Another strange borrowing: Tagalog
Here's another one I've been musing about (and my first post since 2004!!!) - in the Philippino language Tagalog, the word for "work" is "trabaho" - an obvious borrowing from Spanish. Why did this happen? Didn't they have a word for work? Maybe "trabaho" has a slightly different meaning in Tagalog than in Spanish, as in "paid work" as opposed to "homework" or "house work" - I don't know. Maybe someone who knows Tagalog can help me out here.
Labels: borrowing, linguistics, Tagalog, trabaho
posted by Laura Blumenthal @ 1:22 p.m.
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