2230: Reborrowing Jan 22, 2021

Reborrowing is a process by which a word that is adopted into one language has a derivative that is borrowed back. A few examples are:

•'Anime' (English) from Japanese アニメ (anime) from the 'animation' (English)

•'Cookie' (Dutch) i.e. online information from English 'cookie' from 'koekje' (Dutch)

•Modern Hebrew תכלס [(tachles) 'directly'] from Yiddish תכלית [(tachlis) 'serious business'] from Hebrew תכלית [(tachlith) purpose]

•There is even double borrowing in the case of the English 'redingote' from French 'redingote' from English 'riding coat' from French 'cotte'.

These are usually doublets, that is to say a pair of words with identical origins and different meanings, but also included this would be borrowing calques, i.e. literal translations, such as

ready-to-wear → French prêt-à-porter (1951) → English prêt-à-porter (1957).