Linguistic and conceptual appropriateness of borrowed health and agriculture terms of English and Amharic in Tigrigna

Abstract

Though a certain language is enough to describe the culture and ideology of its speakers, a language can borrow new terms to introduce new concepts or to give privilege to others. Borrowing new terms can also make language rich in its word power. However, borrowings of new terms from other languages can be a cause for language change, which affects it negatively. Thus, this study investigated borrowed terms of health and agriculture from English and Amharic in Tigrigna spoken in northern Ethiopia. To achieve this, data were collected from four weredas using interviews (elicited method), observations, and document analysis of the Tigray electronic and print media. The collected data were analyzed through a qualitative approach. The findings of this study show that there are a number of new borrowed agriculture and health terms in the study area. In addition, almost all of these terms, which are being spoken in rural areas by farmers, follow the phonological structure of Tigrigna. Hence, they are making Tigrigna rich in its word power. On the other hand, most of the terms that are being spoken in urban by literate people follow English and Amharic phonological structures. These terms do not have conceptual appropriateness. As a result, such terms are sources of different communication barriers, which can lead to grammatical change and dominance of English and Amharic over Tigrigna. Therefore, it needs an institution that follows the terminology aspects of Tigrigna in the study area.