Overview of Some Borrowed Terms from Romance Languages in Legal Terminology in Albanian

Abstract

Looking at the lexicon of today's Albanian, in the terminologies of different fields of knowledge, we have all the lexical wealth, consisting of two main layers: the local lexicon and the foreign lexicon, introduced through borrowings and different calques from various languages, where modern developed languages occupy an important place, especially Italian and French. One of the Albanian terminologies where this influence stands out is the legal terminology, which really has a late development, which explains the fact of its influence from developed languages, reaching to the words of general use in the field of culture and various spheres of law. It is known that foreign words spoil the language, when accepted and used unnecessarily. Foreign words should be used in those cases when they bring a new meaning, a new meaning nuance, etc., which we cannot express with the tools of Albanian language itself. Only for more concrete borrowings, such as names of newly imported tools, equipment and facilities can be spoken of as an addition to an existing vocabulary. Many borrowed words, which seemed unavoidable, have been adopted as calques, a large number of Romance borrowings today have either been replaced, or have become substituted by Albanian words. Realistically, in legal terminology there is not only a relatively large number of borrowings, but also a range of lexical overlaps with Romance languages.