The accommodation of Kiswahili and English loanwords into Kinyarwanda

Abstract

This study focused on the linguistic accommodation mechanisms of Kiswahili and English loanwords into Kinyarwanda. It hypothesized that Kinyarwanda integrates loanwords from both languages using various phonological, morphological and semantic processes. The data were collected from a sample of current newspapers in Kinyarwanda, from the Kinyarwanda dictionary and from selected broadcast speeches. The findings of this study showed that indeed the Kinyarwanda language makes recourse to the linguistic processes such as the epenthesis, the prothesis, the dissimilation and to word building processes such as derivation to fit the incoming words from Kiswahili and English. In addition, the results of this study revealed that not all words, which are loaned to Kinyarwanda from these languages, get absorbed. Apart from a slight phonological adaptation that is unavoidable, some words retain their original morphology and semantic range.