Mutual and Non-mutual Influence
Change as a result of contact is often one-sided. Chinese, for instance, has had a profound effect on the development of Japanese, but the Chinese language remains relatively free of Japanese influence, other than some modern terms that were reborrowed after having been coined in Japan based on Chinese precepts and using Chinese characters. In India, Hindi and other native languages have been influenced by English up to the extent that loan words from English are part of day to day vocabulary. In some cases, language contact may lead to mutual exchange, although this exchange may be confined to a particular geographic region. For example, in Switzerland, the local French has been influenced by German, and vice-versa. In Scotland, the Scots language has been heavily influenced by English, and many Scots terms have been adopted into the regional English dialect.
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Famous quotes containing the words mutual and/or influence:
“What men call friendship is no more than a partnership, a mutual care of interests, an exchange of favors—in a word, it is a sort of traffic, in which self-love ever proposes to be the gainer.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)