Between Language Genealogy and Language Contact: Hybrid or Hereditary / Loanword Pairs of German and Persian; Part 1

Document Type : Original Research Paper

Author

Lecturer at the German department at the University of Tehran

Abstract
In the tradition of historical-comparative language or linguistics research, either the common word pairs of any language pair, which are counted as descendants of a hypothetical original language are examined, for example Indo-European (hereditary word pairs) due to a genetic relationship, or a kind of secondary relationship due to indirect/direct proven geographical contact (foreign or loanword pairs). Of course, this is quite apart from the coincidental coherences, which are usually only sought in the formal area, which is the case, for example, with the false friends or certain onomatopoeia and interjections. Furthermore, there ist one seldom researched incident, which can be placed between the common hereditary and loanwords of a language pair in etymological research. When it comes to a single intralingual hybrid word, which consists of inherited and borrowed or different (other language) elements at the same time, one speaks of “hybrid formations” (Kluge 2011: XXIf.). But if we take up this topic from a language-pair-related perspective, we are dealing with interlingual hybrid word pairs, which on the one hand can be hybrid in every single language involved in the language comparison process and on the other hand in comparison to one another, i.e., not even interlingually pure or show an equally bilateral or multi-sided orientation. In view of the fact that the interlingual hybrid word pairs as a linguistic topic have so far been occasionally neglected in the absolute majority of the relevant studies and almost within all (any) language pairs, the present research has dealt with this topic using the example of the genealogically related German and Persian languages that came into contact with each other at times.


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