A typology of English borrowings in Norwegian

Abstract

English outweighs other languages as a source for linguistic borrowing in present-day Norwegian. The aim of this article is to propose a lucid and comprehensible typology of English borrowings in Norwegian that takes into account phraseological as well as structural borrowing—two borrowing dimensions that have received relatively little scholarly attention, and where multiple terminology is in use. The typology is based on a division between word-level, phraseological and structural borrowing on the one hand and a formal division between direct and indirect borrowing on the other. A second goal is to illustrate the typology with recently emerged loans that can provide an updated picture of the influence exerted by English on the Norwegian language.