TY - JOUR AU - Nilssen, Signe AU - Kinn, Torodd PY - 2017/08/11 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - A chameleon abroad: English -ish and ish used in Norwegian JF - Maal og Minne JA - MOM VL - 109 IS - 1 SE - Artikler DO - UR - https://ojs.novus.no/index.php/MOM/article/view/1408 SP - AB - Norwegian has borrowed both the suffix or clitic -ish and the free word ish from English. The oldest attested use in Norwegian is from 1996. Building primarily on a collection of 240 examples of use, the article describes and analyses the grammar and meanings of Norwegian (-)ish. The findings are compared to English, and while most kinds of (-)ish use are found to be borrowed, there is also at least one apparently non-English innovation. The use of (-)ish in Norwegian is frowned upon and condemned by some language users, but it seems to have become firmly established in the language. ER -