The socio-cultural impact of the Spanish borrowings on the Algerian Western coast (cultural borrowings vs core borrowings)‎

Abstract EN

Much has been said about the linguistic aspect of the Spanish borrowing in the speech of Algeria, but few studies dealt with the socio economic and socio cultural impact of these borrowing on the Algerians’ life.

The Spanish-Algerian relations are deeply rooted in history and researchers in this field have recorded more than 1200 loan words still in use.

Our aim in this article is to attempt to evaluate the socio-cultural impact of these loan-words on the Algerian Western Coast.

We will try to demonstrate the degree of importance of the borrowings by selecting only four linguistic aspects: neologisms, blends, toponyms, and epithets.

Since the tension between these two linguistic systems is at the heart of a competition: borrowings and the Arabic words that may replace them, is there a way to replace these loan-words by their Arabic equivalents? Do the borrowings have a sociocultural scope? Does the use of these words reflect a sociocultural status as it is the case with French? Finally, we will put forward a certain number of remarks and suggestions.