English has borrowed many words from other languages. In addition to Greek and Latin, English has words from many languages in every corner of the world. Here's a list of ten words borrowed from ten different languages:
ballet (French) -this is a dancing style which originated in France
coleslaw (Dutch) -in Dutch the word is koolsla, which means cabbage salad
dim sum (Chinese) - a style of Chinese cuisine especially popular in Hong Kong
karate (Japanese) -the literal meaning for this martial art is empty hand
kindergarten (German) -the literal translation is children's garden
paparazzi (Italian) -the singular of this word is paparazzo
paprika (Hungarian) -the spice and the fruit are very common in Hungarian cuisine
plaza (Spanish) - an open public area sometimes called a square
sheikh (Arabic) - a leader or ruler
taekwondo (Korea) - this popular martial art originated in Korea
This short list illustrates that English has many loanwords. In addition to languages such as French, Greek and Latin, English has also borrowed from languages such as Arabic and Japanese. This is partly due to the fact that at its height, the British Empire was the largest in history.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Featured Post
Finding the Proto-Form
Related languages have a number of words which are similar to one another. In the branch of linguistics known as historical linguistics, the...
-
The opera Turandot features an Asian princess who many men wish to marry. However, if they wish to do so, they must answer three riddles c...
-
Most English compound nouns are endocentric. This means that the central meaning of the compound is carried by the head. The head of English...
-
All English sentences can be classified as canonical and non-canonical clauses. Canonical clauses are the most basic sentences we can constr...
No comments:
Post a Comment