I found this really interesting...
Well, as you may already know, there is a significant amount of loanwords in English from other languages, and, of course, vice versa. A loanword is a word borrowed from other languages, and like you might have noticed already, they might sound or look similar to their language of origin.
So, let's see if you can guess the origins of the words below (without Googling, that is ;)):
tsunami
oxygen
guitar
sky
Kevwe A.
Here's the answer:
tsunami [Japanese]
oxygen [French]
guitar [Spanish]
sky [Scandinavian]
Did you get all of them right? Do you know any other words or phrases in English borrowed from your mother tongue (or the other way around)? Share with us
Kevwe A.
I was about to guess but then I saw the answers on the following post lol, interesting origins though :)
Off the top of my head I can only think of foreign brand names used as common nouns. Common examples are Colgate and Xerox.
Fun topic. One of my favorite things about language is how fluid it is, and how borrowing + localization really moves through languages.
Malay/Indonesian is a highly borrowed language, whereby ~85% of the words are borrowed from other languages. In Malay/Indonesian, the word "pasar" comes from the Arabic word bazaar (so --> market). When I was growing up, I was taught that the Chinese word for market is bā shā. It was much later that I learned that this term is only used by Chinese in Singapore/Malaysia, and as you might have guessed, it's because Malay/Indonesian got adapted into Chinese vernacular by Chinese living in the region. Arabic bazaar --> Malay/Indonesian "pasar" --> Singapore/Malaysia Chinese bā shā.
meifeng wrote:Fun topic. One of my favorite things about language is how fluid it is, and how borrowing + localization really moves through languages.
Malay/Indonesian is a highly borrowed language, whereby ~85% of the words are borrowed from other languages. In Malay/Indonesian, the word "pasar" comes from the Arabic word bazaar (so --> market). When I was growing up, I was taught that the Chinese word for market is bā shā. It was much later that I learned that this term is only used by Chinese in Singapore/Malaysia, and as you might have guessed, it's because Malay/Indonesian got adapted into Chinese vernacular by Chinese living in the region. Arabic bazaar --> Malay/Indonesian "pasar" --> Singapore/Malaysia Chinese bā shā.
That is interesting, I didn't know that. Thank you!
Kevwe A.
Where do these words come from:
Plaza
Glitch
Kindergarten
Genre
Guess!
