The vocabulary contains 1280 meaning-word pairs ("entries") corresponding to core LWT meanings from the recipient language Kali'na. The corresponding text chapter was published in the book Loanwords in the World's Languages. The language page Kali'na contains a list of all loanwords arranged by donor languoid.
| Word form | LWT code | Meaning | Core list | Borrowed status | Source words |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Form | It was sometimes not easy to decide which word to include in the database when different words were coexisting. I had some difficulty to choose the word most established in the language. This depends on the age of speaker, his/her dialect, personal register and situations of interaction. An example is ‘bicycle’, which present has sub-counterparts: talala, baisikɨlɨ and velo. The first is a semantic change from native word meaning ‘metallic disk used to form the round manioc bread’, a lexical form being exploited in neologisms (talala ‘wheel, bicycle’ with semantic change, talalamenpo with derivation (literally little wheel) ‘wheel, barrow’, potosu talala (literally big wheel) ‘car’; it coexists with the borrowed forms from Sranan baisikɨlɨ and French velo. The Kali’na native word seems to loose its productivity but is employed in certain situations across the dialectal boundaries. The borrowed forms have a dialectal distribution, but due to the mobilities from one place to another, the two forms may be used overall. So I kept the three forms as three sub-counterparts. |
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| Age | The ages were estimated following various criteria.
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| Borrowed | Apart from the loanwords from Amerindian languages, the loanword status was not very difficult to determine. However, it was not always clear what the source word is, e.g. in the case of velo 'bicycle'. The word vélo forms part of the lexicon of Guianese French Creole as well as of French. In some cases there is no possibility to cut into one or the other. In this case I chose the French word intertwining linguistic elements, as phonological integration or intonation pattern, and sociological elements as the moment of the introduction of this object in the daily life. In reality it may have been borrowed frpm Guianese French Creole and transferred to a French pattern as is the case for an increasing number of Creole words nowadays. |
| Reference | Ahlbrinck, Wilhelmus G. 1931. « Encyclopediae der Karaïben ». Verhandelingen der Kon. Akademie van Wetenschappen, afd. Lett., XXVII. XIV + 555 + 160 pp. (1956. Encyclopédie des Caraïbes, traduit du néerlandais par Herwijnen, Doude van, manuscrit dactylographié).
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