Wanderwort

A Wanderwort (German: [ˈvandɐˌvɔɐt], 'migrant word', plural Wanderwörter; capitalized like all German nouns) is a word that has spread as a loanword among numerous languages and cultures, especially those that are far away from one another, usually in connection with trade. As such, Wanderwörter are a curiosity in historical linguistics and sociolinguistics within a wider study of language contact.[1] At a sufficient time depth, it can be very difficult to establish in which language or language family it originated and in which it was borrowed.

Examples

Typical examples of Wanderwörter are cannabis, sugar,[2] ginger, copper,[1] silver,[3] cumin, mint, wine and honey, some of which can be traced back to Bronze Age trade.

Four Wanderwörter with the meaning 'camel'. Extensive loaning has carried Semitic, Turkic, Indo-Iranian, and Chinese words for 'camel' throughout Africa and Eurasia.

Tea, with its maritime variant tea and Eurasian continental variant chai (both variants have entered English), is an example[1] whose spread occurred relatively late in human history and is therefore fairly well understood: tea is from Hokkien, specifically Amoy, from the Fujianese port of Xiamen, hence maritime, while cha (whence chai[4]) is used in Cantonese and Mandarin.[5] See etymology of tea for further details.

Farang, a term derived from the ethnonym Frank through Arabic and Persian, refers to (typically white, European) foreigners. From the above two languages, the word has been loaned into many languages spoken on or near the Indian Ocean, including Hindi, Thai, and Amharic, among others.

Orange originated in a Dravidian language (likely Tamil, Telugu or Malayalam), and whose likely path to English included, in order, Sanskrit, Persian, possibly Armenian, Arabic, Late Latin, Italian, and Old French. (See Orange (word) § Etymology for further details.)

Variants of arslan ("lion"), of Turkic origin, have spread to Persian, Hungarian and as far as Manchu, though in some languages they are used only as personal names.

The word for "horse" across many Eurasian languages seem to be related such as Mongolian морь (mor'), Manchu ᠮᠣᡵᡳᠨ (morin), Korean 말 (mal), Japanese 馬 (uma), and Thai ม้า (máː), as well as Sino-Tibetan languages leading to Mandarin 馬 (mǎ), and Tibetan རྨང (rmang). It is present in several Celtic and Germanic languages, whence Irish marc or English mare.[6][7]

References
  1. Trask, Robert Lawrence (January 2000). The Dictionary of Historical and Comparative Linguistics. Psychology Press. p. 366. ISBN 1-57958-218-4. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
  2. Hock, Hans Henrich; Joseph, Brian D. (1 January 1996). Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship: An Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics. Walter de Gruyter. p. 254. ISBN 3-11-014784-X. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
  3. Boutkan, Dirk; Kossmann, Maarten (2001). "On the Etymology of 'Silver'". North-Western European Language Evolution. 3: 3–15. doi:10.1075/nowele.38.01bou. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
  4. "chai". American Heritage Dictionary. chai: A beverage made from spiced black tea, honey, and milk. Etymology: Ultimately from Chinese (Mandarin) chá.
  5. Dahl, Östen. "Feature/Chapter 138: Tea". The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Max Planck Digital Library. Retrieved 4 June 2008.
  6. Adams, Douglas Q. (1997). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. ISBN 1-884964-98-2.
  7. Benedict, Paul K. (15 June 1972). Matisoff, James A. (ed.). "Sino-Tibetan: A Conspectus".
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