Nick sez:
We have a word for tingo, don’t we? Its “to ”borrow””.
In my experience 'to "borrow" ', in our culture usually means to "take
without permission" or more bluntly "to steal". That extends to
"borrowing without returning" and anecdotally we are familiar with those
who seem to do this chronically, though I don't know of it ever driving
anyone to pauperhood. I suppose, in the right extended context, one
could claim that "tingo" and " 'borrow' " (with quotes) are roughly
sememes... but that is a LOT of context!
There are other words in Rapanui for "to steal" which seem to all have
an implication of "stealing things of little value", "to pilfer". I'm
not sure that "tingo" is a euphamism for simply borrowing without
returning, it might very well be a real cultural experience that doesn't
occur (often?) in our culture?
I wonder if there is an analog in "borrow words" between languages...
can one language "borrow" so many word from another that the target of
the borrowing becomes impoverished? Within small circles I suppose
that one could make that claim for Pidgens/Creoles where the resulting
language is so much richer than the word-donor language that it might be
true in some figurative sense... or where the borrow words' meaning
becomes more closely associated with the borrowing language than the
mother tongue?
Curiouser and curiouser,
- Steve
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