The English language has been developed from an Anglo-Saxon base and
the percentage of words derived from each language group is as follows:
French: 29 percent, Latin: 29 percent, Germanic: 26 percent, others: 16
percent. In the next two installments, we study some curious origins of
words (beginning from A-E), deriving from the 'other' languages.
Alarm: The word is derived from the Italian, All'arme - 'To arms!'
Alcohol: This word comes from the Arabic al-kuhl, which originally
meant a very fine powder of antimony used as eye makeup. It conveyed the
idea of something very fine and subtle, and the Arab alchemists
therefore gave the name of al-kuhl to any impalpable powder or liquids
obtained by sublimation.
Algebra: This term, which means "the science of equations" comes from
the title of one of al-Khowarizmi's treatises, Hisab Al-Jahr
w'almuqabalah, which means, "Science of Transposition and Cancellation.
Algorithm: This term, which means "rules for computing" in English,
comes from al-Khowarizmi, an Arab mathematician living around AD 825 who
completed the earliest known work in arithmetic using Arabic numerals.
He was the first to establish rules for adding, subtracting, multiplying
and dividing with the new Arabic numerals.
Assassin: From the old Arabic word hashshshin, which meant, "someone
who is addicted to hash," that is, marijuana. It was originally referred
to a group of warriors who would smoke up before battle. They were
supposedly a brotherhood, devoted to their caballa and its secrecy,
protected by an unlimited number of fanatical followers. Assassination
was their favourite method of instituting their power.
Ballot: This is derived from Italian ballotta, or 'small ball or
pebble' Italian citizens once voted by casting a small pebble or ball
into one of several boxes.
Berserk: Origin is said to be from Old Icelandic berserkr, probably
from ber- bear + serkr shirt. This refers to Scandinavian warriors who
wore quite literally, bear shirts which they thought would render them
invincible
Cab (as in, Taxicab): This is the Old Italian term for goat. The
first carriages 'for public hire' bounced so much that they reminded
people of goats romping on a hillside
Chapel. From the Italian Capella, Italian for 'Cape,' because the
original Chapel was where the cape (capella) of St. Martin of Tour was
kept.
Chaos: From the Greek chainein, meaning, 'to yawn'; chaos was thus
the "original yawning abyss" outside of the ordered universe we know.
Chocolate: The original word is tchocoatl which comes from the
language of the Aztecs who established an Empire in Mexico in the 16th
Century. The first Spaniard to encounter substance was Hernan Cortes, in
the island-city of Tenochtitlan (present-day Mexico City) in 1519. After
praising the chocolate-based drink and inquiring how it was made, he was
told that one started with cacahuaquchtl powder (the origin of the word
'cocoa'), which was then boiled in water and combined with chilli, musk
and honey.
Coffee: Coffee beans were first discovered in the town of Kaffa,
Ethiopia. As the advancing Arabs had cut off access to Ethiopia (known
then as Abyssinia) by the 8th Century AD, it first made its way into
Arabic as qahwah. By the 13th Century, the Kaffa beans were brought into
southern Mediterranean Europe as cafe. |