Loanword - in English

In English

See also: Lists of English words of international origin

English has often borrowed words from the cultures and languages of the British colonies. For example:

Spanish definition English definition
sombrero
"hat" "a wide-brimmed festive Mexican hat"
Other examples of words borrowed by English
from Hindi from Afrikaans from Malay
jungle
dacoit
loot
juggernaut
syce/sais
dinghy
chutney
pundit
wallah
bungalow
jodhpurs


pajama/pyjamas
trek
aardvark
laager
wildebeest
veld
orangutan
shirang
amok

sjambok

Some English loanwords remain relatively faithful to the donor language's phonology, even though a particular phoneme might not exist or have contrastive status in English. For example, the Hawaiian word ʻaʻā is used by geologists to specify lava that is relatively thick, chunky, and rough. The Hawaiian spelling indicates the two glottal stops in the word, but the English pronunciation, /ˈɑː.ɑː/ or /ˈɑːʔɑː/, contains at most one. In addition, the English spelling usually removes the ʻOkina and macron diacritics.

The majority of English affixes, such as un-, -ing, and -ly, were present in older forms in Old English. However, a few English affixes are borrowed. For example, the agentive suffix -er, which is very prolific, is borrowed ultimately from Latin -arius (with similar forms found in other Germanic languages). The English verbal suffix -ize comes from Greek -ιζειν (-izein) via Latin -izare.

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