Benefits of International Loanwords for English-Speaking Learners of Lithuanian

KAZUHITO UNI University of Kuala Lumpur ORCID id: orcid.org/0000-0003-3492-6277 Field of research: Germanic and Romance languages, Latin, Greek, semantics, vocabulary learning. DOI: doi.org/10.35321/all86-09 BENEFITS OF INTERNATIONAL LOANWORDS FOR ENGLISH- SPEAKING LEARNERS OF LITHUANIAN Tarptautinių skolinių nauda lietuvių kalbos besimokantiems anglakalbiams studentams ANNOTATION This study explores the benefits of international loanwords in Lithuanian for the learning of its vocabulary by English speakers. This study focuses on the international vocabulary that originate from Latin or Greek, much of which, however, was borrowed through Russian, English and French. The author examined the lexes of the above-mentioned category in the Oxford 3000 wordlist and counted the number of the Lithuanian equivalents of identical category. As a result, a total of 511 vocabulary items of that category were found in the approximately 3,000 basic Lithuanian words corpus. This study categorised the collected Lithuanian lexes by suffixes to propose regularity in cross-linguistic similarity. Many of the high-frequency English words ending in -tion and -ion corresponded to Lithuanian words ending in -cija (e.g. administracija ‘administration’) and -ija (e.g. diskusija ‘discussion’). Moreover, English words ending in -y were equivalent to Lithuanian words with the ending -ija (e.g. filosofija ‘philosophy’, geografija ‘geography’, harmonija ‘harmony’). Similarly, the Lithuanian agrikultūra ‘agriculture’, architektūra ‘architecture’, kultūra ‘culture’, literatūra ‘literature’, struktūra ‘structure’ and temperatūra ‘temperature’ regularly correspond to their English equivalents. Thus, suffixes are key elements for vocabulary learning. Therefore, the present study concluded that international loanwords in Lithuanian could accelerate learning high-frequency Lithuanian vocabulary by English speakers. KEYWORDS: Lithuanian, foreign language learning, Latin and Greek loanwords, adaptation of loanwords, internationalism. Straipsniai / Articles 209 KAZUHITO UNI ANOTACIJA Tyrime analizuojama tarptautinių skolinių lietuvių kalboje nauda jos žodyno besimokantiems anglakalbiams studentams. Daugiausiai dėmesio skiriama iš lotynų ar graikų kalbų kilusiems tarptautiniams žodžiams, kurių didelė dalis buvo pasiskolinta per rusų, anglų ir prancūzų kalbas. Autorius ištyrė šios kategorijos leksemas Oksfordo anglų kalbos žodyno 3000 pagrindinių žodžių sąraše ir suskaičiavo lietuviškus atitikmenis šioje kategorijoje. Maždaug 3000 pagrindinių lietuvių kalbos žodžių sąraše buvo rasta 511 šios kategorijos žodžių. Siekiant nustatyti dėsningus skirtingų kalbų panašumus, tyrime surinktos lietuvių kalbos leksemos buvo sugrupuotos pagal priesagas. Dauguma dažnai vartojamų angliškų žodžių, kurie baigiasi –tion ir –ion, atitinka lietuvių kalbos žodžius, besibaigiančius –cija (pavyzdžiui, administracija ‘administration’) ir –ija (pavyzdžiui, diskusija ‘discussion’). Be to, anglų kalbos žodžiai su galūne –y atitiko lietuviškus žodžius su galūne –ija (pavyzdžiui, filosofija ‘philosophy’, geografija ‘geography’, harmonija ‘harmony’). Panašiai ir lietuvių kalbos žodžiai agrikultūra ‘agriculture’, architektūra ‘architecture’, kultūra ‘culture’, literatūra ‘literature’, struktūra ‘structure’ ir temperatūra ‘temperature’ turi dėsningus atitikmenis anglų kalboje. Taigi galima teigti, kad priesagos yra pagrindiniai žodyno mokymosi elementai. Tyrimas nustatė, kad tarptautiniai skoliniai lietuvių kalboje gali padėti lietuvių kalbos besimokantiems anglakalbiams studentams greičiau išmokti dažniausiai vartojamus lietuvių kalbos žodžius. ESMINIAI ŽODŽIAI: lietuvių kalba, užsienio kalbos mokymasis, skoliniai iš lotynų ir graikų kalbų, skolinių adaptavimas, tarptautinis žodis. 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. Characteristics of the Lithuanian language 1.1.1. Lithuanian is the official language of Lithuania, whose population is approximately 2,800,000 people. It has seven grammatical cases. For example, the Lithuanian word diena ‘day’ is its nominative, while dieną functions as its accusative. English speakers, many of whom are unfamiliar with grammatical cases, often face difficulties in distinguishing them (Ramonienė et al. 2019). Additionally, Lithuanian has two grammatical genders. Learners are required to memorise genders for each noun. 1.1.2. Synthetic verb forms that comprise several components with high regularity are also characteristic of Lithuanian (Ramonienė, Pribušauskaitė 2019). In the future tense, an s follows verb stems: aš eisiu ‘I will go’; tu eisi ‘you will go’; jis eis ‘he will go’; ji eis ‘she will go’. Besides, the suffix dav is included regularly in the past iterative form, which indicates repetitive actions in the past: 210 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXVI Benefits of International Loanwords for English-Speaking Learners of Lithuanian aš eidavau ‘I used to go’; tu eidavai ‘you used to go’; jis eidavo ‘he used to go’; ji eidavo ‘she used to go’. 1.1.3. These complicated grammatical features would demotivate many learners; however, the Lithuanian lexis has advantages. Basic Lithuanian nouns preserve ancient morphological features of the Indo-European languages. For example, the Lithuanian ugnis and Latin ignis both mean ‘fire’ (Piesarskas, S e v e c e v i č i u s 2013; Morwood 2005). Also, the Lithuanian saulė and Latin sol, mean ‘sun’, the Lithuanian pėda and Latin pes ‘foot’, which is associated with the English pedal and pedestrian, are Indo-European word pairs sharing the meaning. 1.2. Loanword adaptation in Lithuanian 1.2.1. Moreover, Lithuanian flexibly loaned thousands of Ancient Greek or Latin words through other European languages such as Russian, Polish and German. Lithuanian culture has been enriched and diversified by encounters with various ethnic groups (Chwalba, Zamorski 2020). Jogaila, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, ascended the throne of the King of Poland in 1386, and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth existed between 1569 and 1795 (Butterwick 2021). For that historical reason, Polish had a considerable linguistic and cultural influence on Lithuanian. For example, the diacritical marks of nasalised vowels ą and ę used in Polish had been introduced to Lithuanian with the identical function; however, their sounds evolved into long a and e in Modern Lithuanian (Zinkevičius 1996). In addition, numerous Lithuanian and Polish word pairs originate from Latin (e.g. Lithuanian religija and Polish religia ‘religion’. 1.2.2. Spoken in Germany, Austria, and the territories of the Teutonic Order in Baltic countries, German was also an influential donor language for Lithuanian (Frost 2019). Moreover, Russian became a major medium language for loaning lexes of Latin or Greek origin because Russians ruled the Lithuanian territory in most periods of the 19th and 20th centuries (Makauskas, Černius 2018). The Russian word журналист (žurnalist) ‘journalist’, which is a Latin-based vocabulary item borrowed through its French form journaliste, had been loaned to Lithuanian as žurnalistas with the same meaning. 1.3. Importance of learning high-frequency vocabulary One of the crucial steps in language learning is the enhancement of vocabulary knowledge. Frequency is a key criterion in selecting fundamental lexical items. Straipsniai / Articles 211 KAZUHITO UNI Laufer (1989) explored the percentage of English vocabulary necessary for foreign learners to understand a text, when reading it, which suggested that 95% coverage was the threshold of reading comprehension. Hu and Nation (2000) suggested that learners should have approximately 98% coverage for sufficiently profound comprehension. These studies affirm the importance of learning high-frequency words to rapidly enhance learners’ range of foreign vocabulary coverage. 1.4. Objective The objective of the research is to clarify the number of international loanwords among approximately 3,000 Lithuanian lexical items based on equivalent highfrequency vocabulary in English and to demonstrate word examples that would assist English speakers in learning basic Lithuanian lexes. This study uses the Oxford 3000 wordlist as an example of accessible highfrequency English vocabulary lists. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1. Benefits of internationalisms and cognates across multiple languages 2.1.1. Haspelmath and Tadmor (2009) discuss the international loanwords observed in multiple languages across the continents. Their work emphasises the importance of lexical knowledge in understanding interdependent relations among languages the world, and it also describes the shared loanwords as a useful element from which to start learning the fundamental vocabulary in another language. The majority of international loanwords in European languages originate from Classical Latin or Greek. However, modern languages, such as English, French and Russian, often functioned as mediators to other less influential languages. Such international loanwords are also called internationalisms. Wexler (2009) defines an internationalism as ‘a word attested in a number of unrelated languages or language families, sharing a similar orthographic or phonetic shape and a partial or identical semantic field’. Internationalisms are lexically and culturally connecting European languages (Braun 1989). 212 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXVI Benefits of International Loanwords for English-Speaking Learners of Lithuanian 2.1.2. Many studies investigating the use of cognates for foreign vocabulary learning show their benefits. Ringbom (2007) points out that, in the process of proficiency development, learners become increasingly conscious of similar L1 and L2 words without one-to-one correspondence. He also emphasises that morphological and semantic similarities between L1 and L2 can assist L2 beginners, who still need to learn most forms and meanings of the basic L2 vocabulary later. However, considerable semantic differences are observed in certain cognate pairs, such as English factory and Italian fattoria ‘farm, farmhouse’, both of which are derived from the Latin verb facere ‘do, make’. The Italian noun meaning ‘factory’ is fabbrica, which shares etymology with English fabric. Such irregular cognates are called false friends to emphasise the absence of clear semantic connections. Language learners need to carefully verify meanings of cognates in their target language rather than instantly rely on their morphological similarities. 2.1.3. For example, Otwinowska and Szewczyk (2019) focused on cognate and non-cognate learning by 150 Polish speakers learning English. The participants more efficiently recognised English cognates than words of different origins. That study also compared the usefulness of cognates and false friends. The respondents experienced more difficulty in learning English words with lesser semantic associations. 2.1.4. Lemhöfer et al. (2008) examined the existence of prominent efficacy between two specific European languages, using 1,025 English words and their cognates in French, German and Dutch. Their study suggests that any cognate pairs almost equally assisted native speakers of French, German and Dutch, who participated in the research. 2.1.5. Uni (2019) examined approximately 3,000 basic German words of Latin and Greek origin equivalent to those in the Oxford 3000 wordlist and discovered that 432 German words of that category remained phonetically and semantically similar to their English counterparts. However, Uni’s (2019) study did not mention the usefulness of hundreds of German words of the above category, which are semantically similar yet showed limited phonetic similarities. Fundamental German words, such as Bibliothek ‘library’ from Greek bibliothēkē, Frucht ‘fruit’ from Latin fructus, Lektion ‘lesson’ from Latin lectio, Rezept ‘recipe, prescription’ from Latin recipe, schreiben ‘write’ from Latin scribere, Schrift ‘letter’ from Latin scriptum, Spiegel ‘mirror’ from Latin speculum, Straße ‘street’ from Latin strata, could be explicitly shown to learners of another language as Greekor Latin-based words, which could enhance their lexical consciousness. In German, many Latin-based English words such as impression and expression correspond to calques such as Eindruck ‘impression’ and Ausdruck ‘expression’, whose prefix and stem were semantically based on their Latin equivalents. Straipsniai / Articles 213 KAZUHITO UNI 2.1.6. In Swedish, another Germanic language, calques such as intryck ‘impression’ and uttryck ‘expression’ are also observed, and, more Latinand Greek-based loanwords are included in basic Swedish vocabulary. Uni (2019a) recorded 556 Swedish words of Latin or Greek origin, out of approximately 3,000 basic words. The Swedish noun historia ‘history’ has the meaning and spelling identical to its original word in Latin. Its German equivalent Geschichte ‘history’ is a native Germanic word. Similarly, the Swedish noun exempel ‘example’ originates from Latin exemplum, while its German counterpart Beispiel ‘example’ is an indigenous vocabulary item. Additionally, the Italian word valuta ‘currency’, which stems from Latin, has been used with the same meaning in Swedish; however, the German noun Währung ‘currency’ is not a loanword. Thus, Latinand Greek-based loanwords are more commonly observed in Swedish than in German. 2.1.7. Major Lithuanian universities and other national institutions have elaborated multidisciplinary written corpora, such as the Corpus Academicum Lithuanicum (see http://coralit.lt/) and Corpus of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language (see https://klc.vdu.lt/en/). The latter corpus comprises 102 million Lithuanian words. These corpora definitely benefit intermediate and advanced Lithuanian learners; however, their data primarily written in Lithuanian without English translations are excessively difficult for beginners with limited lexical knowledge. Grumadienė and Žilinskienė (1998) constructed a comprehensive frequency database based on 1,200,000 contemporary Lithuanian words in the fields of business, science, journalism and fiction. Grumadienė and Žilinskienė’s work is significantly invaluable for vocabulary analyses by experts; however, the difficulty of descriptions in Lithuanian prevents majority of foreign novices from an effective use of that frequency dictionary. Grumadiene (2002), one of the authors of the aforementioned dictionary, pointed out that Lithuanian frequency databases and corpora were not being sufficiently recognised or utilised by linguists and specialists in other areas. Furthermore, few libraries and educational institutions outside Europe possess specialised Lithuanian references in the collection, and numerous language learners cannot afford to purchase expensive dictionaries and other types of learning materials. 2.1.8. The aforementioned facts are the major reasons why this study adopted an English-based wordlist. In particular, the Oxford 3000 wordlist is used worldwide for teaching English as a foreign language. Although minor differences are observed between high-frequency words in Lithuanian and English, the focus of this study is not on the ranking of each vocabulary item but the proportion of international loanwords in basic Lithuanian vocabulary and their benefits for English-speaking learners. 214 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXVI Benefits of International Loanwords for English-Speaking Learners of Lithuanian 3. METHODOLOGY 3.1. The Oxford 3000 wordlist, Morwood (2005), and Piesarskas and Svečevičius (2013) were the primary lexical references for the present study. I collected Lithuanian equivalents of the approximately 3,000 basic English words, consulting an English–Lithuanian dictionary edited by Piesarskas and Svečevičius (2013). Then, using English, Latin, and Russian dictionaries edited by Stevenson and Waite (2011), Morwood (2005), and Wheeler et al. (2007) as the primary etymological references, I counted the number of the Lithuanian loanwords of Latin and Greek origin, regardless of the extent of similarity to their original forms. The polysemic words in the wordlist were prioritised by the most common meaning to count a word only once. For example, the English line corresponds to linija ‘line’ as a general term, eilė ‘line, row, queue’ and many other Lithuanian words, and linija, being the most common word, was selected for analysis and counted as an example of international loanwords, which ultimately originated from the Latin noun linea. However, entry words such as meter and metre were counted as a single word because they represent merely the difference between American and British spellings. 3.2. As a result, 511 international loanwords of Latin and Greek origin (approximately 17.0% of the basic vocabulary) were observed in the approximately 3,000 most frequently used Lithuanian words. The total number of Greekand Latin-based loanwords in Lithuanian is close to that in German and Swedish, which were investigated in Uni’s (2019) and (2019a) studies. The fact would imply that both Baltic and Germanic languages had loaned similar amounts of loanwords from Latin and Greek. 4. DATA ANALYSIS 4.1. Lexical elements beneficial for learning Lithuanian 4.1.1. This section demonstrates Lithuanian words and their English equivalents, with the focus on suffixes and endings. In this study, Lithuanian elements corresponding to suffixes in other European languages are indicated by the term ending as many of them are not native suffixes in Lithuanian. 4.1.2. First, words including the Lithuanian ending -cija (pronounced [tsija]) and those with the Lithuanian ending -ija will be exemplified as they correspond to numerous English words ending with -tion or -ion. Second, we Straipsniai / Articles 215 KAZUHITO UNI will observe those with the Lithuanian ending –ia, which mostly corresponds to the English suffix –y. Subsequent sections also present productive endings. Sections 4.4.1. (–orius), 4.4.2. (–erius) and 4.5.1. (–as) discuss lexes related to people and professions. Section 4.6. exemplifies the Lithuanian words related to objects with the –as ending. Sections 4.7., 4.8., 4.9. and 4.10. respectively show vocabulary items ending in –us, –a, –ma and –ė, which originate from Latin or Greek suffixes. Finally, section 4.11. demonstrates the Lithuanian lexes with endings –tūra (English –ture), –ika (English –ic and –ics) and –tetas (English –ty). 4.2. Lithuanian endings corresponding to Latin suffixes –tio and –io 4.2.1. Those include the Lithuanian ending –cija (pronounced [tsija]) correspond to English words with –tion. The former is phonetically similar to the Russian suffix –ция, which is pronounced [tsijə]. TABLE 1. Lithuanian Words with –cija and their English Equivalents 4.2.2. Table 2 presents Lithuanian words comprising –ija as corresponding to English words with –ion. 216 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXVI Benefits of International Loanwords for English-Speaking Learners of Lithuanian TABLE 2. Lithuanian Words with –ija and their English Equivalents (1) dimensija dimension diskusija discussion divizija division komisija commission profesija profession religija religion sesija session versija version 4.3. Lithuanian ending –ija and English suffix –y 4.3.1. The Lithuanian ending –ija is also included in the vocabulary of Greek origin as in Table 3. Other Lithuanian word examples ending in –ija are armija ‘army’, industrija ‘industry’, laboratorija ‘laboratory’ and ministrija ‘ministry’. TABLE 3. Lithuanian Words with –ija and their English Equivalents (2) filosofija philosophy geografija geography harmonija harmony komedija comedy psichologija psychology simpatija sympathy technologija technology teorija theory 4.3.2. Several Lithuanian words such as linija ‘line’ and policija ‘police’, whose Latin forms are linea ‘line’ and politia ‘state, government’, are relatively different from their English forms; however, they are phonetically similar to the Russian nouns линия (pronounced [liniјə]) ‘line’ and полиция (pronounced [palitsijə]) ‘police’. Also, their Italian equivalents linea ‘line’ and polizia (pronounced [politsia]) ‘police’ remain alike. The Latin politia ‘state, government’ ultimately originates from the Greek polis ‘city’, which is also enclosed in the English metropolis. 4.3.3. Several Russian phonemes influence choice of endings in Lithuanian. The [l] in the final position of the stems is often followed by –is: automobilis ‘automobile, car’, festivalis ‘festival’, modelis ‘model’, panelis ‘panel’, profilis ‘profile’ and simbolis ‘symbol’ (see Table 4). TABLE 4. Lithuanian Words with –is and their English Equivalents automobilis automobile festivalis festival modelis model panelis panel profilis profile simbolis symbol charakteris character kompiuteris computer Straipsniai / Articles 217 KAZUHITO UNI 4.3.4. As Lithuanian vocabulary is influenced by many European languages, their speakers would recognise meanings of the listed words without any prior instructions. Other Lithuanian nouns with the -is ending are charakteris ‘character’ and kompiuteris ‘computer’. 4.4. Lithuanian ending -orius and English suffix -or 4.4.1. Table 5 demonstrates words with the Lithuanian ending -orius as corresponding to English words with -or. The Lithuanian autorius ‘author’ stems from the Latin auctor with an identical meaning. The Lithuanian gubernatorius ‘governor’ and its original term gubernator in Latin are also phonetically close. TABLE 5. Lithuanian Words with -orius and their English Equivalents aktorius actor autorius author direktorius director faktorius factor monitorius monitor profesorius professor sektorius sector senatorius senator 4.4.2. Furthermore, the Lithuanian inžinierius ‘engineer’, ending in -erius, shares similarities to the French ingénieur ‘male engineer’ and Russian инженер (inžener), both of which originate from the Latin ingenium ‘innate quality, nature’ (Morwood 2005). Analogous processes might have modified the original endings of several nouns. As the majority of English and Lithuanian words are alike, English speakers may smoothly identify Lithuanian words ending in -orius and -erius. 4.5. Lithuanian nouns ending in -as and their English counterparts (1) 4.5.1. Table 6 shows Lithuanian nouns related to people with the -as ending and their English counterparts. Other word examples related to people are pilotas ‘pilot’, princas (pronounced [printsas]) ‘prince’, turistas ‘tourist’ and žurnalistas ‘journalist’. The Lithuanian žurnalas ‘journal’ stems from the Latin adjective diurnus ‘daily’. The Lithuanian meistras was loaned from the German noun Meister ‘master’, which ultimately originates from the Latin magister ‘master, chief’ (Morwood 2005). The Lithuanian word klerkas ‘clerk’ is morphologically 218 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXVI Benefits of International Loanwords for English-Speaking Learners of Lithuanian based on its French equivalent clerc ‘clerk’; however, both of them initially stem from Greek klērikos ‘clergyman’ (Picoche 2015). TABLE 6. Lithuanian Nouns Ending in –as and their English Equivalents (1) agentas agent aktyvistas activist architektas architect artistas artist klеrkas clerk klientas client, customer konsultantas consultant ministras minister pacientas patient prezidentas president specialistas specialist studentas student 4.5.2. The noun žurnalas ‘journal’ remains phonetically similar to the French journal ‘newspaper, journal’ although it was loaned through Russian. The Lithuanian ž usually corresponds to the French j and Russian ж (ž), whose sound is observed in the English word vision. Additionally, French-style loanwords of Latin origin, such as meras ‘mayor’, tualetas ‘toilet, lavatory’, žiuri ‘jury’ and želė ‘jelly’, were borrowed through Russian. The Latin adjective major ‘greater’ evolved into the English mayor and its French counterpart maire. The French and English jury is related to jus ‘law’ in Latin. The Lithuanian noun želė ‘jelly’ based on the French gelée ‘jelly’ came from the Latin verb gelare ‘freeze’. 4.6. Lithuanian nouns ending in –as and their English counterparts (2) 4.6.1. Table 7 also exemplifies Lithuanian nouns ending in –as and their English counterparts; however, these are not related to professions. The listed Lithuanian and English words remain phonetically close, except minor differences, such as that between the [θ] and [t] sounds in English and Lithuanian. In addition, French nouns restaurant with a mute t and type (pronounced [tip]) influenced the pronunciation of the Lithuanian restoranas ‘restaurant’ and tipas ‘type’. TABLE 7. Lithuanian Words with –as and their English Equivalents (2) aktas act argumentas argument aspektas aspect efektas effect eksperimentas experiment elementas element entuziazmas enthusiasm epizodas episode Straipsniai / Articles 219 KAZUHITO UNI aktas act argumentas argument aspektas aspect efektas effect faktas fact fokusas focus gramas gram indeksas index ingredientas ingredient institutas institute instrumentas instrument katalogas catalog kilometras k kilometer 4.6.2. The Lithuanian ritmas ‘rhythm’ from the Greek rhythmos may have been phonetically influenced by the French rythme ‘rhythm’, whose th is pronounced [t]. Contrastingly, the Lithuanian okeanas ‘ocean’ from the Greek ōkeanos retains the original [k] sound. In addition to the words listed in Table 7, there are several other words with a similar ending: the Lithuanian noun talentas ‘talent’ stems from the Latin talentum ‘talent as a weight in ancient Greece’ and Greek talanton ‘balance to weigh precious metals’. Originating from the Greek adamas ‘diamond’, the Lithuanian noun deimantas ‘diamond’ is phonetically similar to Italian and Spanish diamante ‘diamond’. 4.6.3. A clear morphemic influence of German is observed in Lithuanian. The stem of Lithuanian punktas ‘point’ maintains the pronunciation of the Latin punctum ‘point’ faithfully. Majority of English speakers would be able to recognise the meaning of the Lithuanian word if they know etymological association among some English words, such as point and punctual. 4.7. Lithuanian nouns ending in -us and their English counterparts 4.7.1. Table 8 demonstrates Lithuanian adjectives ending in -us and their English counterparts. The Lithuanian y, usually following [s] or [t] sounds, indicates a long [i]. Other Lithuanian words ending in -us are agresyvus ‘aggressive’ and idealus ‘ideal’. 4.7.2. Although the Latin forms such as abstractus ‘abstract’ and normalis ‘normal’ ended in -us and -alis, the endings had been unified in Lithuanian. 220 Acta Linguistica Lituanica LXXXVI Benefits of International Loanwords for English-Speaking Learners of Lithuanian TABLE 8. Lithuanian Adjectives Ending in –us and their English Counterparts abstraktus abstract adekvatus adequate aktyvus active alternatyvus alternative konkretus concrete konservatyvus conservative modernus modern normalus normal objektyvus objective oficialus official originalus original pasyvus passive privatus private profesionalus professional subjektyvus subjective universalus universal 4.8. Lithuanian nouns ending in –a and their English equivalents 4.8.1. Table 9 exemplifies Lithuanian nouns ending in –a and their corresponding words in English. An orthographical change occurred between the Latin collega ‘colleague’ and its Lithuanian descendant kolega with the same meaning. The Lithuanian lyga ‘league’, which was borrowed through French, and its English counterpart derive from the Latin verb ligare ‘bind, fasten, attach, tie up’. 4.8.2. In addition, Lithuanian and Italian share identical spellings of the following nouns atmosfera, dieta, disciplina, forma, norma, nota, scena and zona. This fact may significantly encourage Italian speakers learning Lithuanian. Moreover, their Spanish counterparts have similar forms although escena ‘scene’, leyenda ‘legend’ and máquina ‘machine’ share fewer morphological similarities. Therefore, speakers of English, Italian, Spanish and other relative languages can recognise such Lithuanian vocabulary items without much effort. TABLE 9. Lithuanian Words with –a and their English Equivalents atmosfera atmosphere dieta diet disciplina discipline figūra figure forma form gitara guitar kolega colleague legenda legend lyga league mašina machine norma norm nota note planeta planet scena scene uniforma uniform zona zone, area Straipsniai / Articles 221 KAZUHITO UNI 4.9. Lithuanian nouns ending in –ma and their English equivalents Table 10 demonstrates Lithuanian nouns ending in –ma and their English forms, which mostly end in an m. The Ancient Greek suffix –ma is conserved in Lithuanian although the Greek y had been borrowed as i. Another example in this lexical category is diagramа ‘diagram’. TABLE 10. Lithuanian Nouns Ending in –ma and their English Forms 4.10. Lithuanian nouns ending in –ė (long [e]) Table 11 presents Lithuanian nouns ending in –ė (long [e]) and corresponding words in English. The Lithuanian lexes end in –ė. English speakers would be able to learn these Lithuanian words with ease. Their French equivalents are analyse, base, phase, phrase, classe, crise, minute and pause, respectively. For this reason, most French speakers could identify the meaning of the listed Lithuanian words. TABLE 11. Lithuanian Nouns Ending in –ė and Corresponding Words in English 4.11. Lithuanian endings –tūra (English –ture), –ika (English –ic, –ics) and –tetas (English –ty) 4.11.1. The lexical component –tūra is included in numerous Lithuanian nouns of Latin origin such as agrikultūra ‘agriculture’, architektūra ‘architecture’, kultūra ‘culture’, literatūra ‘literature’, struktūra ‘structure’ and temperatūra 222 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXVI Benefits of International Loanwords for English-Speaking Learners of Lithuanian ‘temperature’. Therefore, English-speaking learners of Lithuanian may identify such Lithuanian vocabulary items. 4.11.2. Another productive ending is -ika, which mostly corresponds to -ic and -ics in English (see Table 12). TABLE 12. Lithuanian Nouns Ending in -ika and Corresponding Words in English 4.11.3. The Lithuanian element –tetas is observed in autoritetas ‘authority’, fakultetas ‘faculty’, komitetas ‘committee’, prioritetas ‘priority’ and universitetas ‘university’. The English committee ends in –tee due to influence of the form of the French comité with the same meaning. 4.11.4. Despite minor irregularities between Lithuanian and English, the Lithuanian suffix –inis is also relatively productive: akademinis ‘academic’, finansinis ‘financial’, nacionalinis ‘national’, loginis ‘logical’, politinis ‘political’, socialinis ‘social’, techninis ‘technical’ and tropinis ‘tropical’. 4.12. The above semantic and phonetic associations may foster lexical recognition of those words by the speakers of English and several other European languages. 5. CONCLUSION The study examined frequently used vocabulary of Latin or Greek origin in the Lithuanian language that would benefit learning Lithuanian as a foreign language. A total of 511 vocabulary items (approximately 17.0%) of that category, which share semantic similarities with their English cognates, were observed in the group of approximately 3,000 basic Lithuanian words. Based on those results, it is concluded that emphasising the shared vocabulary items could accelerate learning basic Lithuanian vocabulary by English speakers. REFERENCES Braun Peter 1989: Internationalisms: identical vocabularies in European languages. – Language Adaptation, ed. F. Coulmas, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 158–167. Straipsniai / Articles 223 KAZUHITO UNI Butterwick Richard 2021: The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, 1733–1795: Light and Flame, New Haven: Yale University Press. Chwalba Andrzej, Zamorski Krzysztof 2020: The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: History, Memory, Legacy, Abingdon: Routledge. Frost Robert 2019: The Oxford History of Poland-Lithuania. Volume I: The making of the Polish–Lithuanian Union, 1385–1569, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 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Tarptautinių skolinių nauda lietuvių kalbos besimokantiems anglakalbiams studentams SANTRAUKA Nors lietuvių kalba priklauso indoeuropiečių kalbų šeimai, lietuviškos kilmės žodžiai ženkliai skiriasi nuo anglų kalbos ir kitų Europos kalbų. Tyrime analizuojama tarptautinių skolinių lietuvių kalboje nauda jos žodyno besimokantiems anglakalbiams studentams. Straipsniai / Articles 225 KAZUHITO UNI Daugiausiai dėmesio skiriama iš lotynų ar graikų kalbų kilusiems tarptautiniams žodžiams, kurių didelė dalis buvo pasiskolinta per rusų, anglų ir prancūzų kalbas. Autorius ištyrė šios kategorijos leksemas Oksfordo anglų kalbos žodyno 3000 pagrindinių žodžių sąraše ir suskaičiavo lietuviškus atitikmenis šioje kategorijoje. Maždaug 3000 pagrindinių lietuvių kalbos žodžių sąraše buvo rasta 511 šios kategorijos žodžių. Siekiant nustatyti dėsningus skirtingų kalbų panašumus, tyrime surinktos lietuvių kalbos leksemos buvo sugrupuotos pagal priesagas. Dauguma dažnai vartojamų angliškų žodžių, kurie baigiasi -tion ir -ion, atitinka lietuvių kalbos žodžius, besibaigiančius -cija (pavyzdžiui, administracija ‘administration’) ir -ija (pavyzdžiui, diskusija ‘discussion’). Be to, anglų kalbos žodžiai su galūne -y atitiko lietuviškus žodžius su galūne -ija (pavyzdžiui, filosofija ‘philosophy’, geografija ‘geography’, harmonija ‘harmony’). Tokie lietuvių kalbos būdvardžiai kaip abstraktus ‘abstract’, aktyvus ‘active’, konkretus ‘concrete’ ir objektyvus ‘objective’ išlaiko savo semantinį panašumą su angliškais atitikmenimis. Panašiai ir lietuvių kalbos žodžiai agrikultūra ‘agriculture’, architektūra ‘architecture’, kultūra ‘culture’, literatūra ‘literature’, struktūra ‘structure’ ir temperatūra ‘temperature’ turi dėsningus atitikmenis anglų kalboje. Taigi galima teigti, kad priesagos yra pagrindiniai žodyno mokymosi elementai. Tyrimas nustatė, kad tarptautiniai skoliniai lietuvių kalboje gali padėti lietuvių kalbos besimokantiems anglakalbiams studentams greičiau išmokti dažniausiai vartojamus lietuvių kalbos žodžius. Įteikta 2021 spalio 30 d. KAZUHITO UNI University of Kuala Lumpur 1016, Jalan Sultan Ismail, 50250 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia [email protected] 226 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXVI