Foreign Language Influences In English
While many words enter English as slang, not all do. Some words are adopted from other languages; some are mixtures of existing words (portmanteau words), and some are new coinages made of roots from dead languages: e.g. thanatopsis. No matter the origin, though, words seldom, if ever, are immediately accepted into the English language. Here is a list of the most common foreign language influences in English, where other languages have influenced or contributed words to English.
- Celtic words are almost absent, except for dialectal words, such as the Yan Tan Tethera system of counting sheep. However, English syntax was influenced by Celtic languages, starting from the Middle English; for example, the system of continuous tenses (absent in other Germanic languages) was a cliche of similar Celtic phrasal structures.
- French legal, military, and political terminology; words for the meat of an animal; noble words; words referring to food — e.g., au gratin. Nearly 30% of English words (in an 80,000 word dictionary) may be of French origin.
- Latin scientific and technical words, medical terminology, academic and legal terminology. See also: Latin influence in English.
- Greek words: scientific and medical terminology (for instance -phobias and -ologies), Christian theological terminology.
- Scandinavian languages such as Old Norse - words such as sky and troll or, more recently, geysir.
- Norman words: castle, cauldron, kennel, catch, cater are among Norman words introduced into English. The Norman language also introduced (or reinforced) words of Norse origin such as mug.
- Dutch - words relating to sailing, e.g. skipper, keel etc., and civil engineering, such as dam, polder.
- Spanish - words relating to warfare and tactics, for instance flotilla and guerrilla; or related to science and culture, whether coined in Arabic (such as algebra), origined in Amerindian civilizations (Cariban: cannibal, hurricane; Mescalero: apache; Nahuatl: tomato, coyote, chocolate; Quechua: potato; Taíno: tobacco), or Iberian Romance languages (aficionado, albino, alligator, cargo, cigar, embargo, guitar, jade, mesa, paella, platinum, plaza, renegade, rodeo, salsa, savvy, sierra, siesta, tilde, tornado, vanilla etc.). See also: List of English words of Spanish origin.
- Italian - words relating to music, piano, fortissimo. Or Italian culture, such as piazza, pizza, gondola, balcony, fascism. The English word umbrella comes from Italian ombrello.
- Indian - words relating to culture, originating from the colonial era. Many of these words are of Persian origin rather than Hindi because Persian was the official language of the Mughal courts. e.g.: pyjamas, bungalow, verandah, jungle, curry, shampoo, khaki.
- German: Main article: List of German expressions in English. Some words relating to the World War I and the World War II, e.g. blitz. And some food terms, such as wurst, hamburger and frankfurter. Also: wanderlust, schadenfreude, zeitgeist, kaputt, kindergarten, autobahn, rucksack.
- Hebrew and Yiddish - words used in religious contexts, like Sabbath, kosher, hallelujah, amen, and jubilee or words that have become slang like schmuck, shmooze, nosh, oy vey, and schmutz.
- Arabic - Trade items such as coffee, cotton, hashish, muslin; Islamic religious terms such as jihad and hadith. Also some scientific vocabulary borrowed through Iberian Romance languages in the Middle Ages (alcohol, alkali, algebra, azimuth, nadir). See also: List of English words of Arabic origin.
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“If you don’t know foreign languages, you don’t know anything about your own.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“Humour is the first of the gifts to perish in a foreign tongue.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“The necessity of poetry has to be stated over and over, but only to those who have reason to fear its power, or those who still believe that language is “only words” and that an old language is good enough for our descriptions of the world we are trying to transform.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“The tourist who moves about to see and hear and open himself to all the influences of the places which condense centuries of human greatness is only a man in search of excellence.”
—Max Lerner (b. 1902)
“He utters substantial English thoughts in plainest English dialects.... Indeed, for fluency and skill in the use of the English tongue, he is a master unrivaled. His felicity and power of expression surpass even his special merits as historian and critic.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)