Wednesday, 24 March 2010

top 5 everyday words English borrows from other languages


1. ketchup (from Amoy, a sino-tibetan language spoken in Eastern China)

2. anorak (from Inuit, spoken by Eskimos)

3. cola (from Temne, a Niger-Congo language spoken largely in Sierra-Leone)

4. shampoo (from Hindi, the fifth most widely spoken language in the world)

5. ziggurat* (from Akkadian, a long- extinct Babylonian language, that is credited by some to have been the first to use an alphabet)

* possibly not a quotidian (from French, spoken by the French, some Swiss, some Belgians, parts of Africa, you know, French) word for some

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