As much as 80 per cent of all English words can be categorized by their etymology into one of just three original sources: Germanic, Latin and French. Despite English itself being classed as a Germanic language (Anglo-Saxon evolved from the same ancient, unrecorded language of north-central Europe as German and Dutch), the Germanic group is actually the smallest of these three, yet includes some of the most basic and frequently used of all words that have been retained in the language since the Old English period, like town, eye, stone and tree, plus function words like the, and, on and that. Latin, meanwhile, was once the language of the law (legislation, jurisprudence), the Church (monk, priest, altar) and education, and hence Latin-origin words tend to be characterized by a great many more formal and technical terms. In contrast, a full list of French-origin words – which may comprise as much as 30 per cent of the language – would be dominated by political (sovereign, government, mayor), legal (court, case, jury), military (sergeant, infantry, brigade) and cultural terms (cuisine, aisle, arch) adopted into the language after the Norman Conquest.
Most of the remainder of English comprises a hotchpotch of other etymological sources – including Ancient Greek, ancient British and Celtic languages, proper names, acronyms and compounds of existing words – whilst around 5 per cent comprises loanwords adopted more recently from other languages, many of which have been absorbed into English as it has spread around the globe. Ten examples of loanwords borrowed from some fairly obscure source languages are listed here.
The name of a type of thick, usually hooded waterproof jacket, the word anorak is one of only a handful that English has borrowed from the Inuit languages of the Arctic. It comes from the language of the native Greenlanders, whose term annoraaq is used to describe a waterproof coat typically made of animal hide. Besides a handful of other familiar words like igloo and kayak, the majority of other Inuit-origin words in English are somewhat obscure and have very specific applications, like aglu, an Eskimo word for a breathing-hole cut into ice by a seal; komatik, a type of dogsled used by the Inuit of Canada’s Labrador Island; nunatak, a Greenlandic word for an peak of rock projecting above an expanse of ice; and qiviut, an East Canadian Inuit word for the wool of the musk ox.
First recorded in English in the mid-nineteenth century, batik is a traditional south-east Asian art form in which a canvas or fabric is partly covered in wax and then dyed so that the wax-covered areas are left uncoloured, the process typically being repeated with several different colours to create remarkably complex designs. Believed to have been first introduced into Britain via the Netherlands, the process originated in the former Dutch colony of Java in Indonesia, and as such batik – literally meaning ‘painted’ – is one of only a handful of Javanese words used in English. Of similar origin are the names of several animals (including the banxring, a small squirrel-like mammal), musical instruments (gamelan, a percussion instrument) and foods (gado-gado, a type of vegetable salad), all of which are native to Java.
Used to describe any remote or wild place – and hence boondockers are heavy shoes suitable for such rough terrain – the word boondock (from bundok, meaning ‘mountain’) was adopted into English from Tagalog, the official language of the Philippines, by American troops who occupied the islands in the early 1900s. The word is one of very few that Tagalog has contributed to the language, the majority of which tend to be the names of native Filipino animals and plants such as the malmag, a type of tarsier; cogon, a type of grass; buri, a type of palm; and ylang-ylang, a tree from which a much prized perfumed oil is obtained.
English has adopted a remarkably familiar collection of words from the indigenous languages of North America, including such terms as moccasin, tomato, hickory, raccoon, toboggan, avocado and, predictably, both wigwam and tepee. Of all words to have their origins in the early Americas, however, perhaps the most surprising is chocolate, which was borrowed into English via Spanish in the early seventeenth century. Although the precise origins of the word are debatable, it is thought that it is derived from the language of the Aztecs, Nahuatl, whose word xocolatl was used for a chocolaty drink made from the seeds of the cacao tree.
Kahuna is one of just a few words that English has adopted from Hawaii, where, historically, the word was originally used for a priest or wise man. First recorded in English in the late nineteenth century, in the twentieth century the word was somewhat humorously taken on by surfers as a name for the ‘god’ of the waves, and by the 1950s the phrase big kahuna had become a popular slang term for a particularly skilled surfer. The more general use of the word, a ‘person of importance’, dates from the 1960s.
Historically derived from the Old Norse word umbu∂smann, ‘one who acts on behalf of another’, the word ombudsman was adopted into English from Swedish in the 1870s. Like its historical counterpart, the modern use of the word derives from the position of Parliamentary Ombudsman, or justitieombudsman, a representative in the Swedish parliament employed to investigate complaints against the state by the people. The word is easily one of the most recognizable of all Swedish words used in English – alongside others like moped, nickel and smorgasbord – with some of the less familiar examples including lek, the breeding display of grouse and other game-birds; glögg, a drink of warmed, sweetened and spiced wine and brandy; and fartlek, literally meaning ‘speed play’, a method of cross-country athletics training in which runners alternate between a fast and slow pace.
Used in English since the eighteenth century for an outcast or recluse, in its earliest sense the word pariah referred to a ceremonial drummer at rituals held amongst the lowest castes of India, and indeed the word itself is derived from the Tamil word for ‘drum’. As members of these castes, especially during British rule in India, were often employed as servants, labourers and in other equally humble positions, eventually the term pariah came to be more widely associated with all members of India’s lowest castes, from where the modern use of the word has since developed. Tamil-origin words are rare in English, but amongst a handful of other examples is catamaran, which derives from the Tamil katta-maram, the name of a type of simple raft made from two logs roped together.
Although the word itself is much older, sauna was first recorded in English in 1881. It is one of very few words that English has adopted from Finnish, and is by far the most familiar, with the remaining examples including some very rare and specific words indeed: a pulka is a single-man sledge pulled by a reindeer; rapakivi is the name of a form of granite; a puukko is a traditional Finnish knife with a curved blade; and a kantele is a type of Finnish zither with a characteristic bell-like sound.
The word taboo is derived from Tongan, the language of the Kingdom of Tonga lying almost 2,000 km (1,360 miles) north-east of New Zealand. First attested in the journals of Captain Cook written whilst on his voyage to the Pacific Ocean in 1777, as Cook explained in his original notes the word is ‘of very comprehensive meaning’, but in general describes anything ‘forbidden’. Similar words of almost identical meaning are found in a whole host of languages across Polynesia, including in New Guinea, Kiribati and Micronesia (tapu), Hawaii (kapu), Fiji and the Solomon Islands (tambu).
First recorded in English in the mid-1800s, tundra is perhaps the only word found in English today to have been derived from the Saami languages of the northernmost regions of Scandinavia and north-west Russia. Used to describe the flat, treeless expanses of open land that cover Siberia (and, by extension, North America and Greenland), tundra is specifically thought to originate in Kildin, a remarkably rare and increasingly endangered language spoken by just a few hundred people inhabiting Russia’s Kola Peninsula on the White Sea.