Editing Calque (section)

{{Short description|Loaned translation of an expression}}
{{Distinguish|Literal translation|Claque}}
In [[linguistics]], a '''calque''' ({{IPAc-en|k|æ|l|k}}) or '''loan translation''' is a [[word]] or [[phrase]] borrowed from another [[language]] by [[literal translation|literal]] word-for-word or root-for-root [[translation]]. When used as a [[verb]], "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language while translating its components, so as to create a new word or phrase ([[lexeme]]) in the target language. For instance, the English word ''skyscraper'' has been calqued in dozens of other languages,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gachelin |first=Jean-Marc |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rWh_Vizvm-oC&pg=PA97 |title=Lexique-grammaire, domaine anglais |publisher=Université de Saint-Etienne |year=1986 |isbn=978-2-901559-14-6 |pages=97}}</ref> combining words for "sky" and "scrape" in each language, as for example {{lang|de|Wolkenkratzer}} in German, {{Lang|pt|arranha-céu}} in Portuguese, {{lang|nl|wolkenkrabber}} in Dutch, {{Lang|es|rascacielo}} in Spanish, {{lang|it|grattacielo}} in Italian, {{lang|tr|gökdelen}} in Turkish, and ''matenrō'' {{lang|ja|(摩天楼)}} in Japanese.

Calques, like direct borrowings, often function as linguistic gap-fillers, emerging when a language lacks existing vocabulary to express new ideas, technologies, or objects. This phenomenon is widespread and is often attributed to the shared conceptual frameworks across human languages. Speakers of different languages tend to perceive the world through common categories such as time, space, and quantity, making the translation of concepts across languages both possible and natural.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Meriläinen |first=Lea |last2=Riionheimo |first2=Helka |last3=Kuusi |first3=Päivi |last4=Lantto |first4=Hanna |date=2016 |title=Loan translations as a language contact phenomenon: Crossing the boundaries between contact linguistics, second language acquisition research and translation studies |url=http://publications.tlu.ee/index.php/philologia/article/view/417 |journal=Philologia Estonica Tallinnensis |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=104–124 |doi=10.22601/PET.2016.01.07|doi-access=free }}</ref>

Calquing is distinct from [[phono-semantic matching]]: while calquing includes [[semantic]] translation, it does not consist of [[phonetic]] matching—i.e., of retaining the approximate [[sound]] of the borrowed word by matching it with a similar-sounding pre-existing word or [[morpheme]] in the target language.<ref name="palgrave.com">{{cite book|last=Zuckermann|first=Ghil'ad|url=http://www.palgrave.com/br/book/9781403917232|title=Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=2003|isbn=1-4039-1723-X|author-link=Ghil'ad Zuckermann}}</ref>

Proving that a word is a calque sometimes requires more documentation than does an untranslated loanword because, in some cases, a similar phrase might have arisen in both languages independently. This is less likely to be the case when the grammar of the proposed calque is quite different from that of the borrowing language, or when the calque contains less obvious imagery.