Whilst preparing a previous post about slang words and expressions I was intrigued to discover that the expression ‘ the big cheese ‘ (an important, powerful person) might not have originally been ‘cheese’ at all but rather the word is actually from the Hindi "chiz" meaning "thing". Instead of saying "real thing" Anglo Indians used to say "real chiz". "My friend is the real chiz", meant my friend is a genuine guy.
During a lesson on Skype I was reading an article on the fantastic breakingnewsenglish.com about the World Cup of all things when amongst the potential new vocabulary was the word ‘pundit’ meaning ‘expert’. Pundit also comes from Hindu. In my ignorance, I had not considered the large variety of languages that have influenced the English language throughout its evolution. In fact, as many as 120 languages are on record as sources of modern vocabulary. Each set of invaders has brought its own vocabulary. For example the Vikings and Normans brought many words into English. The Viking language, Old Norse, gave words like ‘sky’, ‘anger’ ‘knife’, ‘neck’, ‘root’, ‘window’ and ‘skull’. The Normans gave words like ‘crown’, ‘court’, ‘castle’, ‘tower’, ‘obedience’ and ‘prison’, often words associated with military power and authority. During the Renaissance, scholars introduced many words of Latin or Greek. As the English began to spread abroad themselves contact with explorers, imperialists, pirates and convicts all influenced the language. In another lesson about food a student asked me how to say ‘ricotta’ in English and I told him that most Italian food words are not translated into English but remain in their original form, albeit, as can often happen, with quite a different pronunciation, for example ‘lasagna’ or ‘mortadella’. I love the French language and France as I lived there for five years and I admire their pride in their language. But the French are more resistant to foreign words entering their language, even for technology. When the rest of the world is using ‘computer’ and ‘mouse’, they insist on ‘ordinateur’ and ‘souris’. English instead has always welcomed foreign ‘loan’ words, and we are not giving them back! On the other hand, some English words may look like words in your language but have a different meaning. Such words are known as false friends. The English word ‘sympathetic’ resembles a word meaning nice in other European languages, but in English sympathetic has a much narrower meaning ( understanding and caring about someone else’s suffering ). Make a list of false friends for English and your own first language. Some topic areas, particularly rich in ‘loan’ words in English are food and drink; flora, fauna and landscapes; industrial products and inventions; clothing and the home; politics and society and the arts, sports and leisure activities. Can you think of words from your own language that have come into English in these topic areas? Which words from English in these areas have moved into your own language? In the Italian media journalists and presenters often drop words of English into their speech to sound ‘cool’ or modern, just as in English it can be ‘chic’ to use French words. What do you think of this? How is English or your language changing? Is that a good or bad thing? Let me know your ideas in the comments!
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What is this?When I started lostinclassics I looked for language lessons in the books I was reading, such as for example the use of phrasal verbs or inversion in conditionals and I explained them through examples found in the text. I also did reviews of the books I read and tried to give some advice on how to read classics using the various resources I know of. Then I switched to just reviews and lately I have been doing a bit of creative writing inspired by my reading. Who knows what I will come up with next! Archives
September 2020
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