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alternative. And even coinages or wholesale borrowings would, for
explanatory purposes, have to be footnoted or annotated. For
instance, object words like 'sandwich', radio, television... etc'
are better borrowed and installed in languages rather than
substituted by formal lexical correspondents if any. Arabic
Language Academies have invented a lengthy phrase to project the
concept implicit in the English 'sandwich'. The Arabic lexically
correspondent phrase means literally 'two flaps of bread with fresh
food in between'. This clumsy expression, despite its lack of
brevity, compactness and singularity of meaning, is most
misleading and structurally inaccurate. A dish named after its
initiator, 'sandwich! specifies the surface structure of its
physical referent, not the way it is structured. Besides, it
relates to a meal usually taken particularly if someone was in a
hurry, like take-away meals nowadays. The clumsiness of the Arabic
lexical correspondent coupled with the structural complexities of
its constituent elements have rendered it unviable, short-lived and
obsolete. Similarly, the Arabic lexical correspondents to such
technological terms as 'radio' and 'television' have distorted, if
not completely undermined, their relevant semantic loads.
'Mirna't', for instance, which is the closest lexical correspondent
to 'television', morphologically designates 'something looked t'
an activity which involves only the sense of sight. The sense of
hearing, besides other relevant factors such as remoteness, is
excluded. Therefore, preference was given to the un-Arabic, and
yet Arabized, foreign importation.
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