Since 1992
Print and digital marketing
By Barbara McAllister
Word of the Day: Khaki
Khaki is a Hindustani word meaning “dust” that came to mean a strong cotton fabric. The heavy cotton material was first used in the military by the British cavalry in India for their uniforms. The normal white uniforms they usually wore provided little camouflage in the barren, arid landscape of India. White cloth was also difficult to keep clean in the dusty environment, so the British developed the familiar yellowish-brown fabric they called khaki, which became one of the terms the British brought back from their time in India. Words borrowed from other countries are called loanwords. Other Hindustani words that made it into English are bandanna, pajamas, jungle, cot, dinghy, thug, bangle, shampoo and cummerbund.
English adopts many words from other languages. “Emoji,” those popular little characters we use, is Japanese from words meaning picture and character. Other Japanese loanwords are karaoke, karate, ninja and tsunami. French has given us ballet, café, croissant, entrepreneur and renaissance (French for rebirth). Delicatessen, fest, kindergarten and waltz are German words. Spanish gives us canyon, guerilla (Spanish for little war) and mosquito (Spanish for little fly). Moccasin, opossum, pecan and toboggan are Native American words. Hazard, alcohol, apricot, algebra and lemon are Arabic words. Vodka, tundra and sable are Russian. Thank the Italians for pepperoni, pizza, opera, cello and soprano.
As with America itself, the English language is a mix of many cultures. It’s been said that if you speak English, you speak at least a part of more than a hundred languages. You probably had no idea you had such a multicultural vocabulary.
