Ways of standardizing borrowed terms

Abstract

In this we evaluate the prevailing approaches to the standardization of borrowed technical terms, with a focus on the Azerbaijani linguistic context and comparable multilingual settings. Borrowings are central to the diffusion of scientific and technological knowledge, yet their adaptation often produces orthographic, morphological and terminological inconsistencies that hinder communication, documentation and pedagogy. The literature exhibits definitional ambiguity regarding “unification” and a practical gap between normative, institution-led procedures and empirically grounded usage. To address these issues, it was conducted a systematic review of theoretical contributions, national orthographic rules, terminological dictionaries, and representative terminological examples to compare three principal models of standardization — top-down (institutional codification), bottom-up (corpus and community-based adoption), and hybrid (corpus extraction followed by institutional validation). Findings indicate that each model has distinct strengths and weaknesses: top-down strategies prioritize coherence and interoperability but risk poor uptake; bottom-up procedures enhance legitimacy and speed but may proliferate incompatible variants; hybrid models offer the best trade-off provided they implement transparent selection criteria. The analysis further documents the legacy influence of intermediary languages (notably Russian) on Azerbaijani orthographic practice and highlights the analytic necessity of distinguishing loanwords from international terms when selecting standard forms. We conclude with operational recommendations: adopt hybrid workflows, formalize evaluation criteria (phonological, morphological and derivational checks), and coordinate corpus resources with institutional bodies to produce updated, reliable monolingual and bilingual terminological references. These measures will improve terminological clarity and support consistent technical communication across languages.