Lexical Borrowing: A Documentation of Gichuka Loanwords

The commonest way in which words are added into a language is through borrowing. Borrowing occurs when one language adds a word or a morpheme from another language to its own lexicon. There are sociolinguistic motivations for borrowing such as need (where there exists a lexical gap in the receptor language), prestige and language contact. Gichuka language has come into contact with English and Kiswahili before and after the establishment of the colonial government in Chuka in 1913. However, Gichuka has not been investigated to find out the lexical changes that have occurred as a result of this contact. This paper is a collection of lexical items that Gichuka has borrowed from English and Kiwsahili. Purposive sampling was used to collect data on twelve domains. These domains are education, health, administration, agriculture, electrical goods and technology, household goods, food, religion, clothing, animals, trade and industry. Interviews and focuses group discussions were used to collect qualitative data. The results of this study indicated that Gichuka has borrowed words in all the twelve domains to cater for modern communicative needs.