The Use of Borrowings in American English with Special Reference to Words from Native American LanguagesČuš, Mateja (Avtor) Plemenitaš, Katja (Mentor) American EnglishborrowingsNative American languagesfrequencycorpus.American English is one of many varieties of English which is spoken in the United States of America. It is the result of the English colonization in North America during the 17th century. Borrowing of new lexical items into American English first began when the colonists adopted names for unfamiliar things and concepts from languages of Native American tribes. Most borrowings of Native American origin came from the Algonquian group of languages.The Native American languages greatly influenced American English vocabulary. Many borrowings of Native American origin are still widely used in everyday communication but some words became obsolete and were dropped from every day use. Many loanwords for plants, animals, food, and culture are still used in American everyday speech. However, American English has been greatly influenced by Spanish, French, German, and African languages as well (Mencken, 1952). This thesis deals with the use of borrowings in American English that appeared in different texts from 1810 to 2012. With the help of The Corpus of Historical American English, The Corpus of Contemporary American English, and Online Etymology Dictionary twelve borrowings from seven different languages were analyzed. The majority of borrowings have kept their original meaning. Nevertheless, during different decades all of them acquired at least one additional meaning. The use of selected borrowings has been increasing in all text types, especially in the last two decades. I established that almost all borrowings have been more frequently used in the last two decades than in the past. According to the text type in which they have appeared, borrowings have been mainly used in fiction and magazines. [M. Čuš]20132013-06-10 01:01:25Diplomsko delo40699sl