Author(s)

Ziying Bao ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ Inner Mongolia Minzu University, Tongliao, 028000, China

Corresponding Author

Ziying Bao

ABSTRACT

Language contact serves as a driving force behind linguistic evolution, with borrowing being its most direct manifestation, reflecting the historical interaction and integration of different cultural communities. Contact between Chinese and Mongolian dates back as early as the 13th–14th centuries. With the deepening of cultural exchanges between China and Mongolia, linguist exploration of the Altaic language family has been continuously deepened, and loanwords between the two languages have increasingly attracted the attention of the academic circle.“The Khorchin subdialect, a major variety of the eastern Mongolian dialect group, has undergone prolonged and intensive contact with Chinese—particularly with Northeastern Mandarin—and has consequently absorbed and nativized a substantial number of Chinese loanwords”. Drawing on language contact theory and fieldwork data, this study offers an in depth analysis of the motivations behind Chinese borrowing into Khorchin, the mechanisms of its nativization, and its structural impact on the dialectal system. The findings indicate that the influx of loanwords results from the combined influence of socioeconomic transformation, ethnic interaction, internal pressures for systemic economy, and language policies. At the level of linguistic adaptation, loanwords strictly conform to Khorchin’s phonological constraints, notably its vowel harmony rule; semantically, they undergo sense restructuring; and grammatically, they give rise to mixed formations of Chinese stems with Mongolian affixes. The pervasive presence of loanwords has not only reshaped the lexical stratum of the dialect but also triggered new sociopragmatic patterns, including code switching and generational divergence. The study concludes that the Chinese loanwords in Khorchin represent a typical case of contact induced language change, and their patterned evolution provides valuable empirical evidence for understanding both the openness and the stability of linguistic systems.

KEYWORDS

Language Contact; Khorchin Subdialect; Chinese Loanwords; Lexical Evolution

CITE THIS PAPER

Ziying Bao. The evolution law of Chinese loanwords in the Horqin dialect from the perspective of language contact. Lecture Notes on Language and Literature (2026). Vol. 9, No. 2, 8-14. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/langl.2026.090202.

REFERENCES

[1] Bo Suode. Characteristics of Basic Vocabulary in the Mongolian Khorchin Subdialect [J]. Journal of Inner Mongolia University for Nationalities (Social Sciences Edition), 2005(05):37-40.
[2] Jiang Genxiong. A Study on the Evolution and Development of the Mongolian Khorchin Subdialect from the Perspective of Language Contact [J]. Journal of Inner Mongolia University for Nationalities (Social Sciences Edition), 2007(03):48-51.
[3] Li Zuonan, Li Renxiao. Re borrowed Words in the Chinese Dialects of Inner Mongolia [J]. Journal of Inner Mongolia University (Humanities and Social Sciences Edition), 2007(04):17-22.
[4] Ji Ya. A Study of Several Chinese Loanwords in Mongolian [D]. Tianjin Normal University, 2018.
[5] Wang Zhijie. Mongolian Loanwords in Chinese Dialects of the Khorchin Region [J]. Journal of Inner Mongolia University for Nationalities (Social Sciences Edition), 2021(01):7-11.

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