Keywords
Abstract
Every living language renews its vocabulary. New technologies, social practices, and cultural contacts create concepts that existing words cannot name, and speakers respond by producing new lexical units. Such units are called neologisms. The study of their origin is important for lexicology and for terminology, because it shows how a language adapts to change and which resources it uses to do so. This article reviews the main sources of neologisms, the stages through which a new word becomes part of the lexicon, and the social and communicative factors that decide whether a coinage survives.
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