A history of the English Language

216.
Sources of the
 
New
 
Words: Borrowings.
Most of the new words coming into the language since 1800 have been derived from the 
same sources or created by the same methods as those that have long been familiar, but it 
will be convenient to examine them here as an illustration of the processes by which a 
language extends its vocabulary. It should be remembered that the principles are not new, 
that what has been going on in the last century and a half could be paralleled from almost 
any period of the language. 
As is to be expected in the light of the English disposition to borrow words from other 
languages in the past, many of the new words have been taken over ready-made from the 
people from whom the idea or the thing designated has been obtained. Thus from the 
French come 
apéritif, chauffeur, chiffon, consommé, garage;
from Italian come 
ciao, 
confetti,
and 
vendetta,
and from Spanish, 
bonanza, canyon, patio, rodeo, barrio, 
machismo,
and 
cantina
. In the Southwestern United States and increasingly throughout 
the country, the dinner table is enriched and spiced by borrowings from Mexican 
Spanish. Although 
chili
has been in the language since the seventeenth century, most of 
the culinary terms date from the modern period: 
enchilada, fajita, jalapeño, nachos, taco, 
A history of the english language 284

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tortilla, tostada;
and through Spanish from the Native American language Nahuatl, 
guacamole
and 
tamale
. German has given us 
angst, festschrift, gestalt, schadenfreude, 
weltanschauung, zeitgeist,
and 
zither
. From Russia have come 
troika, vodka,
and, with 
momentous political and economic changes, 
glasnost
and 
perestroika
.
 Goulash
is a 
Magyar word, and 
robot
is from Czech. Asia is represented by 
karma, loot,
and 
thug
from India; 
pajamas
(British 
pyjamas
) from Persia; 
yin, yang, t’ai chi,
and 
chow mein
from China; and 
geisha, haiku, Noh, sake, samurai, sayonara, shogun, sushi, soy,
and 
yen
from Japan. The cosmopolitan character of the English vocabulary, already pointed out, 
is thus being maintained, and we shall see in the next chapter that America has added 
many other foreign words, particularly from Spanish and the languages of the Native 
Americans.