Etymology
The word stems from the Afrikaans word Kommando, which translates roughly to "mobile (originally by horse) infantry regiment". The Dutch word has had the meaning of "a military order" since at least 1652 and likely came into the language through Portuguese influence. It is also possible the word was adopted into Afrikaans from interactions with Portuguese colonies. Less likely, it is a High German loan word, which was borrowed from Italian in the 17th century, from the sizable minority of German settlers in the initial European colonization of South Africa.
The officer commanding of an Afrikaans kommando is called a kommandant, which is a regimental commander like a lieutenant-colonel or a colonel.
In Afrikaans and Dutch, "kommando" can also mean a command given to a computer, e.g., "de MKDIR MSDOS-kommando" (= "create a directory")
Read more about this topic: Commando
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
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