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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.

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