switching, foreignisms

Figure 2.2 A typology of borrowings and foreignesms suggested by Busse and Görlach (2007

Non-native lexis

Borrowings Foreign words and phrases ‘Unknown’ words

(Totally adapted items) and phrases

Figure 3. Non-native lexis as a superordinate category in the proposal of Kuźniak (2009)

The crucial difference between the earlier typologies and the one suggested
by Kuźniak lies in the fact that the category “non-native lexis” is elevated to the
status of the superordinate category, whereas borrowings (totally adapted
items), foreign words and phrases (not entirely adapted items) as well as “un-
known” words and phrases (unadapted items) constitute basic level category.
Which typology is more justified? Is there a need to introduce a distinction
between a borrowing and a foreignism? We know that both terms, such as bor-
rowing, loan or loanword vs. foreign word or foreignism are used in the litera-
ture. However, it seems that they are often used interchangeably, e.g., there are
dictionaries of borrowings as well as of foreign words and they do overlap, al-
though it is evident that they have been written by professionals. Could it mean
that their authors are unaware of the above-mentioned distinctions? It seems
that we cannot provide an answer to this question. Could these terms perhaps be
better identified by people with only some linguistic background? It is more
plausible to answer the latter question.

2
Note a different arrangement of the discussed categories in Mańczak-Wohlfeld (2006b) and
in Busse and Görlach (2007).
 The status of English lexis in the Polish language 171

5. An analysis of the questionnaire

In order to answer the question concerning the distinction between borrow-
ing/ loan/loanword and foreign word/foreignism, we have distributed a ques-
tionnaire among 34 students of the second year of licentiate studies and the first
year of master students of the Institute of English Philology at the Jagiellonian
University (April 2011). The questionnaire consisted of 160 lexical items be-
ginning in arbitrarily chosen letters D and J excerpted from the mentioned dic-
tionary of the English borrowings in the Polish language (Słownik zapożyczeń
angielskich w polszczyźnie 2010). It goes without saying that the number of
lexical items as well as the number of subjects were low but it is believed that
the research shows the tendency in distinguishing the terms in question very
well. It is worth stressing that the subjects were students of English philology,
which means that they knew English well and had some linguistic awareness.
The students were asked in Polish to identify foreign (i.e., unadapted) words of
English origin.3 The results are represented in Table 1:

Table 1. Identifying the origin of words in the questionnaires of students

dakron or dacron 25 drajwer or driver 11
daltonizm dread or dred 10
damping or dumping 21 dreadnought or drednot 30
dance 19 dren 4
dancing 5 drenaż 2
dandys 8 drenować 1
dandyzm 7 dres 1
dansing or dancing 2 dressing 15
dark room 24 dresy or dres
dart 14 drink 1
darwinizm drink-bar 2
D-day 25 drops
deadline 12 dropszot 24
deal 18 drugstore 32
dealer 2 drybler 12
debel 10 drybling 5
debeściak dryblować 5
debugger 25 dryf 6
debugować 12 dryft 6
deck 21 dryfter 11
default 29 DTP 21
deflacja 1 dubbing 2
defragmentacja dubleton 21
defragmentator 5 dum-dum 21
defragmentować 1 duty-free 24

3
The Polish version of the instruction ran as follows: „Proszę zaznaczyć wyrazy, które uważa
Pan/Pani za niezaadaptowane czyli obce jednostki pochodzenia angielskiego. Oznacza to, że
jednostki leksykalne, które nie zostaną zaznaczone, uznaje Pan/Pani za zapożyczenia angiel-
skie”.
172 Elżbieta Mańczak-Wohlfeld

dejman 25 DVD 2
dekrepitacja 14 dyktafon 1
delete 14 dyskomfort
demo 2 dyskonter 12
denim 12 dyskretyzacja 12
derby 2 dyspeczer 19
design 4 dywersyfikacja 3
designer 5 dżem 1
desktop 13 dżentelman or gentleman
desktop publishing 27 dżersej or jersey 8
detektyw 1 dżet 10
detoks dżin or gin 1
developer or deweloper 1 dżingiel or dżingel 11
dewon 21 dżins or jeans 1
dezodorant 7 dżokej 2
dialer 19 dżoker or joker 1
dial-up 21 dżul 7
didżej dżungla 1
digitalizacja or dygitalizacja 6 jacht
digitalny 13 jachting 8
digitizer 21 jachtklub 3
dinghy or dinghy 22 jack 32
dingo 5 jackpot 17
DINK 30 jacuzzi 1
dip 14 jamboree 25
dipis or displaced person 31 jam session 10
dirty 26 jankes
disc jockey or DJ 4 japiszon 4
disclaimer 29 jard 3
discman 5 Java 2
disco 1 jazz or dżez 2
discount or dyskont 8 jazz-band or dżezbend 3
disengagement 33 jazz-jamboree 15
Disneyland 1 jazzman 5
dixieland 29 jeep or dżip 2
DNA jet 11
dog 19 jet lag 28
dok 8 jet set 21
doker 10 jive 6
dolar jogger 21
dolby 11 jogging 3
domena 1 joint or dżoint 2
domicyl 19 joint venture 22
donut or doughnut 16 jo-jo or jojo 2
door-to-door 25 jonagold 16
doping 6 jonatan 11
DOS 6 jorkszyr 25
dotcom 22 joystick or dżojstik 2
Down 13 juice 20
downhill 21 jukebox 29
download 8 jumbo jet 6
dpi 19 jumper or dżemper 19
drag or drug 6 jumping 22
 The status of English lexis in the Polish language 173

drag queen 8 juror 4

drajw or drive 14 juta 11

The answers are striking since they show that there is almost no agreement
on the status of lexical items of English origin. All the respondents agreed that
there are 15 well-assimilated English borrowings (less than 10 percent of the
corpus). If, however, we add those items that were marked as foreign by only
one or two students, the number increases to 26 English loans. The reverse ob-
servation is also worth noting. No item was considered by everybody to have
the status of a foreign word. In very few cases (32 subjects), which means al-
most all the respondents, indicated such items. What is even more surprising is
the fact that some anglicisms which are so well-adapted that they are character-
ized by Polish flexion, e.g., dryblować, debugować or by Polish derivational
suffixes, e.g., dygitalizacja, dygitalny were recognized as foreign words.

6. Conclusions
It seems that the theoretical discussion concerning the differences between
the discussed terms, which is always needed as it advances sciences, is not re-
lated to the distinctions known at least to some specialists or to well-educated
Polish native speakers.
As mentioned before, this difficulty in distinguishing the two terms: bor-
rowing and foreignism is reflected in the lexicography. Thus, some lexicogra-
phers write dictionaries of foreign words and some of borrowings and both
types of dictionaries include similar items. This simply implies that the border-
line between a borrowing and a foreignism is fuzzy. Kuźniak (2009: 98–120)
quotes many definitions of the term foreignism (or to be more precise, reasons
for including various items to this category) suggested by different authors of a
number of English dictionaries of foreign words and phrases. Sometimes they
seem to be controversial. This is to say that dictionary writers take into account,
among others, the following factors: an arbitrary or subjective decision to in-
clude an item (!), frequency of occurrence, a graphemic criterion (presence of
italics), unfamiliarity of a unit, some degree of foreign orthography, pronuncia-
tion or flavour, recent adoptions which indicates a diachromic basis (cf.
Kuźniak 2009: 101–120). On the other hand, as Kuźniak notices some authors
use the same criteria in reference to borrowings. This is, for instance, Helen
Boesse’s case (Boesse 1988, quoted after Kuźniak 2009: 121): “The notion of
foreignness is presented as taken for granted, which practically leads to the dis-
cussion of a wide spectrum of qualitatively different units ranging from those
quite well adapted to the English language to others whose presence is rather
incidental”.
174 Elżbieta Mańczak-Wohlfeld

This fuzziness has been also observed in our questionnaire. As the results of
the questionnaire indicate, the degree of assimilation does not play any role (see
some examples quoted above). Similarly, the discussed distinction of the two
terms is not related to the time of the introduction of, in our case, an anglicism
(e.g., very old loans like dancing, dandys were considered to be foreignisms).
This difficulty is similar to many unsolved problems in linguistics, e.g.,
there are no satisfactory definitions of such basic terms as the word, sentence,
clause, etc. Analogically, the discussion reminds us of the question posed in
Polish linguistics concerning the number of grammatical genders, to which no
conclusive answer has been ever suggested.
All in all, it may be concluded that, although we try to provide different
definitions of the two terms in question or different typologies, in fact the two
terms are so fuzzy that in practice they are not clearly distinguished either by
specialists or by well-educated native speakers. We can only state that, in the
present era of globalization, English will probably continue to influence the
vocabulary of the Polish language regardless of the status of the lexis (borrow-
ings or foreignisms).

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