On: English as She Is Spoke

[dheera]

A lot of times literal translations eventually become a part of the destination language as well.

Examples include "long time no see" which is now common in English but has roots in either Chinese or Native American languages.

Likewise, the phrasing "chicken-egg problem" originated in Western culture but is now often used literally in modern Chinese, e.g. "雞和蛋的問題".

[amyjess → dheera]

The proper word for such translations, by the way, is "calque".

Another famous calque is "groudhog", which comes from the Dutch aardvark. Yes, the two animals are completely unrelated: the Dutch referred to them both as aardvark though, and only one of them got calqued into English.