Everything English Borrows From Other Languages
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- čas přidán 7. 10. 2023
- For how often we use the English language every day, few of us take the time to consider where these thousands of words actually came from.
Our language was developed in a few different ways. Sometimes, we grabbed loanwords - meaning we barely changed the original spelling and definition. (Think “siesta” - it means the same in English as in Spanish - “a short, daytime nap.”) Then there are words that we tried to borrow - but ended up bungling pretty awfully in the process. Like “ketchup” - it's an iconic tomato condiment, right? Well, originally the word meant “pickled fish” in Chinese.
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#english #words #weirdhistory - Zábava
Also... english is a derivative of the same language as old norse. If you look at old english (like in beowulf) you'll see the similarities. English is *technically* a germanic language but it got a lot from latin in the last millennium or so, so its barely recognizable today
Very true!
You forgot to mention Dutch. Words like cookie (koekje), boss (baas), dollar (daalder), Broadway (Breedweg), Wall Street (Walstraat)… are all derived from Dutch.
yes and no! you couks argue that the words "broad" and "wall" derived from dutch and I don't know about that! But the words Broadway and Wallstreet just desribe what it was! a broad way and the street by the wall!
and lets not forget all the boat related words
Considering that a lot of those words got folded into English because of foreign peoples invading England I'm not sure that calling them "stolen" is all that accurate.
Yes, my great grandparents are all from Germany and I am getting tired of being told us white English people don't have our own culture because we stole everything from everyone else.
I think you might have things backwards. It's more likely that native English speakers took words from the people they conquered. Did you forget about the whole white imperialism thing? Or the fact that the tiny islands that makes up the UK at one point laid claim to more territory on the planet than any one other group? You gotta be careful how you word stuff, because your comment comes off as some serious white supremacy BS. Unless that's what you wanted. In which case you're an idiot.
Stolen…sounds accurate to me
@@OhyesSofresh Oh? What's ypur reasoning? To my mind if a burglar breaks into a house and leaves his wallet behind you can hardly accuse the homeowner of "stealing" it.
@@OhyesSofreshur feet are moldy
Norman-French also gave common words to English such as "car" which comes from "char" and the Normans pronounced the "ch" as a "k". There are also Basque words which usually came through Spanish or French, for example bizarre, jingo, anchovy. Though the most famous is probably "bilbo".
My favorite borrowed English word is radio. Radios were invented in the U.S. an English speaking country so most other languages just borrow it. Sometimes I can't read an entire page of a foreign language except for its mention of a radio.
There’s lots of English words that are transliterations from other languages. Often it’s colors and goods, Crimson, Cashmere, Khaki, jungle, orange, are all derived from Sanskrit words (krmis, Kashmir, Khaki, Jangal, naranja,). There’s hundreds more from the Indian subcontinent that made its way to English.
I heard that this is because the aryans spoke a very closely related language to English, is that true ?
@@oliviadavis9639 I don’t know what the language was, but there were several proto Indo-European languages. Everything from Celtic to Slavic was informed by it.
Pyjamas, bungalow, curry... Hindi words, I believe. Quite a few returned to Britain from "the Raj".
Naranja is also orange in Spanish
You could probably do a whole series on this topic!
Really cool how history shapes languages like this, definitely interesting to learn about
A fun example of a word that people normally wouldn't think is borrowed is "window".
It comes from old Norse "vindauga", which translates as "wind eye" and was a proto-chimney; a hole in the roof that would let out smoke from the fire they used to heat the house and cook food.
And speaking of windows, the term for throwing someone out of them, "defenestration", is also borrowed. It has it's roots in germanic "fenster", which also means window.
Did it ever occur to you that "fenster" comes from fenestra which is Latin?
@@TheUnstableNutcase Did not know that. So I stand corrected on that one.
Still a borrowed word, though. ;)
@@TheUnstableNutcasewhy the hostility in your comment
You need to do many more of these videos. I was waiting for Indigenous American words that are part of the English language (tomahawk, moccasin, possum & hominy for example) or Asian words, or middle eastern words (although you briefly touched on it)
He said that in the beginning
I am more and more impressed with the pronunciations.
Always a great day when Weird History gives us an awesome history lesson😊
This one of the reasons spelling is so hard. All these words that follow other languages rules.
I love this channel so much! I read something weird a minute ago about this thing that happened called "The Kentucky Meat Shower of 1876". 😳 Maybe you can educate us about that crazy weird event.
Language as a whole is just interesting, how we as a species came to communicate now the way we do is just fascinating
It’s just (mostly) an accepted fucked up sounds lol
I don't know why but the kircle part got me lol Massive respect to you for knowing Katamari Damacy! Awesome vid dude.
No matter what happens in life, be good to people. Being good to people is a wonderful legacy to leave behind.
Taylor Swift
At 6:18 amusing clip of a silly Frenchman from Monty Python's Holy Grail movie. Lol 😂
My favorite English borrowed word is bubushka. It's just so darn fun to say it.
It is a very fun word, I mumble it to myself often
Very interesting video. Thanks for this. As an English/French speaker, there are plenty of shared words, including hors-d'œuvre from French or television from English.
LOTS of English/French interaction over the centuries. The Norman conquest was a French invasion. It's why we call the meats pork and beef instead of pig and cow for instance.
@@taylorlibby7642 Cool
"Television" is half Greek and half Latin!
@@Blaqjaqshellaq is it? That's cool.
Very interesting video. Thanks for this.
11:52 The traditional dress shown here is from the Caucasus region, and the word 'shashlyk" is Crimean Tatar in origin. Technically, those regions were part of the Russian (and later Soviet) empire, but they were not populated by Slavs.
I just complement the narrator on how he produce the narratives really love it.
I have also been interested in how differently the British pronounce words spelled the same way as we do in the USA.
I really enjoy the pics that you use in your videos. Where do you get your pics from?
The narrator is (as always) fantastic, but the writing on this episode is particularly good. Thanks, Weird History!
Conquerer sounds much more impressive than William the Bastard of Normandy
Nice to see.
Also nice introduction
I did wondered when they do a video on language. Now, all they need to do is the other world languages and where accents derived from.
Cacao ("chocolate"), banana, jicama, tomato, (guaca...)mole, etc. are actually from Nahuatl (Aztecan).
More like this please
As someone who named her son, Odin Thor, I will now call him Wednesday Thursday 😂
The Normans are also the reason we have 2 words for a number of meats, one for the animal and one for the meat (poultry & chicken, cow and beef etc). Since the Norman’s became the upper class they only saw the meat at the table and so used their French words (poulet and boeuf) whereas the peasants that raised the animals used the words their Anglo-Saxon/Norse words as they did before the invasion
I just looked it up and "craw" is apparently old Dutch, but i confess i had no idea it meant 'neck/throat'. Anybody else think it meant something different?
I'm at Phish in Nashville, and I'm on the LOT. 504 4TH STREET. Come get weird with us and make some history! All hail The Voice!
Thanks for this! 🗣 #WeirdHistory #EnglishLanguage #EnglishDerivatives #Words
When you realize that English’s origins are from French and Germanic roots combined, then the seemingly inconsistent ruled now make sense.
1:28 There is a CZcams video called Dane Cook - Fast Food Restaurants Prank , very funny! Hahaha!
0:12 Kermit the Frog was at one point considered "Sesame Street's #1 Guest Star."
Sesame Street was the first daily show that we watched, much of which was for education (my mother is a teacher).
We lived in the country at the time and only had three channels through antenna rabbit ears.
English has been around in one form or another for a while now. And English speaking people have been travelling about pursuing business, making deals, smashing heads, and so forth. So I'm wondering which words in foreign language got influenced by languages from English that English got from some other language. For example, the English word "truck" ultimately comes from the Latin "trocare" by way of Frankish. (Note that the English "truck" did not originally mean a large motor vehicle meant for hauling, and avoid being pedantic about it.) Next move to Spanish where truck is "camión." But go to Mexico where they may say camión, but sometimes say "troka", or something like that due to proximity to the US., where some form of English is usually spoken. Granted, it's probably a slang expression. You know, you could just about do an episode on the word "truck."
Dude, sick Katamari reference
"Amok" - behave uncontrollably and disruptively.
"Boondock" - rough or isolated country.
Both from Malay/ Philippine origin😉
Makes me want to go back 50 years and rewrite my senior disortation.
Very good report. What I wish I would have known then.
Favorite borrowed word: skosh - The word skosh comes from the Japanese word sukoshi - ( small ) the only word borrowed from Japanese.
sushi, sumo, tsunami, etc don't count since we use those words directly and don't alter them.
Nymph also gives us nymphomaniac. C'mon weird history you had that one
It is interesting that THE world language of today was so heavily influenced by the world languages of that time (meaning the world wasn't as big as it is today, it was just a lot of Europe for the Europeans)
The worst thing about this is that McCarthy never got to be called “boss” at a kebab stand because he was afraid of being called a commie 😢
I never thought I’d hear a katamari damacy reference. That was my favorite game.
My cat doesn't seem to have an intolerance. I don't give him milk often, but he practically begs for my cereal milk🤣✌️
"Husband" comes from old Norse-the root of many Viking countries.
Eta: my favourite ''borrower's English word is ''finger'' it comes from the Germanic (spelling?) languages.
My favorite ... Half-borrowed, I guess? Is that "robot" is probably derived from the Polish word for "worker," that is -- "robotnik". Which I learned after deep diving into Sonic bs xD
Isn't "robot" from Czech?
A bumper sticker said “Welcome to America! Now speak English!”
You always ask for weird history that people don't understand. How about Ollie North.. do a video on how that went down! Love your channel
Sarcasm should be it's own unique language
You should do a video on the origins of the word f#ck lol.
Regarding the names of the week named after Norse Gods... it has been occasionallt suggested that Monday was named after the Norse moon God Mani. Thus Mani's day... Manidag... Monday.
Not sure it's the right niche but the thumbnail made me think about Schwerpunkt's dictionary of Norse military terms. He made a lot of Anglo-Saxon history and warfare videos as well as about the broader Indo-European traditional etymological meanings, I really recommend the channel for a deeper understanding of European identity
The first time I saw the word "Pict" was in the title of the Pink Floyd song "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving With a Pict"....😅
Thank you for a lesson in my European heritage
Fun Fact: there was actually a point when French was over taking English and becoming the dominant language (in the English regions of Europe). French was the lingua franca of the time so even if you spoke English you still had to know French to do business. This made French very dominant and slowly it began to replace English UNTIL the black plague hit and wiped out 2/3 of Europe. After the plague there were more people left in England who spoke predominantly English than people who spoke predominantly French so the language shifted and English became more dominant.
Speaking of words borrowed from other languages, "lingua franca" is also obviously not an originally English term. ;)
"Aaaaah" ~ First Caveman
A+ video!
LOVE IT!
‘Street’ isn’t a Latin word it’s the Anglo Saxon word for ‘Roman Road’.
Am I the only one who thought the man in the thumbnail had spider legs for a moment?😂
I’m not a linguist but I’m always surprised when English is described as a Germanic language. I have spoken to some people who are from Germany and obviously native German speakers, and they confirmed that they don’t see the similarity either.
A linguistic topic I'm interested in is ( not in a racist way ) how the British accent changed with those who formed the United States & Canada to become the American/Canadian accent . ♑️✍️🇳🇴🇦🇺
A lot of Americanisms today, in both grammar and lexical choice, actually derive from a blending of British accents of the time and outsider input (e.g. Dutch)
Then, consider that we have apparently more accents in the UK than the rest of the English speaking world combined - and their evolution during the start of real globalisation and the UK trying to be Billy Big Bollocks in Europe and further.
Meanwhile up until the 20th century, North America could be described as developing in isolation more.
The US = geographical and social origins of the settlers x 15/16th century English
Australia and NZ = geographical origins of the settlers x 17th/18th century English
@@Alex-zs7gwThank You 🥰🎁 . ♑️✍️🇳🇴🇦🇺
How about Italian?
Tempo, adagio, soprano; pizza, pasta, pesto; fresco; and some bad stuff of course 😇
From India we get shampoo and pyjamias.
if you only know one language, English is the one to know. That or American.
Saying kiełbasa sausage is like saying sausage sausage
Like chai tea- tea tea
The Greeks also gave us the word _alphabet_ (from _Alpha_ and _Beta_ , the first 2 letters of the Greek Alphabet).
I always thought that English is the original language in my younger years lol
everyone borrows from everyone else.. No one knows what really belongs to any culture...we only know what "recently" belonged to one culture or another
interesting videos today. reminds me of my high school days and my latin class. back then they told us that the languages of the known world and all conquered lands had words that were 80% from the latin words
Skunk is algonquin
okay y'all picked a REAL nice picture of the Aberdeen sign, that shit looks like ass like the rest of the town normally 🤣
Why do Americans constantly ignore Wales on all things to do with the UK?
1:43 In the film Clerks (1994), Olaf the Russian Metalhead sings the song "Berserker" for Jay in front of the store Quick Stop.
I'm Aussie, we don't speak English even tho we are an English speaking nation. None of our words are stolen, we made our own words up, it's called Strayan
Has Julius Caesar been elevated to emperor now?
The preferred language of Kermit and Taylor Swift… definitely not a sentence I was expecting to hear
3:35 I have a Spanish Dictionary like that.
I bought it to help study to for my Spanish major, which was completed in 2002.
Ole...¿Qual e's la fecha? La pluma verde de me tia.
What if we're just a bunch of organelles of the universe or some alien x type stuff?
It's not pronounced og ham it's oh-um. Hello from Ireland 🇮🇪
5:44 "Like A Virgin" is Madonna's first #1 hit.
It is from her album Like A Virgin (1984).
In 2023, the Library of Congress added the album to the National Recording Registry for preservation in the United States.
3:11 The book Scott Pilgrim and The Infinite Sadness (2006) is almost certainly a reference to the album Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness.
3:11 One of my favorite music vidoes is "Tonight, Tonight" by the Smashing Pumpkins.
It won six awards at the 1996 MTV Music Awards, including the Music Video of the Year.
Contrary to popular belief, the French don't use "Ménage à trois" to describe a threesome.
They just say "Oui"!
When people go off about how English is the worst language, I just wanna point out a few things:
- Our future tense requires only one word (looking at you, Spanish)
- Words don't change meanings depending on tone (Cantonese)
- We don't live in some bizarre Beauty And The Beast world where we give inanimate objects genders (romance languages, German)
- Likewise, we don't have have two different words for "they" because we don't care whether "they" were male or female (Spanish, French)
- There's no formal "you" because we don't play mind games about whether or not we respect you (Spanish, German)
- We don't alter the whole language based on how much we respect you Japanese)
- The letters and sounds might not be consistent, but at least we have letters, not just pictures (Mandarin)
- We don't have a tense specifically for talking to two people because some idiot decided that a two-person tense was necessary (Arabic)
So yeah, I think we're doing okay as a language…
Oh and some of our plurals are irregular, but at least it's not like every damn plural is an entirely new word so you have to learn every word twice
At least it's not like that, right? Right, Arabic? WHAT A DUMB IDEA THAT WOULD BE, HUH, ARABIC?
And let us not forget oiseaux, the French word with seven letters and all the vowels, not one of which is pronounced the way it looks.
There is no way in hell English is the worst language. Our grammar is super fucking simple. The only real disaster is the relationship between spelling and pronunciation but that is dealt with with rote learning. Spanish beats us hands down on that front, but we wipe the floor with it when it comes to grammatical consistency and simplicity.
Agree with all the points you've raised apart from the lack of second person plural pronouns. That would be an improvement.
I think a lot of this comes from English being your first language. If you ask someone learning English as an adult, sentences like "I READ that book in the RED cover. Tomorrow I will READ another book about musical instruments that use REEDS." or "WHERE is my jacket, I was going to WEAR that today." or "I am very MERRY, because tomorrow I will MARRY my sweetheart MARY."
My point is that all languages are pretty mucked up in one way or another..... but I agree that languages like french where porches are masculine and houses are feminine are a royal pain to learn.
@@robw2379 You're talking about spelling and pronunciation which is exactly the only criticism that both the OP and I accept can be levelled against it.
@@dannyarcher6370
I went to the store. I have been going to the store. I used to go to the store. I have been to the store. I have gone to the store.
We have a somewhat silly number of tenses too.
@@robw2379 Those tenses are all useful and communicate different ideas which are non-trivial. They also do not require the rest of the verbs, nouns and adjectives in the rest of the sentence to agree for no added benefit whatsoever.
The people who I have spoken to who learn to speak English say it's pretty hard to learn because of the slang.
You can always tell when you are talking to a non English speaker who is part of a call center. They know nothing about English slang. You can always get them.😅
@@glennso47 LOL! That's wrong but funny.
Russian language is NOT the only Slavic language! 'VAMPIRE' is the most famous Slavic word which entered English language.
Sid Caesar?
I still prefer pig-latin.
Normal Norman? He is normal because he only has 3 arms and 4 legs. And he lives in a cave.
1:29 Dane DeHaan was an excellent villian in the great film Chronicle (2012).
In the film Amazing Spider-Man 2, he plays Green Goblin, an anti-hero that deserves his own films.
Vampire is my favorite .
Im decended from William the Conqueror
Uhhh.... "Dobro" is the name of a guitar. The people who invented it were John, Rudy, and Emil Dopyera. The name of the guitar is a combination of the 1st part of the family name and the shortened version of brother. Thus the name, Dobro. Tech guys were out-hipped by many decades by the guitar makers. Dobro does mean something in their native language, but that is just a coincidence. Sorry, it's not a word from another language. It's just a hepcat family name for a musical instrument, like Gibson or Fender.
Isn’t another name for it is resonator guitar?
3:54 My younger brother, his in-laws and friends, and myself went on an expedition-style trip to camp at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
Eating ANOTHER Weird History meal!
This time eating SPAGHETTIOS* with basil and marble jack cheese melted on top and drinking a Wild Cherry Capri Sun pouch...while watching this Weird History video!
* From the Weird History Food video " Fun Facts About Your Favorite 90s Foods"