Concepts Are Restructured During Language Contact

In reading the following article, I'm asking myself what impact these insights might have for the notion of a "pure" monolingual target text in Bible translation and additionally how they might support the idea of linguistic repertoire and the use of language by multilinguals as proposed by the theory of translanguaging. Where might the LXX bear witness to this effect of language contact – perhaps law terms? Thoughts?

Malik-Moraleda, Saima, Kyle Mahowald, Bevil R. Conway, and Edward Gibson. 2023. “Concepts Are Restructured During Language Contact: The Birth of Blue and Other Color Concepts in Tsimane’-Spanish Bilinguals.” Psychological Science, October, https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976231199742.

Abstract

Words and the concepts they represent vary across languages. Here we ask if mother-tongue concepts are altered by learning a second language. What happens when speakers of Tsimane’, a language with few consensus color terms, learn Bolivian Spanish, a language with more terms? Three possibilities arise: Concepts in Tsimane’ may remain unaffected, or they may be remapped, either by Tsimane’ terms taking on new meanings or by borrowing Bolivian-Spanish terms. We found that adult bilingual speakers (n = 30) remapped Tsimane’ concepts without importing Bolivian-Spanish terms into Tsimane’. All Tsimane’ terms become more precise; for example, concepts of monolingual shandyes and yụshñus (~green or blue, used synonymously by Tsimane’ monolinguals; n = 71) come to reflect the Bolivian-Spanish distinction of verde (~green) and azul (~blue). These results show that learning a second language can change the concepts in the first language.