Why English?
English is currently one of the most popular languages in the world. More and more young people are learning it at school, or even using it in everyday speech. English as a global language has undoubtedly
a great impact on both different fields and other languages. Many of us use different borrowings, so- called Anglicisms, replacing the expressions from the native tongue. As a result, while speaking, we use the words from two languages in one sentence.
Why do we use borrowings so willingly?
There might be a couple of reasons for this. Among youth, it is caused by the current trends promoted by social media. Teenagers’ lives exist mainly in an online reality. What is more, they use a variety of apps of foreign creators (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and WhatsApp). Hence, from the very beginning they learn new borrowings that are used on the Internet and which make that Polish words sound just weird in some contexts.
Many Anglicisms are also used in the different companies in order for faster communication and ambiguity avoidance. It is sort of work specification in a given job position. The employees use English as the main communication language, e.g. while talking with a client. Hence, during information exchange with other co-workers, it’s just ‘simpler’ to use the borrowings without
a need to translate everything into the native tongue.
What borrowings are used in daily speech?
Many of us probably don’t care about a number of Anglicisms we use every day. The borrowings have become so common that they don’t even sound strange, especially when we use the new Polish ‘versions’ of them.
A few examples:
Social media
T-shirt
top
shorts
leader
team
look
deadline
feedback
camping
cardigan
trend
smartphone
Do borrowings have any impact on the Polish language?
Of course they do. By using the borrowings, our native language is becoming poorer and we get linguistically lazy. The Polish language is so rich that there’s no need to use Anglicisms. Although some words cannot be replaced (e.g. weekend, business, audiobook, marketing, logo or popcorn), we exchange Polish phrases into English ones more and more willingly. As a result, it leads to a serious limit of Polish because English alternatives may soon displace our native words in daily usage.
To sum up, today we are more eager to use English loanwords. This is caused by common trends, especially among the youth, and the communication convenience. We are sometimes just too lazy to translate something into Polish, and we prefer to use the English. However, many of the foreign words have been ‘polished’ and have become so popular that they now don’t even sound strange. Answering headline question – if borrowings are really necessary, I say an emphatic “no”. As aware language users, we shouldn’t follow the current trends. It’s worth using words that are offered by our native tongue. Try it for yourself.
(translation M.G.)
