Until relatively recently, most people didn’t travel very far away from where they were born and grew up. However, there have always been people who have made the journey to other lands and brought back new foods, new trade items, and new words. Because of this, even in the Middle Ages the cooks in 13th-century London were using nutmeg (only grown in Indonesia: 7,585 miles away), black pepper (from the Malabar coast of India: 5,200 miles away), and cinnamon (from Sri Lanka: 5,400 miles away). It took months by boat, camel, donkey, and foot to move these spices and their names from one side of the world to the other. These days, though it still takes at least a day or two to move physical objects, information zips around the world at the speed of light. The English language contributes to other languages, and its vocabulary is increased by them as well. Here are some words that show both the influence of English and the way English has grown through the acquisition of vocabulary from other languages:

Pokemon (proper noun)
While this isn’t really a vocabulary word per se, it’s an interesting example of how the Japanese adopt and alter English words. They took the words pocket (pronounced poh-KEH-toh by Japanese speakers) and monster (pronounced MON-stah) and combined the two to create Pokemon, the “pocket monsters” of the popular children’s game.

skosh (noun)
On the other hand, we took the Japanese word sukoshi, meaning “a little bit,” and shortened it to skosh (pronounced with a long O) while keeping the same meaning. The word came back to the United States after World War II, and was originally used mainly in the military.

ski (noun) / skiing (verb)
The early settlers in what is now Norway and Sweden invented a way to quickly move across snow by strapping narrow boards to their feet and using poles to propel themselves forward. The word ski goes back to Old Norse, and may have entered the English language as early as the 17th century, and while the word is pronounced differently (SKEE rather than the Norwegian SHKEE), the spelling has not changed.

shampoo (noun/verb)
The British colonized India, and brought back the word shampoo in the mid-18th century, from the Hindi word for massage. In France, you can buy le shampooing in stores.

pancake (noun)
A traditional breakfast treat in the United States, a pancake is a thick flat batter cake which is, as you might imagine, cooked in a pan. But in the United Kingdom, if you ask for pancakes you’ll get what the French call crêpes, which are very thin, and often much larger than pancakes. Pancakes are also called flapjacks in some parts of the United States and in Canada, but again if you go to London and look for a flapjack, you’ll get a pressed cooked bar of sweetened oats, like a granola bar in the United States.

Food for thought!