We are multilingual.
Did you know that you speak Araawak, Nahuatl, Tupi-Guarani, Persian, Italian, and even Malay ...?
Through trade, navigation and discoveries on the other side of the globe, our language has been sprinkled with words from elsewhere.
And vice versa.
Take the word
"sand"
.
He was born not in the scorching deserts of Africa, but in Russia!
And is said, in the language of the Cossacks,
"sable"
, notes the linguist Pascale Cheminée in
French language, rules, traps and curiosities
(Société éditrice du Monde, 2011).
The word
"belongs to the vocabulary of heraldry, where it designates the color black in terms of coat of arms, the sable being a solid black."
Captivating!
Our words travel, therefore.
And enrich languages.
In England, if you are called a
"Jacobin"
, know that your interlocutor is telling you that you are a
"dangerous left extremist"
!
"Sardonic"
,
"ghetto"
,
"robot"
... Can you find the country of origin of these words?