Leiden University Student Repository

ter Weer, Izra (2022)

Dutch loanwords in American English: An increase in frequency or a decrease? A corpus study

Master thesis | Linguistics (MA)

When the Dutch settled in North America during the seventeenth century, for colonising and trade purposes, came language contact between the two groups of speakers. One result from this contact is loanwords. This research investigates Dutch loanwords in American English and their frequency. Through a combination of Schultz’s (2012, 2017, 2018, 2019) framework, the Oxford English Dictionary and Van der Sijs’ (2010) glossary of Dutch loanwords in North American languages, this research was performed. The frequencies were analysed through the Corpus of Historical American English and the Corpus of Contemporary American English. These corpora provided an overview of the development of frequencies both over time and across text types. This research concludes that the frequency of Dutch loanwords in American English increases over time.

Loanwords

Dutch

American English

OED

COHA

COCA

frequency

Author

ter Weer, Izra

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Modern Languages: English Language and Linguistics

Supervisors

Gordon, M

ECTS Credits

20

Language

en