A Lexicon of English Words From (mostly) Hindi

These are all words that have been imported into the English language due to the British occupation of the South Asian subcontinent and Burma. This list isn't exhaustive; on occasion I'll be surprised to see that another common word is actually derived from Hindi.

In the order that they occur to me:

thug

from Hindi thuggee: also from Hindi thag, meaning thief. A type of highway robbery that was at one time prevalent in India, eradicated in the first half of the 19th century by the British. Erroneously thought to be associated with the fierce Hindu protector goddess Kali, it was in reality practiced by many groups and by Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs alike.

punch (in the sense of a cold mixed drink)

from Hindi paantsch, meaning five: The English name for the drink is due to the original punch containing five ingredients (3 of which were alcoholic.)

pajama

from Hindi pajyama: A type of loose pants traditionally worn with a loose shirt (a salwar) by both sexes in South and Central Asia. The British adopted them as sleepwear.

shampoo

from Hindi shampoo, meaning to press: Originally referred to a type of invigorating massage. I'm guessing that this term somehow got associated with the hair cleanser by means of the massaging technique by which the shampoo is applied to the scalp.

compound (in the sense of a enclosed group of buildings)

from Malay kampung, meaning a village or group of buildings.

juggernaut

from the Sanskrit Jagganath, meaning "Lord of the Universe": A particular image of Krishna, a popular avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu. The main temple devoted to Jagganth is in Puri, where annually a gigantic chariot carrying an image of the god is pulled through the streets. On occasion, the chariot would go out of control, causing some unfortunate accidents; hence, the meaning of the English word.

Incidentally, Jagganath is one ugly mo-fo...

Jagganath

http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/794...nnath01xj6.jpg

Well I feel slightly more educated now. Good post sir.

According to this short film by Absolut, Indians invented the mullet, or in Hindi "mulit".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxSH64k0KfA

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Originally Posted by KT.

According to this short film by Absolut, Indians invented the mullet, or in Hindi "mulit".

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har har

also,

pundit

from Sanskrit pandita, meaning scholar or learned person: Often was used in reference to Brahmins who were knowledgeable about Hindu religious law and how to conduct ceremonies as well as Brahmins that gave counsel to rulers and kings.

Really interesting thread. Hindi's one of those languages I never would think of in connection to the evolution of English.

The only word of any value that Hindi has provided us is seersucker.

they have a phrase in hindi for men that wear seersucker suits:

mahder chod

they have a phrase in america for people who speak hindi

welcome to my convenience store

hurhur, good one.

and i don't speak hindi; i just have a copy of Hobson-Jobson, a bully little dictionary of Anglo-Indian words.

Why do indians in general say open and close instead of on and off when they are talking about lights?

And why do they say actually at the beginning of almost every sentence?

i.e. Good day sir, Actually mi nem is.....Raymond.... end I em calling you frem Optus to enquiry about how much you are wanting to be saving on your telephony bill this month.

Fun fact for today, amongst other things, I am a quarter Indian.

And not like pow-wow, Geronimo, have-your-land-and-livelyhood-taken-away-by-the-U.S.-government Indian neither.

We need a lexicon of English words from Latin.

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Originally Posted by MrShrike

Fun fact for today, amongst other things, I am a quarter Indian.

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from one indian mix to another, i'm sorry :(

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Originally Posted by Pepsi

We need a lexicon of English words from Latin.

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hur-hur

also, fun fact for today #2: i am a quarter latin

that is, a quarter of my family is from what was ancient latium, homeland of the romans

Was that near Canadia?

if by canada you mean "rome, the eternal city and center of the universe," then yes.

also the center of the universe is filled with gypsies that steal from tourists and graffiti on the walls of the train station advertising for "homosex"

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Originally Posted by Killuminati

Why do indians in general say open and close instead of on and off when they are talking about lights?

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This was not a joke, Indians always do that. Does it translate weirdly or something?

i have never met an indian that says "open the lights" or "close the lights"

i have been very much meeting indians that are using too many gerunds. english is being using the present continuous tense where other languages would use the present simple tense, and indians are overcompensating by using it too much in the manner i am illustrating here.

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Originally Posted by sycld

from one indian mix to another, i'm sorry :(

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No need to be sorry, nothing wrong with a little bit of curry in the mix.

when in rome do as the romans do aka steal shit and homosex it up

rome aka sodom

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Originally Posted by coqauvin

when in rome do as the romans do aka steal shit and homosex it up

rome aka sodom

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you know

i bet that over the last 2100 and some odd years things haven't changed that much in rome, though the ethnicities of the thieves and the "homosex"-itutes may have.

What is this, Hindi education month or something?

no.

it's "bring a little culture and knowledge to CD so the ignorant-ass white boiz like Rick Scarf will learn a thing or two about something that doesn't involve computers or small arms."

month.

Tell us about fags. Since we're ignorant white men, we know nothing about them.

tidus you already know too much about faggotry

also learning about hindi is pretty interesting, since english's ties to the common language that hindi also sprang from (Indo-european? I can't remember the name) predate the invasions of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes aka the first real radical changes to the language

Faggotry and fags are two different things.

Christianity and christians are two different things

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Originally Posted by Pepsi

Tell us about fags. Since we're ignorant white men, we know nothing about them.

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i doubt that, since there are plenty of fags that are white men, and plenty of fags that are ignorant, so it stands to reason that there are at least some fags that are ignorant white men.

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Originally Posted by coqauvin

also learning about hindi is pretty interesting, since english's ties to the common language that hindi also sprang from (Indo-european? I can't remember the name) predate the invasions of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes aka the first real radical changes to the language

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The Anglo-Saxon invasion of the British Isles didn't bring any radical changes to (what would become) the English language. It expanded the region in which Germanic languages were spoken to include the British Isles, where a combination of Germanic languages would eventually develop into English, but it didn't bring about any radical change.

At any rate, I'm not sure what you mean when you say that the Anglo-Saxon invasions were the first radical changes to "the language"; if by "the language" you mean some sort of original Indo-European father tongue, then no, Hindi and the Germanic languages are separated by multiple branchings (i.e., radical changes, the appearance of new languages by divergence from a linguistic ancestor) on the Indo-European language tree. Hindi developed from Sanskrit, which is on the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European tree. Germanic languages make up their own, entirely separate, primary branch. In other words, Hindi and the Germanic languages are about as far from each other as two languages can be while still being Indo-European languages.

Syme it is very apparent that you know more about this than I do.

Ok, I am going to go out on a limb and say that the general changes then come about much later

I had assumed that there was a root linking those languages together, but this is apparently quite wrong

also, by 'the language' I meant whatever the name is of the tongue(s) that the locals on the british isles spoke that was influenced by the germanic invaders, which is, I presume, the forefather of what eventually turned into "English"

Hello Exodite Prime!

Well Syme hasn't mentioned any communist dictators yet so at least we know he isn't MrDie.

Other than that, good post.

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Originally Posted by coqauvin

Syme it is very apparent that you know more about this than I do.

Ok, I am going to go out on a limb and say that the general changes then come about much later

I had assumed that there was a root linking those languages together, but this is apparently quite wrong

also, by 'the language' I meant whatever the name is of the tongue(s) that the locals on the british isles spoke that was influenced by the germanic invaders, which is, I presume, the forefather of what eventually turned into "English"

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Well, you're not wrong about the common root; there is definitely a root linking Hindi and the Germanic languages (English included), since they're all Indo-European languages, but you have to go back much farther than the Anglo-Saxon invasions of Britain to find that root. It would be found somewhere around six thousand years ago when the original Indo-Europeans started spreading out from somewhere in western Asia (Anatolia, or maybe the Caspian steppes; there are conflicting theories) and expanding west into Europe as well as further east into Asia. The ones who went east into Asia would eventually give rise to the Indo-Iranian branch, of which Hindi is a member, while the ones who headed west into Europe would eventually give rise to the Germanic branch (which English belongs to) and several other branches.

As for the pre-Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of the British Isles, they were Celts, so their native languages (the Brythonic languages) belonged to the Celtic group, which is another branch of the Indo-European family. But these Celtic languages are not the forefather of what eventually became English; English actually developed from the Germanic languages that the Anglo-Saxons brought with when they invaded, rather than from the Celtic languages that were spoken in the British Isles before they arrived. The words "England" and "English" derive from the name of the Angles, who were of course part of the Anglo-Saxon invasion. So the English language is an invention of Germanic invaders, not the "native"* peoples who lived there before; the pre-Anglo-Saxon languages of the British Isles have nothing to do with English.

*I say "native" because the British Celts themselves were not truly native to the British Isles either, but had come over from the continent much earlier, invading/breeding with the pre-Celtic peoples living there. Even those pre-Celtic peoples had migrated across at some point in the past... You see how it goes on.

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Originally Posted by Think

Hello Exodite Prime!

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Howdy-do.

I just breathed a heavy sigh of relief

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Originally Posted by Syme

The Anglo-Saxon invasion of the British Isles didn't bring any radical changes to (what would become) the English language. It expanded the region in which Germanic languages were spoken to include the British Isles, where a combination of Germanic languages would eventually develop into English, but it didn't bring about any radical change.

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Well "radical change" is of course a relative term.

The pre-existing group of British languages (i.e. the Celtic branch of IndoEuropean) that were spoken in Britain prior to the influx of Germanic peoples in the first millenia AD were quite different from the newly imported Germanic dialects brought by the invaders - certainly the average Briton would have extreme difficulty comprehending what young Beowulf was trying to communicate to you, other than that his aggressive demeanour and bloody sword probably meant bad news for you and your kin.

As you point out this change was not really radical within the wider context of the IndoEuropean languages, wherein the Celtic languages and Germanic languages are relatively closely related, but it's fair to say that the influx of Germanic languages did result in a radical change (for the inhabitants, certainly) of the locally used languages, with the end result largely Germanic, but incorporating a number of features from the pre-existing British dialects of Celtic (and a goodly smattering of the Romance languages by this stage).

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Originally Posted by Syme

Well, you're not wrong about the common root; there is definitely a root linking Hindi and the Germanic languages (English included), since they're all Indo-European languages, but you have to go back much farther than the Anglo-Saxon invasions of Britain to find that root. It would be found somewhere around six thousand years ago when the original Indo-Europeans started spreading out from somewhere in western Asia (Anatolia, or maybe the Caspian steppes; there are conflicting theories) and expanding west into Europe as well as further east into Asia. The ones who went east into Asia would eventually give rise to the Indo-Iranian branch, of which Hindi is a member, while the ones who headed west into Europe would eventually give rise to the Germanic branch (which English belongs to) and several other branches.

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Yes, what I was trying to say was that the link between English in Hindi would have gone well before English was even really called English, although it looks more like there was never really anything linking the two except a common ancestral tongue, which is a claim you can make for almost any two languages.

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Originally Posted by Syme

As for the pre-Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of the British Isles, they were Celts, so their native languages (the Brythonic languages) belonged to the Celtic group, which is another branch of the Indo-European family. But these Celtic languages are not the forefather of what eventually became English; English actually developed from the Germanic languages that the Anglo-Saxons brought with when they invaded, rather than from the Celtic languages that were spoken in the British Isles before they arrived. The words "England" and "English" derive from the name of the Angles, who were of course part of the Anglo-Saxon invasion. So the English language is an invention of Germanic invaders, not the "native"* peoples who lived there before; the pre-Anglo-Saxon languages of the British Isles have nothing to do with English.

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Oh, well that changes my initial impression where the language root was Celtic (or the Brythonic languages I guess) which was influenced by the Anglo-overlords, although in retrospect that seems a little too convenient, considering I didn't decide to make the next logical step back and say who came before them. I didn't know the Celts~ were invaders either, I had assumed they were the descendants of the first people to immigrate to the island before it was populated, but then I can't say I've ever truly studied the situation in depth.

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Originally Posted by coqauvin

Yes, what I was trying to say was that the link between English in Hindi would have gone well before English was even really called English, although it looks more like there was never really anything linking the two except a common ancestral tongue, which is a claim you can make for almost any two languages.

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Well there is a certain amount of commonality in the sounds, particularly for actions, things and ideas that existed before modern civilisation (e.g. words for geography, for basic tools and family relationships (mother and father spring to to mind, although that particularly commonality also extends well beyond IndoEuropean).

But in fact I think a lot of the words that Sycld mentions up further are actually quite recent additions to the English language, mostly dating from the time of the British Empire.

I say open and close the lights. I'm Indian... :(

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Originally Posted by coqauvin

I didn't know the Celts~ were invaders either, I had assumed they were the descendants of the first people to immigrate to the island before it was populated, but then I can't say I've ever truly studied the situation in depth.

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It's an interesting area. There isn't really an established name for the peoples who lived in the British Isles before the Celts came over, since we don't have any histories or records that discuss them, and they definitely didn't keep histories of their own. The first recorded information about the people living in the British Isles is from after the Celts had already settled there. So everything we know about the pre-Celtic Britons is based on archaeological evidence. These people migrated via the land bridge that connected the British Isles to mainland Europe during the glacial periods of the current Ice Age (as recently as about 8000 years ago), when sea levels were much lower. In fact there is evidence that for as long as this land bridge existed, people migrated in and out of the British Isles multiple times, depending on what the climate was like (i.e., when it got too cold, the people living there would cross back into mainland Europe and head south, then when it got warmer, the limits of human habitability would move north, and people would come back into the British Isles). These people were neolithic hunter-gatherers, obviously, with a pre-metallic level of technology. Anyhow, when the most recent glacial period ended and the sea levels rose, separating the British Isles from the rest of Europe, the people living there were stuck there, and lived there until ~500 BC or so until the Celts finally came over from Europe. Then came the Romans, then the Angles and Saxons and other Germanic peoples, including Scandinavians (who are Germanic), then the Normans.

If you really wanted to pick a period of "radical change" in the English language, it would probably be the several hundred years following the Norman conquest. During that period, English was transformed from essentially an all-Germanic language into the predecessor to the language we know today, which has a huge amount of French-derived (and therefore Latin-derived) vocab grafted onto it. It was the Norman conquest that caused English to diverge sharply from the other Germanic languages.

You can see the results in the way we talk today. French was originally the language of the aristocracy in post-Norman-conquest England, whereas English (meaning Old English, before it picked up all those French influences) was the language of the recently-conquered peasantry, who were naturally viewed in a distasteful light by their new French-speaking overlords. So certain French-derived words for certain things are considered acceptable--like "excrement". That's a word that the nobility might have used. But the English word for the same thing, "shit", is considered vulgar and profane, because it comes from an Anglo-Saxon root and therefore was what the dirty, low-born English-speaking peasants would say. The same is true of "fuck", which also comes from Anglo-Saxon roots, whereas "copulate", for instance, comes from French roots (because it was originally Latin) and therefore is considered less offensive even today. "Cunt" is also from Germanic and therefore Anglo-Saxon roots, while Latin-derived words for the same piece of anatomy are seen as much less offensive.

/language ramble

I knew about the radical change from olde to middle english, and I knew too that the language of the court was French and highbrow, so a lot of the formal words in English (detest, indictment, implicate... the list goes on and on) have almost mirror images in french, which also makes having a large english vocabulary a powerful asset in learning French.

Although, in spite of it's germanic roots, English still has remarkably few distinctly german root words (like kindergarten).

Actually, a huge portion of English words are of Germanic origin. We just don't realize it. In English, the more basic the vocabulary, the more likely it is to be Germanic in origin. If you study German (I did in college, though I've gotten so rusty I probably couldn't ask for directions to the bathroom), you will be startled by how many German words bear a strong similarity to their English counterparts--the reason being, of course, that the modern English and modern German versions of the word both descend from an early medieval Germanic common origin. Just a few off the top of my head:

And - und
Good - gut
Flight - flug
White - weiss
Red - rot
Blue - blau
Green - grun
Bath - bad (original meant springs or a public bath, which is why many German place names begin with "Bad")
Stone - stein
Hello - hallo
What - was
When - wenn
Thank - danke
Middle or mid - Mittel or mit
Beer - bier
Fire - feuer
Wine - wein
Swine - schwein (of course, modern English speakers are more likely to say "pig" than "swine"... still)
Hound - hund (again, we normally say "dog" nowadays, rather than hound)
Bread - brot
Apple - Apfel
Forbidden - verboten
Sugar - zucker
Milk - milch
Cold - kalt
Snow - schnee
Ice - eis
Free - frei

Those are just a few. The list goes on and on, almost to the point where a person who speaks English but not German could make a fair guess at the meaning of many German sentences if they just assumed that the German words all share a meaning with whatever English word they sound like. And many modern English words are perfectly identical (in spelling, not necessarily in pronunciation) to the modern German words they share a Germanic origin with: Ball, hammer, fish, arm, hand, winter, etc.

Again, the simpler or more basic the word, the more likely it is to be Anglo-Saxon Germanic origin, as the basic framework of the peasant's language picked up more specialized or formal vocab from the Francophone nobility.


Sorry I seem to be trying to contradict everything you say, by the way.. that's not my intent! But once I start rambling on about language and history, it's hard to shut me up.

See I've never actually studied German, but I'm slightly familiar with it because I know a few (2) German people and watch a lot of foreign movies (occasionally they're in German).

But this topic brings a funny story to mind when my wife and I were watching a show about the childrens crusade a few weeks ago and I was using my laptop (facing away from the TV) while it was on.

We'd set aside this time especially because we'd both really wanted to watch it and my wife turned to me as it came to an ad break and said "Hey! You're not paying attention". I told her "Don't be silly, I'm listening to it while I do this on my lappy". She replied "Oh really, well then that were they just talking about then?? I bet you have no idea". I shrugged and said "They were explaining about the motivations for the crusades, with the strange weather, lighting and so forth that helped create a lot of religious fervour, this combined with how most of the children were starving and destitute. Why do you ask?".

Her face dropped and she looked at me funny.

"But they were speaking in German with subtitles".

I didn't even realise.

hahaha

no this is good because otherwise i would start making assertions like I've made here believing them to be true and really i am lying through my teeth at everyone

I had read in Bryson's The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got That Way and it had mentioned that there was a surprising lack of german in English in spite of its roots (well, that's what I thought it said, anyways). My knowledge in this is pretty cursory, so maybe I will do a little research before making some ridiculous claims.

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Originally Posted by coqauvin

Christianity and christians are two different things

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That is indeed true.