In Bierma's recent language column, he talks about the numerous English words that are Spanish. I had no idea that after Old English, Latin and French, Spanish has contributed the most words to our language. (What about Greek?)

I was surprised by some of them, though I am sure many of our linguists here knew them. Some of them include:

alligator
barbecue
cafeteria
chocolate
guerilla
guitar (Although, it comes from the Arabic word "qitara," originally from the Greek "kithara," for an ancient stringed instrument. That's not a Spanish etymology, is it?)
hurricane
intransient
jerky
macho
moment of truth (probably from Hemingway's "Death in the Afternoon")
ten gallon hat
tornado
volcano
rodeo
mosquito

[Edited for grammar]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

Since Spanish is a Romance language a lot of words are Latin in origin, so even if English borrowed them from Spanish they really come from Latin (or perhaps Latin's IE roots)

A number of other words are from native American languages and borrowed by Spanish and then by English. Jerky, for instance, is from the Quechua ch'arki "dried flesh".

Looking at that list, one word in particular stands out: volcano. That comes from the Roman god Vulcan.

My favorite is hoosegow from juzgado 'judged' from juzgar 'to judge'. English borrowed many words from Spanish which are of from Nahuatl (aka Aztec). They tend to end in -te or some variant. The suffix -tl is a definite article, e.g., ahuacatl 'avacado', xocolatl 'chocolate', xitomatl 'tomato'. The sound is a voiceless alveolar lateral affricative /tɬ/ which also occurs in Klingon, where it is written tlh. The fricative /ɬ/ occurs in Welsh, where it is written ll (e.g., llwyd 'gray'.

quote:

Originally posted by zmježd:
which also occurs in Klingon, where it is written tlh.

It seems that your linguistic abilities really do know no bounds, not even earthly ones.

What's Klingon for "Merry Christmas"?

What's Klingon for "Merry Christmas"?

I'm far from fluent, but I used to belong to the KLI. I'd translate it as QISmaS Quch yItIv /'q͡χɪʃmɑʃ 'q͡χutʃ yɪ'tɪv/ (literally Christmas happy you-enjoy-it).

[After consideration, I added Quch 'be-happy', which is a homonym of Quch 'forehead', and an IPA transliteration for pronouncing it.]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd,

quote:

It seems that your linguistic abilities really do know no bounds, not even earthly ones.

Sometimes I feel like I am in graduate school when I post here...and am not doing all that well!

I have difficulty understanding how one decides which language our words come from. Arnie makes a good point about romantic language words having their origins from Latin. In my post above guitar comes from the Arabic word qitara, originally from the Greek kithara, meaning an ancient stringed instrument. It seems to me that guitar comes from Greek and not Spanish.

Good question, Kalleh. I think, etymologically speaking, that a word is either inherited from an earlier version of the language, or it is borrowed from a language, which in turn may have inherited it from an earlier version of that language, or may have borrowed it from another language. So, hoosegow was borrowed from Mexican Spanish. The verb juzgar was inherited by Spanish from (Vulgar) Latin: judico (judicare, judicavi, judicatus) 'to judge'. Latin formed judico from judex, judicis, 'judge' from jus and dico 'law' and 'to say' respectively. Latin inherited jus and dico from Proto-Indo-European, and PIE, no doubt, inherited or borrowed those terms from some language that is unknown.

Does your expertise stretch to other alien languages? For example did you know that Ferengi has 178 words for "rain"?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

Does your expertise stretch to other alien languages?

I have done some reading in xenolinguistics, e.g., there is a good book by W.E. Meyers, Aliens and Linguistics: Language Study and Science Fiction (1980) and a short introduction online. I do read Suzette Haden Elgin's blog, Ozarque, and have read about Láadan, the language she constructed for her novel Native Tongue. But as far as constructed languages go, I've studied Tolkien's Middle Earth languages, and I have always been drawn to John Wilkins (first secretary of the Royal Society and one of its founders) Real Character. I would like to read or write a study of the Ferengi oto-erotic vocabulary.

quote:

Originally posted by zmježd:
hoosegow was borrowed from Mexican Spanish. The verb juzgar was inherited by Spanish from (Vulgar) Latin: Latin inherited jus and dico from Proto-Indo-European, and PIE, no doubt, inherited or borrowed those terms from some language that is unknown.

I note that "hoosegow" retains the Latin/Spanish pronunciation of the letter, J, whereas the others do not. I'm sure that's confused lots of non-Latin speakers who see the Catholic cross inscription, "INRI."