# Are there cases of metathesis in loanwords?



## dihydrogen monoxide

Are there any cases or is it possible that if a language A loans a word from language B that the following occurs:


Let's say language A has a word ltopa, but the language B cannot produce that cluster so a metathesis occurs and the word in language B becomes tlopa.


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## Riverplatense

I wouldn't exclude this. However, I think such a word is not very likely to undergo metathesis, there'd rather be a kind of prothesis, epenthesis/svarabhakti vowel, epithesis, which are «easier» phenomena. I can't think of any case of metathesis motivated by that reason.


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## bragpipes

I only know of one example.  Spoken Gulf Arabic uses belenti (stress on middle syllable) for penalty kick in football.  This is not done to break a consonant cluster (these dialects have words like zgirt, stečlebt, etc) but because l and n are easier to say in that order and because, for some reason, belenti sounds more like an actual Arabic word than benelty.  

(Note: B is used instead of p because Arabic has no p.  However, even dialects/people that can say p and say it for pass, i.e. pass the ball, "pās", still say belenty because that's the word.)


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## Gavril

By some definitions, Spanish _peligro_ "danger" qualifies as a loanword. It comes from Latin _pe*r*icu*l*um,_ with metathesis of the first two resonants (_l_ <-> _r_). _peligro_ is probably a later reimportation of the Latin word, because if _periculum_ had passed through the oldest stratum of Spanish sound changes, it would be expected to look like *_perejo_ or similar.


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## ahvalj

I think it is a rather frequent situation with longer words.

For example, in the Russian folk tradition the church name _Сильвестр/Silʲvʲestr_ was modified into _Селивёрст/Sʲelʲivʲorst;_ the Low German _tallerke_ (cp. modern Danish _tallerken_) has become _тарелка/tarʲelka _"serving dish"; _Werkstatt_ is now _верстак/vʲerstak _"workbench".

Romance, and _Spanish_ in particular, has several examples of metatheses made in inherited words: in addition to Gavril's example, let's recall _milagro (<mīrāculum), palabra (<parabolam), olvidar (<*oblītāre), tierno (<tenerum), espalda (<spatulam) _and_ viernes (<veneris)._

The ancient northern Indo-European words for "silver" look non-reducible to a common prototype: we find the Celtiberian _silaPur,_ late Common Germanic *_siluƀran~silaƀran _(Gothic _silubr,_ Old High German _silabar_), Prussian _sirabl-,_ Lithuanian _sidabras~sidrabas~sudabras_, Latvian _sudrabs~sidrabs _and late Common Slavic _sьrebro~sъrebro~serebro. _


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## sotos

It happens also in Greek (and not only in loan words) but I can't remember many examples now. One is καράφλα - φαλάκρα (_baldness_ (of hair)).


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## Gavril

Another example of metathesis may exist in words for "lead" (the metal), if Latin _plumbum _is related to Greek _mólubdos_. However, if these two are related, more than simple metathesis seems necessary to account for it.

E.g. the process could have been *_polumbos_ > *_*m*olu*b*bos_ (metathesis + voicing assimilation) > *_molu*db*os_ (dissimilation) > _mólu*bd*os_ (metathesis again).

Regardless, both _plumbus_ and _mólubdos _are widely considered substratal words (and would therefore fit the "loanword" criterion of the thread).


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## origumi

In Hebrew we borrowed "kategor" (plaintiff, plaintiff's lawyer) from Greek κατηγορος, but as a verb the root became ktrg (metathesis of g and r).
We borrowed Arabic il3an (shall be cursed) as in3al (but this may have happened already in Arabic, I am not sure about the development).


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## Ihsiin

Yes, in Iraqi Arabic we say نعل "to curse", etc. - I don't know which other dialects have undergone this metathesis.


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## Riverplatense

But aren't we talking about different things here (apart from bragpipes’ and Gavril’s examples)? I think metathesis of liquids is pretty frequent. There's plenty of examples, such as _coccodrillo_ ← CROCODILU in Italian, _crapa _← CAPRA in southern Italian dialects or _horse _← *HROS in English. I think it's rather the sound /r/ which is likely to undergo these shifts than the question whether or not we have a loan word or whether it facilitates the pronunciation.


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## ahvalj

Yes, you are right. Speaking of initial clusters, we have to exclude Western Eurasia since there are currently virtually no language boundaries there when a language allowing complicated initial consonant clusters would border on another one allowing the same clusters in a metathesized form. I can only think of  loanwords from various Caucasian languages into Russian, but they are so rare and specific (names of local realities like Georgian food, e. g. _rkaʦiteli_) that no systematic adaptation is made during borrowing. Probably this will change for better with the rise of the Arabic-speaking population in the EU. Complicated initial and internal consonant clusters were present in the language of the pre-Indo-European aboriginals of Greece but since we only know these words adapted (often in different ways) in various Ancient Greek dialects, we again can't really speak of any definite patterns.


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## apmoy70

sotos said:


> It happens also in Greek (and not only in loan words) but I can't remember many examples now. One is καράφλα - φαλάκρα (_baldness_ (of hair)).


MoGr slangy λα*κρι*ντί [lakriˈndi] (neut.) --> _babble, prattle, chit chat_ < Tur. la*kır*dı --> _word._
Another one I found:
Alb. go*rric*ë --> _Pyrus pyraster, European wild pear_ > MoGr γκο*ρτσι*ά [gorˈʦ͡ça] (fem.) --> _wild pear_.


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## sotos

Tri- / ter-. But is this a case of loaning?


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## elroy

origumi said:


> We borrowed Arabic il3an (shall be cursed) as in3al (but this may have happened already in Arabic, I am not sure about the development).


 In Palestinian Arabic it's _*y*il3an_, and no, _yin3al_ is not used.  The euphemism is _yin3an _(the _l_ is replaced with an _n_). 





bragpipes said:


> Spoken Gulf Arabic uses belenti (stress on middle syllable) for penalty kick in football. [...] (Note: B is used instead of p because Arabic has no p.  However, even dialects/people that can say p and say it for pass, i.e. pass the ball, "pās", still say belenty because that's the word.)


 It's exactly the same in Palestinian Arabic, only I would transliterate it as _balanti_, and we don't use _paas_.

I'm sure there are lots of examples.  Borrowings undergo all kinds of changes when incorporated into the receiving language.


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## origumi

elroy said:


> In Palestinian Arabic it's _*y*il3an_, and no, _yin3al_ is not used.  The euphemism is _yin3an _(the _l_ is replaced with an _n_).


Hebrew often borrows Arabic words and expressions from other dialects, since many Hebrew families immigrated from various places (e.g. the Maghreb, Iraq, Yemen). Therefore the yin3al metathesis could happen in Hebrew, or could be taken from Iraqi (as Ishiin wrote above) or another dialect.


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## OBrasilo

For consonant clusters, no idea, but for consonant clusters with a vowel nearby, we have Slavic words loaned into Hungarian, eg. streha -> eszterha, sreda -> szerda, etc.


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## sergio11

Gavril said:


> By some definitions, Spanish _peligro_ "danger" qualifies as a loanword. It comes from Latin _pe*r*icu*l*um,_ with metathesis of the first two resonants (_l_ <-> _r_). _peligro_ is probably a later reimportation of the Latin word, because if _periculum_ had passed through the oldest stratum of Spanish sound changes, it would be expected to look like *_perejo_ or similar.


How can you consider this a loan word? The whole language is derived from Latin, and with the exception of a few words derived from other languages, every word is some sort of metamophosis of a Latin word. The words not derived from Latin are the "loan" words, not the Latin ones.


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## Penyafort

sergio11 said:


> How can you consider this a loan word? The whole language is derived from Latin, and with the exception of a few words derived from other languages, every word is some sort of metamophosis of a Latin word. The words not derived from Latin are the "loan" words, not the Latin ones.



Gavril already explained that it is a word not having undergone the most distinctive phase in the evolution of the traits of Spanish, because if so, Spanish speakers should say PERIJO (just like _cobijo _or _botijo_) and not PELIGRO. So in a way, it might be a 'pseudoloanword', taken later and more directly from Latin. In Spanish linguistics, they are not called loanwords, because the term would only be used for those _latinismos _that didn't change at all and were introduced in more recent centuries. For those words from Latin taken at different stages, Spanish linguists distinguish between _palabras patrimoniales _(core words that show the distinctive traits of Spanish evolution more clearly) and _cultismos _(those looking closer to Latin and then looking more similar between all Romance languages).


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## francisgranada

OBrasilo said:


> For consonant clusters, no idea, but for consonant clusters with a vowel nearby, we have Slavic words loaned into Hungarian, eg. streha -> eszterha, sreda -> szerda, etc.



_Szerda_ is not the result of metathesis. The vowel "e" before "r" has been inserted to resolve the consonant cluster "sr", as consonant clusters are normally impossible at the beginning of words in Hungarian.  The fall of the original "e" of _sreda_ is a later phenomenon, the archaic  - now dialectal - form of the word _szerda_ is _szereda_.

An example for metathesis in Hungarian: _kehely_ from Middle High German _kelch_ or _kelech_ (from Latin _calix_).

(As to _eszterha_, I do not know this word ...)


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## Scholiast

Greetings all

This minor intervention may be naive, so shoot me down in flames if ye will. francisgranada cites (# 19) German _Kelch_ from Latin _calix_, or rather, Greek (κἀλυξ). Is this really metathesis, rather than syncope? I'd have thought Ἡρακλῆς_/Hercules_ were a better example.
A larger question in this discussion would be whether, when languages have been symbiotic for any appreciable length of time, the concept of "loan-word" can be accurately or usefully defined.
"Brum" for "Birmingham" also comes to mind, in nespite, or rather because, of the revolting accent.
Σ


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## M Mira

Nobody mentioned Iskandar<-Alexandros yet?


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## danielstan

francisgranada said:


> The fall of the original "e" of _sreda_ is a later phenomenon, the archaic  - now dialectal - form of the word _szerda_ is _szereda_.


One example is the Transylvanian city Csíkszereda (in Romanian: Miercurea Ciuc). The Romanian translation of _szereda _is _miercuri _("Wednesday") = the day in the middle of the week.
As far as I remember there are Slavic languages with Wednesday = _sreda_.


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