Relation between International and Original Words in a Metamorphosis of Time

Abstract

The paper analyses a relationship between the international and original words in Slovak and it is based on the results of author's chapter about tendencies to internationalisation (co-author Krystyna Waszakowa) in a team monograph Słowotworstwo/Nominacja(Word Formation/Denomination, 2003). Specifications as manifestations of the internationalisation tendency, e. g. creation of whole families of derivations from the bases of loan words, activation of the borrowed suffixes, rising activity of compounds creation, etc. are in Slovak language similar to other Slavic, mainly West-Slavic languages. Repeated borrowings represent a space of connection of the language synchrony and diachrony as well as the modification of speakers' attitudes to foreign words. In spite of the often fears that the rising number and rate of borrowings endangers an identity of Slovak as standard and national language, the author takes an opinion that proportions in which the original and international means of expression coexist in language as synonymous means, and as semantically and pragmatically differentiating means, are also parts of the language identity. She agrees with Juraj Dolník (2010) who argues that an optimal degree of borrowing is formed in communication. A probing analysis of texts of team of authors (mainly of research workers in humanities) published in monograph about the Slovak society, prepared to the 20thanniversary of the Velvet Revolution in 1989, serves as a support of her views.