Loanword allocation in Kinyarwanda

Abstract

Kinyarwanda, like many other languages in contact, has adapted foreign words to meet the needs of its daily life vocabulary and activity. In addition to the lexical need filling, Kinyarwanda borrowed foreign words not only out of need for foreign words but also for prestige. This thesis is based on two hypotheses: Kinyarwanda has borrowed foreign words out of need in various areas; loanwords have been allocated to Kinyarwanda noun class system. This work has discussed and analysed how French and English loanwords have been allocated to key areas of influence and the nominal class system of Kinyarwanda. The data were collected from various sources, including publications, conversation, newspapers, Bible literature, school text books, commercial posters, hoardings. The study has analysed loanwords from French/English deceptive cognates in a bilingual context. This is a challenging task for other researchers who will have to deal with the complexity of deceptive cognate loanwords.