Making the foreign familiar: (De)scribing linguistic adaptation in Tshivenḓa

Abstract

This article describes the process of loanword adaptation in Tshivenḓa. The description foregrounds the factors that are often assumed to play a role in the alterations that adopted and adapted words in Tshivenḓa undergo. Conceptual in approach, the article analyses examples of loanwords in Tshivenḓa by means of a canonical approach where the loanwords are classified according to whether they conform to various canonical patterns, and if not, according to the direction and extent of their derivation from these patterns. Clements and Keyser’s CV-phonology and Chomsky and Halle’s generative phonology model fortified the description of loanword adaptation in Tshivenḓa. Affixation and other morpho-phonological changes were found to be significant processes operating in loanword adoption and adaptation in Tshivenḓa, which start out with phonetic adaptation and end with semantic adaptation. The article concludes by endorsing loanword adoption and adaptation as significant phenomena that enrich Tshivenḓa and thus combat the language’s death.