University of South Africa, South Africa; University of South Africa, South Africa
Vol.6 No.1 (Serial No.8) 2018
118-138
2018-06-30
The coexistence of English and French alongside Kinyarwanda results in various sociolinguistic aspects. One of the sociolinguistic phenomena observed in this coexistence is the influx of French and English loanwords in Kinyarwanda. Included in these alien words, they are deceptive cognates of French and English, which render the use of the three languages more complex. There seems to be a linguistic clash here. The speaker faces a challenge while conversing in either English or French. The understanding of deceptive cognates, false friends or ‘look-alikes’, would enable the speaker to express his ideas correctly and communicate more fluently. French and English pairs of words having a common origin, whereby the homonym suggests the synonym, are hardly mastered.
loanword, allocation, Kinyarwanda, cognates, coexistence, adaptation
doi: 10.26478/ja2018.6.8.8
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