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FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH

by Don L. F. Nilsen

(based on Marckwardt and Dillard’s American English NY: Oxford Univ Press, 1980)

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SPAIN, FRANCE, ITALYAND PORTUGAL (Parra Guinaldo 4)

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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 Xi’an, 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 arguing:English 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 isn’t supposed to be like this? If we don’t keep kvetching we’ll forget who we really are. Kvetching lets us remember that we’ve got nowhere to go because we’re 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:References # 2:

Parra Guinaldo, Victor. Parra Guinaldo, Victor. The Development of the Latin Initial F- in The Development of the Latin Initial F- in Old SpanishOld Spanish. PowerPoint Presentation. Tempe, AZ: A.S.U., . PowerPoint Presentation. Tempe, AZ: A.S.U., April, 2006.April, 2006.

Rosten, Leo. Rosten, Leo. The New Joys of Yiddish, RevisedThe New Joys of Yiddish, Revised. New York, NY: . New York, NY: Three Rivers Press, 2001.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. Martin’s Press, 2005.