Hindi, Polish and translation. Faces of language contact in the contemporary English

Abstract

This paper has two parts to it. The fi rst part is about the presence and possible impact of Hindi and Polish as foreign words in the contemporary English language. This is measured via the proposed tool of CRAC (Cumulative Average Relative Count). The research is done on the basis of the British National Corpus (2001, 2007) and Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (2004, 2009). The focus is laid on the overriding heuristic metaphor LANGUAGE LAWS are PHYSICAL LAWS, where laws of lexical assimilation are viewed as analogous to physical laws of gravity. The second part marks the transition from a theoretical-descriptive perspective into a more practical, intercultural dimension. It is about translation of foreign proper names from the viewpoint of legal (certi fi ed) translation. This is a signi fi cant issue as many foreign words are actually proper names in English. This part relates then to speci fi c controversies and proposed solutions concerning translation of Polish and Hindi proper foreign names in view of the presence and absence of their diacrit-ic forms in English. The framework for adoption of the argument are institutionally established standards of certi fi ed translation practice in Poland.