Strategies of Semantic Change in Loan Words in the Nilotic Languages
Dinka, Nuer, and Bari
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.66563/uonjll.v12i.3360Keywords:
borrowing, loan words, strategies, semantic changes, linguistic analysisAbstract
This descriptive and analytical study aims to examine the various strategies of semantic changes that take place in words borrowed into Dinka, Nuer, and Bari, members of the Western Nilotic group of the Nilo-Saharan languages (Greenberg 1970) spoken by a majority of the South Sudanese population. Data was collected from native speakers for both Dinka and Nuer, and from Awad’s (2015) study for Bari. The loan words were then subjected to linguistic analysis to investigate the linguistic mechanisms of their adaptation into the semantic systems of these languages. It is shown that meaning change may result from different processes or strategies, such as generalization, specialization, or radical change in a word's meaning, while changes can also occur in the emotive content of words.
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