How English is English?

My columns over the last few months highlighting words of French, German, Indian and most recently Japanese origin in the English language have prompted one enthusiastic reader to ask if there is any language spoken around the world that English has not borrowed words from. There may well be a few — no one can pretend to know all the 6,000 languages on our planet — but it is remarkable to note how many languages have contributed to the English lexicon, brought in over many centuries of trade, colonisation, imperialism and migration.

To proceed alphabetically, using only words in common usage, apartheid comes from Afrikaans, a language spoken in South Africa. Arabic, of course, gave English words like algebra, a form of mathematics that Europe learned from the Arabs. Bengali is credited for jalfreizi, a kind of meat, fish or vegetable dish cooked with fresh chillies, tomatoes, and onions. When you say you are enthusiastically gung ho for something, you are borrowing from the Chinese words for ‘working together’. The English words landscape and easel were introduced by Dutch painters in the 17th century, as was bumpkin (as in “country bumpkin”, an unsophisticated rural figure) and quack in the sense of a fake doctor. Finnish most famously gives English the sauna. French has been the subject of a separate column.

The word jukebox is from Gullah, a creole language spoken in the Sea Islands off the coast of Georgia in the United States. So, it seems, is Mojo (originally meaning ‘magical power’ and now often used for the spark you possess to achieve something, as in “he’s got his mojo back”.) Greek features in the roots of too many English words to list: antique, idol, dialogue, geography, grammar, architect, economy, encyclopedia, telephone, and microscope are just a handful of the thousands of words Greek gave English.

wknd@khaleejtimes.com