Tuesday 27 January 2015

Lexis and Origins

Lexis and origins of words; Language and Change


Anorak - 1920s: from Greenlandic anoraq . The British English informal sense dates from the 1980s
Barbeque - mid 17th century: from Spanish barbacoa, perhaps from Arawak barbacoa ‘wooden frame on posts’
Barrack - late 19th century: probably from Northern Irish dialect.
Blizzard - early 19th century (originally US, denoting a violent blow): of unknown origin
Bongo - 1920s: from Latin American Spanish bongó
Bonsai - 1950s: from Japanese, from bon ‘tray’ + sai ‘planting’
Boomerang - early 19th century: from Dharuk
Budgerigar - mid 19th century: of Aboriginal origin, perhaps an alteration of Kamilaroi gijirrigaa (also in related languages)
Bungalow - late 17th century: from Hindi baṅglā ‘belonging to Bengal’, from a type of cottage built for early European settlers in Bengal.
Chipmunk - mid 19th century: from Ojibwa.
Chutney - early 19th century: from Hindi caṭnī
Dinghy - early 19th century (denoting a rowing boat used on rivers in India): from Hindi ḍiṅgī
Dungarees - late 17th century (in sense 2): from Hindi duṅgrī 
Gnu - late 18th century: from Khoikhoi and San, perhaps imitative of the sound made by the animal when alarmed
Haiku - Japanese, contracted form of haikai no ku ‘light verse
Hamburger - late 19th century (originally US): from German, from Hamburg
Igloo - mid 19th century: from Inuit iglu ‘house’
Kangaroo - late 18th century: the name of a specific kind of kangaroo in an extinct Aboriginal language of North Queensland
Karaoke - 1970s: from Japanese, literally ‘empty orchestra’
Ketchup - late 17th century: perhaps from Chinese (Cantonese dialect) k'ē chap ‘tomato juice’
Llama - early 17th century: from Spanish, probably from Quechua
Mohair - late 16th century: from Arabic muḵayyar ‘cloth made of goat's hair’ (literally ‘choice, select’). The change in ending was due to association with hair
Potato - mid 16th century: from Spanish patata, variant of Taino batata ‘sweet potato’. The English word originally denoted the sweet potato and gained its current sense in the late 16th century
Puma - late 18th century: via Spanish from Quechua
Pyjamas - early 19th century: from Urdu and Persian, from pāy ‘leg’ + jāma ‘clothing’
Safari - late 19th century: from Kiswahili, from Arabic safara ‘to travel’
Sauna - late 19th century: from Finnish
Shampoo - mid 18th century (in the sense ‘massage (as part of a Turkish bath process)’): from Hindicāṃpo! ‘press!’, imperative of cāṃpnā 
Sherbert - early 17th century: from Turkish şerbet, Persian šerbet, from Arabic šarba ‘drink’, fromšariba ‘to drink’. Compare with syrup
Ski - mid 18th century: from Norwegian, from Old Norse skíth ‘billet, snowshoe’
Skyscraper - American
Taboo - late 18th century: from Tongan tabu ‘set apart, forbidden’; introduced into English by Captain Cook
Tattoo - mid 17th century (originally as tap-too ) from Dutch taptoe!, literally ‘close the tap (of the cask)!’
Tea - mid 17th century: probably via Malay from Chinese (Min dialect) te ; related to Mandarinchá . Compare with char
Toboggan - early 19th century: from Canadian French tabaganne, from Micmac topaĝan ‘sled’
Tortilla - Spanish, diminutive of torta ‘cake’
Totem - mid 18th century: from Ojibwa nindoodem ‘my totem’
Trek - mid 19th century: from South African Dutch trek (noun), trekken (verb) ‘pull, travel’
Tycoon - mid 19th century: from Japanese taikun ‘great lord’
Yeti - 1930s: from Tibetan yeh-teh ‘little manlike animal’

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