Borrowability of Loanwords by Semantic Fields in Tanzanian Ethnic Community Languages: Case of Hehe Language
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While investigating loanwords offers useful insights for tracing linguistic and socio-political background of its speakers, information regarding changes they bring in the lexicon of the Tanzania Ethnic Community Language (henceforth ECLs) is scanty. This paper looks at the loanwords found in Hehe language, shedding light on the semantic fields that are susceptible to borrowing and reasons accounting for. Employing a qualitative approach, it bases on data that were collected using oral elicitation, text analysis and focus group discussion in Kiponzelo and Mibikimitali rural villages of Iringa in Southern Highlands of Tanzania. The findings indicated that the semantic fields of the Hehe lexicon have changed due to importation of 1152 loanwords from 11 languages; that is, four neighbouring ECLs (i.e. Bena, Kinga, Kimbu, and Gogo), Swahili, Hindi, Arabic, French, Portuguese, English, and Latin. These loanwords fall into 28 semantic fields. Clothing and grooming are fields whose terminologies are borrowed most while the fields of basic actions and colour are least susceptible to borrowing. It was shown that borrowing is a function of linguistic and non-linguistic reasons. The linguistic reason is based on the need to fill lexical and semantic gaps caused by differences in the cultures and levels of technology between the Hehe speakers and the communities speaking source languages. The non-linguistic factors are prestige and absence of policies and regulations in Tanzania that legalize the use of ECLs (including Hehe) in formal domains for more than three decades; that is, since 1960’s until 1990’s. As such, the study is clear that while words belonging to all semantic fields have a chance to be borrowed, borrowability of lexical items from certain semantic field might vary from language to language. The reason being cultural differences of the speakers, their geographical location, weather condition, level of technology, and the nature of the contact.
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