Calque
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In linguistics, a calque (pronounced [kælk]) or loan translation (itself a calque of German Lehnübersetzung) is a phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word translation.
The word is also used as a verb: to calque means to loan translate from another language to create a new lexeme in the target language.
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English
Calques from French
- English breakfast calques French déjeuner (which now means lunch).
- English forget-me-not calques French ne m'oubliez pas
- English Governor-General calques French gouverneur général
- English free verse calques French vers libre
- English old guard calques French Vieille Garde (the imperial guard of Napoleon I)
- English Adam's apple calques French pomme d'Adam, meaning pomegranate (which in turn was influenced by Arabic rummāna)
- English flea market calques French marché aux puces
Calques from German
- English Superman calques German Übermensch
- English standpoint calques German Standpunkt
- English worldview calques German Weltanschauung
- English antibody calques German Antikörper
- English thought experiment calques German Gedankenexperiment
- English beer garden calques German Biergarten
Calques from Latin
- English commonplace calques Latin locus commūnis (referring to a generally applicable literary passage), which itself is a calque of Greek koinos topos
- English devil's advocate calques Latin advocātus diabolī, referring to an official appointed to present arguments against a proposed canonization or beatification in the Catholic Church
- English dog days calques Latin diēs canīculāris
- English wisdom tooth calques Latin dēns sapientiae
- English vicious circle calques Latin circulus vitiōsus
- English Milky Way calques Latin via lactea
Calques from Spanish
- English blue-blood calques Spanish sangre azul
- English moment of truth calques Spanish el momento de la verdad
French
Examples of French expressions calqued from foreign languages include:
- French lune de miel calques English honeymoon
- French gratte-ciel calques English skyscraper
- French sabot de Denver calques English Denver boot
- French jardin d'enfants calques German Kindergarten
German
- German Wolkenkratzer calques English skyscraper (but literally means cloud scraper)
- German Nashorn calques the ultimately Greek rhinoceros
- German Großmutter and Großvater calque French grand-mère and grand-père, respectively
- German Fernsehen calques the English coinage, half-Greek and half-Latin, television.
Finnish
- Germanic passive agent marker — There is no passive voice in Finnish, but an impersonal, where the agent is never mentioned. Due to the influence of Germanic languages, the word toimesta "from the action" has been constructed in order to mention the agent, i.e. to function like the word "by". (It is impossible to translate the word "by" itself, because there is no direct equivalent.) For example, "Lentokonetta lennetään ohjaajan toimesta", approximately "The plane is being flown, from the action of the pilot." This is grammatically incorrect, but used abundantly in legal documents and sloppy translations.
- Swedish future marker kommer att calqued as tulla + (verb in third infinitive illative) — There is no future tense in Finnish, and the calque is produced by translation from Swedish. Notice that the verb tulla takes up the inflection, and is to be placed into the appropriate tense and person. The calque corresponds to English "is going". For example, tullaan muuttamaan "is going to be changed". This is incorrect grammar, but found in translations, political speech and legal documents.