English Calques in Bangla

Two hundred years of colonial rule brought the Anglophones in close proximity to the Banglophones. This long time interaction resulted in bilingualism which ultimately paved the way for lexical penetration from English into Bangla. The influx is manifest in the corpus of the Bangla language. Vidyasagar in his Shobdosongroho (1823, Quoted in Musa & Ilyas, 2002, p. 11) compiled a list of 40 English loanwords in Bangla. Within the timespan of nearly two centuries, according to Musa and Ilyas (2002), the lexical loan got multiplied by almost 88 times. Side by side borrowing direct anglicisms, Bangla has also borrowed hosts of indirect loans in the form of “calques” or “translation loans” from English. The prime focus of this paper is to trace the mechanisms by which Bangla produces calques from English sources. The results of this study reveal that Bangla has four types of English-based calques—single-word, multi-word, phrasal, and acronymic. While our data mostly conform to the global typology of calques, interestingly enough, Bangla has constructed a special class of calques which we have dubbed as “Acronymic calques”. Translation acronyms are yet to be registered in the typology of calques. This curious calque type attested by our data can be added to the global typology of loan translations.


Introduction
As different authors have offered different definitions of calques, let us first have a look at the dictionary definitions of the term. According to the American Heritage College Dictionary, a calque is a "form of borrowing from one language to another whereby the semantic components of a given term are literally translated into their equivalents in the borrowing language" (1997, p. 795). Trask (1997) in his A Student's Dictionary of Language and Linguistics offers the following definition of calques-"A calque is defined as a word or phrase in another language as a model and translating it piece by piece".
(with) and "pathia" (suffering). The Romans calqued this Greek word into Latin as "compassion" from "con" (with) and "passion" (suffering). Pei (1978) in his Glossary of Linguistic Terminology defines calques as a translation loanword, the translated imitation of a special meaning.
The above definitions culled from the dictionaries contain the following features of calques:  They are special kind of borrowings  They are literal translations of foreignisms into a recipient language  The translations can be bit-by-bit, root-by-root or word-for-word From the above discussion, we can say that a calque is special kind of loanword. The word "calque" is of French origin, literally meaning "copy or imitation". Etymologically speaking, calques are literal translations of foreign words or expressions into a borrowing language. Elements from the donor language are translated verbatim into the recipient language. The translation can be word-for-word or root-for-root. Calques also go by the name of "loan translations".

Theoretical Background
There are some controversies regarding the status of calques as loanwords. Though there is a common tendency to treat calques as loanwords, researchers have drawn some subtle distinctions between the two. While loanwords are full borrowings, calques are considered to be semi-borrowings. While loanwords are morpho-syntactically borrowed or copied and transferred to the receiving language, a different process takes place in case of calques. Calque production also entails foreign words or phrases but equivalents of the foreignisms are sourced from the target language. Trask's (1997) view is in good tune with this observation. According to him, calques are constructed from the donor language without borrowing any words directly. To put it in simple terms, we can say that in the formation of calques, foreignisms provide the essence while the recipient language supplies the building blocks. As a calque is the semantic transfer of a foreignism without the morpho-syntactic component, it is treated as semi-borrowing. Calques are, in essence, semantic vehicles between two linguistic systems or cultures.
Researchers have failed to reach a rigid consensus in their attempt to typologize calques. Smead and Clegg (1996) and Otheyguy and Garcia (1988)  This study aims to fill the void in this regard.

Literature Review
Many researches have been conducted on the presence of calques in English. Even though English has constructed many calques basing on foreignisms from German, Spanish, Latin, etc. most of the calques in English are of French origin.
Research literature is replete with works on calque production in English vis-a-vis other European languages. Many significant studies have been conducted on English-Spanish, English-French, English-German calques. Among them the notable studies are Silva-Corvalan (1995), Otheyguy, Garcia and Fernandez (1989).

Even though many lexicographic researches have been done on the relationship between Bangla and
English, no full-length research has been done on English calques in Bangla. Among the researchers who have attempted to discuss English calques in Bangla include Chakrabarti (1953), Morshed (2009) and Chaki (2010). Chakrabarti (1953)

Materials and Methods
Mixed method materials have been used in conducting this exploratory study. As there is a dearth of research materials on the topic under study, the paper writer has made use of his native speaking status for data collection. Weinreich (1963) introduced researcher's observation as an authentic source of data.
The most authentic data, according to him, can be collected through the observation of a keen researcher. To make good for the paucity of materials on English loan translations, the researcher has collected samples of calques from diverse sources.
Apart from the use of researcher's observation, some research materials, anthologies of articles and literary texts have been used for data collection. Last but not the least, lexicographic books and research materials have also supplied an important segment of data for this paper. These data feeders have been duly acknowledged in their proper places and in the reference section.
The collected samples of English-based calques have been appended to this paper. The section titled "Appendices" is comprised of six sub-sections.

Discussion
The appendices are composed of diachronic samples of calques used in Bangla. In terms of time span, they range from the times of Tagore to the present. Let us begin our discussion following the reverse chronological frame i.e. discussing the recent examples first.
We can draw the inference from the appendices that multi-word calques comprise the bulk of English loan translations in Bangla.
Another category of English-based calques in Bangla the use of which has been attested by our appendices is known as "Phrasal calques". Some English phrases and idiomatic expressions are translated into Bangla: Amra "rupor chamuch mukhey niye jonmai" (To be born with a silver spoon in the mouth), The last category of calques (Appendix 6) belongs to a special kind of semi-borrowings which can be dubbed as "Translation acronyms". These are translated acronyms modelled on the English acronyms.
One recent example of translation acronym much in use in Bangla is "DuDaK" (Durniti Daman Commission-Anti-Corruption Commission).
If we attempt at typologizing English calques in Bangla basing on our appendices, we can trace four types of loan translations in Bangla-Single word calque, Multi-word calque, Phrasal calque and Acronymic calque. Among the four types, our data confirm, the second category, i.e., Multi-word calque is the most frequently and popularly used English-based calque in Bangla.

Limitations and Implications of the Study
The present study is not an exhaustive one on English calquing in Bangla and hence it suffers from a number of shortcomings very typical of this type of study. The data-set employed here for the typologization of English loan translations is very limited and hence inferences based on the appended corpora are not final. Extension and diversification of data in future studies will be helpful in testing the validity of the results of this small-scale study. Moreover, large-scale investigation on this hitherto unexplored topic is expected to contribute to the global data-base on calque typology.
They seem to be omnipresent in our domains of life. English calques have contributed to the enrichment of the Bangla language through their glorious and productive presence in the government, administration, literature, IT, academia and culture. They have been instrumental in creating new lexemes and expressions in Bangla utilizing its internal resources. Let us think of these recently created calques in Bangla: "Sonali karmardan" (Golden handshake), "Holud sangbadikota" (Yellow journalism), "Ontarjal" (Internet), "Somoyrekha" (Timeline), "Khudey barta" (SMS), "Tottya mahasarani" (Information super highway), "Chatjaldi khabar" (Fast food), "Betar sarathi" (RJ), "Anon muillo" (Face value), "Khudratikhudro projukti" (Nano technology), "Jhatiti mudran" (Rush print), etc. Calques, apart from adding incomprehensibility to Bangla, can also rob the recipient tongue of its native flavor. Too much calquing can deBanglicize Bangla (in terms of style, lexis and syntax). Bankim Chandra rightly says about his own writings-"Even today, to my utter astonishment, I find that my written Bengali is not proper Bengali. Very often, I notice that whatever I write in Bengali is direct translation from English" (Quoted in Biswas, 1998, p. 32. The quote is translated from Bangla by the writer of this paper).
The data that have been used in the preparation of this paper conforms to the basic typology of calques proposed by the linguists. However, we notice an additional class of calques in Bangla which is outside the ken of generally accepted calque typology. This distinct but hitherto untraced or neglected calque type has been dubbed as "Translation Acronym" in this paper.