FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH

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FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH

• by Don L. F. Nilsen
• (based on Marckwardt and Dillards American
  English NY Oxford Univ Press, 1980)

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SPAIN, FRANCE, ITALYAND PORTUGAL (Parra Guinaldo
4)
3
INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES

• Indo-Iranian
• Bengali, Farsi, Hindi, Kurdish, Pashto, Punjabi,
  Urdu
• Slavic
• Bulgarian, Czech, Macedonian, Polish, Russian,
  Serbo-Croatian, Slovak, Slovenian, Ukranian
• Baltic
• Latvian, Lithuanian
• Celtic
• Breton, Irish, Scots Gaelic, Welsh
• Romance
• Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese, Provençal,
  Spanish, Romanian
• Germanic
• Africans, Danish, Dutch, English, Frisian,
  German, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Yiddish
• (Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams 529)

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AFRICAN WORDS

• goober
• gumbo
• hepcat
• jazz
• voodoo

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NATIVE AMERICAN WORDS

• Chicago (Algonquian Onion Field)
• mackinaw (Algonquian milikamakinak big turtle in
  water)
• mugwump (American fence straddler)
• racoon (Algonquian rufkufskoom
• squash (Algonquian askutaskuash)
• wampum (Algonquian money)
• woodchuck (Algonquian ortchuk NOTE folk
  etymology)

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CHINESE WORDS

• Chi (qi)
• chow mein
• chop suey
• Dao (tao)
• Goji (berry)
• I ching
• Kowtow
• Kung fu
• Tofu
• Typhoon
• no can do.
• Long time no see. (pidgin English from early
  Chinese workers on the railroad)
• (Jean Arnold from Xian, China, gave me most of
  these)

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DUTCH WORDS

• cole slaw (Dutch cabbage salad)
• Pennsylvania Dutch (Greek sylvan, German
  Deutsch)
• poppycock (Dutch soft dung)
• Yankee (Dutch Jan John kees cheesel

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ENGLISH WORDS THAT HAVE CHANGED 1

• Azusa (American A-Z in the USA)
• bootlegger (American liquor smuggler)
• cold shoulder (English unwarmed meal)
• gerrymander (English Eldridge Gerry
  Salamander)
• lumber (English trash)
• saw buck (Latin Roman Numeral X)
• slapstick (English stick for making noise)

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ENGLISH WORDS THAT HAVE CHANGED 2

• soap opera (English "opera" sponsored by soaps)
• stereotype (English type cast in lead for
  printing press)
• walrus (English whale ros horse)
• wetback (English swimmer of Rio Grande)
• zounds (English God's wounds)

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FRENCH WORDS 1

• castle/chateau (French)
• depot (French, cf. deposit)
• dime (French dixieme)
• gopher (French gauphre honeycomb)
• hotel/hostel (French)
• levee (French elevated)

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FRENCH WORDS 2

• parlay (French to talk)
• porter (French to carry)
• porpoise (French porc poisson)
• puny (French puis ne)
• saloon (French salon)
• voyageur (French)

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Canadian Jack Jacques arguingEnglish or
French is better!
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GERMAN WORDS

• blitzkrieg (German lightning war)
• delicatessen (German)
• festschrift (German festival of writing)
• frankfurter (German something from Frankfurt)
• hamburger (German something from Hamburgh)
• kindergarten (German)
• wiener/wienie/Viener Schnitzel/Vienna Sausage
  (German something from Wien Vienna)

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GREEK WORDS

• janitor (Greek Janus)
• Pennsylvania Dutch (Greek sylvan, German
  Deutsch)
• Philadelphia (Greek love brother)

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HAWAIIAN WORDS

• hula
• wahine
• lei
• aloha
• poi
• two-finger poi is thick
• five-finger poi is thin

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ITALIAN WORDS

• accelerando
• andante
• fortissimo
• linguini, vermicelli, tortelini
• pizza
• presto
• zany (Italian servants)

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SPANISH PAST PARTICIPLES

• coronado (Spanish crowned)
• desparado (Spanish disapeared)
• enchilada (Spanish enchiliated)
• hoosegow (Spanish juzgado judged)
• incommunicado (Spanish)
• pinto (Spanish pintado)
• Sierra Nevada (Spanish saw snowed)
• tornado (Spanish)
• tostado (Spanish)
• Spanish present participle
• hacienda (Spanish doing/making)

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SPANISH DIMINUTIVES AND AUGMENTATIVES!

• armadillo (Spanish little armored thing)
• mosquita (Spanish small fly)
• tortilla (Spanish)
• machismo/macho (Spanish) (cf. Italian
  pianissimo, fortissimo and Generalissimo

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OTHER SPANISH WORDS!!

• buckaroo (Spanish Vaquero)
• cafeteria (Arabic or Spanish)
• Chicano (Spanish Mexicano)
• cockroach (Spanish)
• marijuana (Spanish)
• sombrero (Spanish "sombra" shade hat)
• ten gallon hat (Spanish galeon an ornament)

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YIDDISH OTHER LANGUAGES

• Yiddish is influenced by Aramaic, Hebrew, Latin,
  French, Italian, Polish, Ukrainian, White
  Russian, Slavic, but it is 75 German (Weinstein
  20).

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YIDDISH HEBREW

• Hebrew accounts for 15 to 20 of Yiddish, but
  despite the shared alphabet, common words, and
  right-to-left transcription, Yiddish and Hebrew
  are quite different (Rosten 428).
• Hebrew conveys abstract teachings, while Yiddish
  brings them down to earth (Rosten 165).

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KVETCHING

• Eskimos have a lot of words for different kinds
  of snow, and by God they need them. Jews, on the
  other hand, have an abundance of words to
  describe the many forms of human foolishness
  (Wex 15).
• If we stop kvetching, how will we know that life
  isnt supposed to be like this? If we dont keep
  kvetching well forget who we really are.
  Kvetching lets us remember that weve got nowhere
  to go because were so special (Wex 6).

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YIDDISH BROKHE, KLOLE, and KVETCH(BLESSING,
CURSING and COMPLAINING)

• Yiddish contains mordant syntax, sarcasm via
  innocuous diction, scorn through reversed word
  order, contempt via affirmation, fearful
  curses sanctioned by nominal cancellation, and
  derisive dismissal disguised as innocent
  interrogation (Rosten xv).

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!YIDDISH BROKHE, KLOLE, and KVETCH(BLESSING,
CURSING and COMPLAINING)

• The use of a question to answer a question to
  which the answer is so self-evident that the use
  of the first question (by you) constitutes an
  affront (to me) best erased either by a)
  repeating the original question, or b) retorting
  with a question of comparably asanine
  self-answeringness (Rosten xv).

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!!Here are some examples from Yiddish with Dick
and Jane

• fancy-schmancy
• kvell
• maven
• mazel tov
• shnorrer
• tanz
• Oy Vey!
• (Weiner and Davilman)

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!!!PowerPoint

• Yiddish with Dick and Jane
• http//www.vidlit.com/yidlit/

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• References 1
• Bledsoe, Hedra. Yiddish The Linguistic Garden
  of Earthly Delights. Tempe, AZ LIN 515 Paper,
  April 11, 2006.
• Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman, and Nina Hyams.
  In Introduction to Language, 7th Edition. Boston,
  MA Thomson/Heinle, 2003.
• Hendrickson, Robert. World English From Aloha to
  Zed. New York, NY John Wiley, 2001.
• Mey, Jacob. Pragmatics An Introduction, 2nd
  Edition. Malden, MA Blackwell, 2001.
• Nilsen, Alleen Pace, and Don L. F. Nilsen
  "Vocabulary Development Teaching vs. Testing."
  Readings in Reading Instruction Its History,
  Theory, and Development. Ed. Richard D. Robinson.
  New York, NY Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, 2005,
  196-203.

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• References 2
• Parra Guinaldo, Victor. The Development of the
  Latin Initial F- in Old Spanish. PowerPoint
  Presentation. Tempe, AZ A.S.U., April, 2006.
• Rosten, Leo. The New Joys of Yiddish, Revised.
  New York, NY Three Rivers Press, 2001.
• Weiner, Ellis and Barbara Davilman. Yiddish with
  Dick and Jane. New York, NY Little, Brown, 2004.
• Weinstein, Miriam. Yiddish A Nation of Words.
  New York, NY Ballantine/Random House, 2001.
• Wex, Michael. Born to Kvetch. New York, NY St.
  Martins Press, 2005.