Foreign Roots of the English Language
If you understand the following story, you understand at least one word from thirty-two different languages!
The admiral hated to snoop, so he left the bottle of shampoo just where he had found it -- next to the tea and coffee. The bottle had a picture of a llama on the label.
The admiral's wife, who usually wore a gingham dress and moccasins when visiting their ranch on the Nebraska prairie, had just returned from her chores at the bank and the church bazaar. She was no helping the cook make the chowder and the goulash for lunch. the admiral heard them talking in the kitchen.
Someone was playing a ukulele, which the admiral did not like, so he turned on the radio and listened to a pretty mazurka by Chopin. Then he looked through his collection of pictures -- mostly of boats rafts, and kayak he had seen.
When everyone sat down to eat, the principal of the kindergarten cried, "At last! Hurrah!" -- and by accident spilled the ketchup all over the taffy apples! This so amused another guest, who had just returned from a safari, that he pulled a toy pistol out of his sack and ran all around the veranda, laughing like a maniac and firing his pistol at imaginary zombies. It was a grand party.
word | language | word | language | word | language | ||
admiral |
Arabic |
hurrah |
Slavic |
rafts |
Old Norse |
||
bank |
Italian |
kayaks |
Eskimo |
ranch |
Spanish |
||
bazaar |
Persian |
kindergarten |
German |
sack |
Hebrew |
||
bottle |
Medieval Latin |
kitchen |
Old Saxon |
safari |
Swahili |
||
chores |
Greek |
llama |
Tibetan |
shampoo |
Hindustani |
||
chowder |
Creole |
maniac |
Latin |
snoop |
Dutch |
||
church |
old Frisian |
mazurka |
polish |
taffy |
Tagalog |
||
coffee |
Turkish |
moccasins |
Powhatan |
tea |
Chinese |
||
gingham |
Malay |
Nebraska |
Sioux |
ukulele |
Hawaiian |
||
goulash |
Hungarian |
pistol |
Czech |
veranda |
Portuguese |
||
zombies |
West African |