Borrowed foreign words in English language

How is "Boulder" borrowed from Swedish? Boulder is not a Swedish word.
 
Word?@?@?@Meaning?@?@?@Notes
soy ?@?@?@?@?@?@?@?@?@?@?@?@?@A bean used as a meat substitute.

tycoon?@?@great lord?@?@?@Wealthy businessman.

Are these two words borrowed from Japanese language?? :?
I think both of the words are written in Katakana(?\?C?E?^?C?N?[??), which is mainly used for the loan words.
 
sgt. Pepper said:
How is "Boulder" borrowed from Swedish? Boulder is not a Swedish word.
Probably not today's standard Swedish:

1677, variant of M.E. bulder (c.1300), from a Scand. source akin to Sw. dial. bullersten "noisy stone" (large stone in a stream, causing water to roar around it), from bullra "to roar" + sten "stone."
 
Pox said:
Are these two words borrowed from Japanese language?? :?
I think both of the words are written in Katakana(?\?C?E?^?C?N?[??), which is mainly used for the loan words.

Apparently so, but not in those forms:

'Tycoon' from taikun (http://www.answers.com/tycoon) via Commodore Perry and 'soy' from shōyu (http://www.answers.com/soy) via Dutch (soja/soya).

Of course, that doesn't stop them coming back as loan words, particularly for tycoon - it's meaning doesn't refer to the shōgun so the kanji would be inappropriate/confusing.

Cheers,
---
Russ
 
I found other strange things in the list of French borrowings. About half of the words in English come from Old French (or Latin via French) in Norman times, when French was the language of the court of England. So I expect that only the recent French imports be mentioned here. However :

- the English word "bribe" does not come from modern French at all. The word "bribe" also does not mean "beg" in French as mentioned by "parts" (rare word anyway).

- "Corduroy" is not French at all, and doesn't come from Old French.

- "Denim" is not originally a French "word". It's a corruption of "de Nimes" (from Nimes) which is not used in that sense anyway. Same for "suède".

- These words come from French, but with a different spelling and meaning : maroon, rifle...

- These words come from Old French (some of which don't exist in modern French anymore) like tens of thousands of others : plaice, revenue, relay, saucer, saveloy, sirloin, somersault, tapestry, roast, satchel, umpire.

- Many words are not direct borrowings but had their spelling changed, and are therefore probably not recent (last 100 years) imports. E.g. : envoy, diplomat, memoir, mutiny, pioneer, publicity, ratchet.

- These words do not come from French but from Latin (they exist in French but pre-existed in Latin) : rectangle, regal, salvage, spiral, splendid, tranquil, torture, unique, velocity, version, visa...

- "Nomad" and "trophy" come from Greek, via Latin.

- "Rout" and "sport" are from Middle English.

- "traffic" could also come from Italian or Spanish.

- "wardrobe" comes from Old Norse or Old French.

Very dubious list, IMO.
 
English has borrowed and/or adopted these words from Spanish:

adobe (brick); armadillo (little armed one); armada; alligator (el lagarto= the lizard); siesta; vanilla (Spanish original is vainilla); mosquito (little fly); tomato (originally tomate, taken from the Nahuatl tomatl).

There are tons more, which just goes to show how much languages borrow from each other. There is no such thing as pure English, pure Spanish or pure Japanese.
 
bossel said:
Probably not today's standard Swedish:

1677, variant of M.E. bulder (c.1300), from a Scand. source akin to Sw. dial. bullersten "noisy stone" (large stone in a stream, causing water to roar around it), from bullra "to roar" + sten "stone."

Ok, that was pretty far fetched. :) From "bullersten" to boulder. Doesn't even mean the same. :/
 
Flowerbird said:
English has borrowed and/or adopted these words from Spanish:

adobe (brick); armadillo (little armed one); armada; alligator (el lagarto= the lizard); siesta; vanilla (Spanish original is vainilla); mosquito (little fly); tomato (originally tomate, taken from the Nahuatl tomatl).

Have you had a look at the list linked in the first post before writing this ? Considering that English has about 500,000 words, I think that there are "tons of" Spanish borrowings. Btw, "abobe" is from Arabic via Spanish, and "mosquito" from Latin "musca" (fly).

Words like tobacco, potato, tomato or cacao all come from Amerindian languages, via Spanish. The Spaniards were just the first to come into contact with these produces and the indigenous people where it grew. They did not invent a new word for them by themselves.

Interestingly, "vanilla" riginally comes from Latin "vagina" (sheath). :bikkuri: Anyone for some vagina ice cream ? Err, sorry I meant vanilla. :D
 
Maciamo said:
Words like tobacco, potato, tomato or cacao all come from Amerindian languages, via Spanish. The Spaniards were just the first to come into contact with these produces and the indigenous people where it grew. They did not invent a new word for them by themselves.
Let's not forget the Spanish word "chocolate" comes straight from the Mayan word xocoatl. xocoatl derives from xoco, bitter, and atl, water

the sound "tl" especially at the end of the word isn't a Spanish phonetic sound and thus xocoatl is difficult for the Spaniards to pronounce so they had to phonetically convert the word from the Nahuatl word chocolatl and needed to drop the final letter "L" from the word to make for better phonetic pronounciation .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xocoatl
 
Some words that the English language borrowed from Irish:

Galore (from the Irish "go leor" which means plenty)
Whiskey (from the Irish "Uisce Beatha" which literally means water of life)
Keening (from the Irish verb "ag caoineadh" which is to cry)
 
A Dutch word in French:

(F) Boulevard = (NL) Bolwerk

It's the high road in a fortress next to the fortress wall, to be able to pass ammo to the guns by horse and carriage.

I guess the English language also borrowed Dutch words in the naval or military sector.
Is there an English word that resembles boulevard?
 
A Dutch word in French:

(F) Boulevard = (NL) Bolwerk

It's the high road in a fortress next to the fortress wall, to be able to pass ammo to the guns by horse and carriage.

I guess the English language also borrowed Dutch words in the naval or military sector.
Is there an English word that resembles boulevard?


Bulwark, Bole + Work, Bulkhead, and maybe 'Bullward' 'Bulward' (bullherd(er)
 

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