Can you name the languages from which the given English words are borrowed or derived?

Word	Source language	Further etymology
Karaoke
Curry
Sinister
Klutz
Sauna		< Finnish sauna, of identical meaning
Tungsten
Robot		< Czech robotnik, 'slave'
Blitzkrieg
Checkmate
Ukulele
Raccoon
Corgi		< Welsh corgi, literally 'dwarf dog'
Lambada
Chocolate
Assassin

Word	Source language	Further etymology
Sputnik
Igloo		< Inuit iglu, 'house'
Gung-ho
Cartoon
Banshee
Nirvana
Boondocks		< Tagalog bundok, 'mountain'
Orangutan
Pal
Brandy		< Dutch brandewijn, 'burnt wine'
Electric
Burrito
Kiwi		< Māori kiwi, native name for the bird
Aardvark
Denim
Klutz	< French serge de Nîmes, 'serge [a type of twilled fabric] from Nîmes'
Corgi	< French serge de Nîmes, 'serge [a type of twilled fabric] from Nîmes'
Banshee	< French serge de Nîmes, 'serge [a type of twilled fabric] from Nîmes'
Curry	< French serge de Nîmes, 'serge [a type of twilled fabric] from Nîmes'
Banshee	< French serge de Nîmes, 'serge [a type of twilled fabric] from Nîmes'

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Source Languages of English Words Quiz

by Ignis_Umbrae

Created Nov 4, 2010 in Language
Featured Nov 16, 2010
Game Plays 45,384

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Archived comments: show them

	Jaspers:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 16:18 GMT	28 points
	Refudiate - The Alaskan School System

	corndog:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 16:18 GMT	-1 points
	I could have sworn "igloo" was Swahili.

	Josh:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 16:21 GMT	45 points
	It seems a bit odd to ask you to be more specific on if you type "German" for "klutz" and "Indian" for "curry", but then accept "Mexican" in place of "Nahuatl" for "chocolate". More importantly, the "klutz" and "curry" "be more specific" popups came up when I typed "German" and "Indian", respectively, for the wrong words.

	jonesjeffum:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 16:21 GMT	6 points
	yogurt- turkish would have been a good one

	MatCiccarella:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 16:48 GMT	14 points
	I have nothing clever to say, that was just hard.

	jaypunkrawk:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 16:51 GMT	0 points
	Apparently I can't spell Algonquian. I forgot the final "a."

	nightfloat:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 16:55 GMT	4 points
	I think this is my favorite Sporcle quiz yet.

	cranson:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 17:33 GMT	2 points
	Nice quiz, with good mix of easy and obscure. I must admit to not knowing anything about the language from which "pal" is derived.

	kenjab:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 17:33 GMT	19 points
	For "lambada", I kept reading it as "lambda" and couldn't understand how it wasn't Greek.

	geowiz85:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 17:47 GMT	10 points
	after watching South Park, i was really hoping Canadian would at least be a bonus answer for pal

	C_IVLIVS_BACCVS:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 18:09 GMT	-2 points
	"Blitzkrieg" is the most right guessed word here - as a German I must admit: "that makes me sad"... How could it happen that one man from Austria made so many incisive mistakes in a period of only ~15 years and the world still fears word like "Blitzkrieg" and so on... :-(

	QuintFan:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 18:23 GMT	6 points
	Wow, this is a cool quiz! Right up my alley as a multilingual speaker and English etymology buff. I shocked myself with how many I knew (but of course I missed the Italian, French and Dutch answers). I was also sure tungsten would be something Asian. Seriously though? Even though learning where "pal" came from, is anyone ever going to get Angloromany? The 1.2% who did are clearly people who did the quiz twice because they think that validates them somehow. One suggestion: please accept Indonesian or Bahasa for "orangutan." Though Indonesian is a transfer language from Malay, there are no orangutans in Malaysia, they're in Indonesia, so you should at least accept both. Good quiz!

	JLKeip:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 18:23 GMT	11 points
	I don't think Yiddish is a specific form of German, I think it is fairly distinct, so the bonus/hint should be altered.

	QuintFan:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 18:24 GMT	0 points
	Let me correct myself, sorry. There are orangutans in non-peninsular Malaysia! So maybe accept all?

	Panther:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 18:33 GMT	10 points
	baccus, no one fears the word blitzkrieg. It has become a standard military strategy, no longer associated with hitler alone.

	lukebradford:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 18:45 GMT	22 points
	"Denim" is one of my favorite etymologies. "Jeans," interestingly, are literally "from Genoa," so in some sense "denim jeans" is an etymological oxymoron.

	HPZ:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 18:58 GMT	1 point
	@QuintFan: This quiz's cited source, the Oxford English Dictionary, list's Malay as the source language for the word "orangutan." It makes no mention of Bahasa.

	D3nn1s:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 19:00 GMT	2 points
	God, I missed the one from my own language (brandy)...

	HPZ:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 19:05 GMT	3 points
	@Ignis_Umbrae: I found the answer for "checkmate" so fascinating that I had to look it up. I was disappointed to see that the OED's listing for "checkmate" makes no mention of Persian. It mentions stops along the way in Middle English, Old French, Provencal, Italian, Spanish, Old Spanish, and Portuguese, but no Persian. I'm confused. What is your source for these?

	Ignis_Umbrae:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 19:07 GMT	2 points
	@Josh: I don't see any way to avoid having multiple requests for more precision appearing at once, as Sporcle doesn't distinguish bonus answers relative to the highlighted question/answer. In any case, I think an unintentional extra hint is better than frustrating the quiz-taker unduly! Also: most of the reason Mexican is accepted as an alternative to Nahuatl is that the OED specifically lists it: "2. Any of the indigenous languages of Mexico; spec. = NAHUATL") @QuintFan: Romani, Romany, English Romany, etc. are all accepted as alternatives to "Angloromany" , a term I used mainly because my source did -- there isn't a whole lot of difference between Romany and Angloromany, save a lot of English influence in the latter. I really should've added Indonesian and Bahasa as alternative answers to Malay, so I've submitted a request to the admins to do what I now can't. Thanks for the feedback!

	Ignis_Umbrae:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 19:16 GMT	3 points
	@HPZ: I always cross-compare etymologies between multiple sources (Collins, the Online Etymology Dictionary [the "other" OED], Webster, etc.) for accuracy, but the vast majority come from the OED, as it's the most authoritative. That one in particular came from the "other" OED, as the main OED was, as is sadly often the case, excessively terse. I suspect Ernest Klein's "A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language" will have the Persian roots listed, but I unfortunately do not have a copy to hand. Take a look if you're really interested!

	HPZ:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 19:35 GMT	4 points
	@Ignis_Umbrae: One advantage of working in a library is having such reference works nearby. I just checked the Klein work you mentioned (wherein he seems to wish to confound us), which lists your cited "shah mat" as "Arabo-Persian."

	Penny:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 20:07 GMT	2 points
	Tungsten sounded Nordic to me, but I didn't even guess Swedish, saying to myself, "they wouldn't have more than one with the answer Swedish," completely forgetting that I'd already determined that "sauna" was Finnish, not Swedish. Huge facepalm.

	Shortney87:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 20:46 GMT	3 points
	WOW! I never would have guessed that boondocks is Tagalog...I use that "country" word all the time. Also, to learn that checkmate is Farsi for "the king is dead" is fascinating! Love this quiz!!

	smarty:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 21:26 GMT	1 point
	i love how "assassin" in arabic means "eaters of grass"

	Pit_trout:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 21:44 GMT	4 points
	@HPZ, @Ignis_Umbrae: checking the (actual, not "other") OED online here, it traces "checkmate" back through several romance languages to Arabic, and then cross-references to "check", which it traces back further to Persian. So it seems to say that while the "shah" ("check") part was Persian, the "mat" (mate) came from Arabic: “Adapted form (immed. from Arabic) of Pers. shah ‘king’, also the ‘King’ in chess; in this specific sense the Pers. word was taken into Arabic, where arose the phrase shah mat(a), ‘the King is dead’, i.e. can make no further move: see CHECKMATE. (This has been taken back into Persian in the form shah mat gardad = the shah becomes mat.)”

	steel03:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 22:06 GMT	14 points
	While they are similar, Yiddish is not a more specific form of German. They are regarded as two distinct languages.

	AutonomusPlebian:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 22:09 GMT	-4 points
	I'd like to point out Gaelic is the same as Irish. The language which is often (incorrectly) called Scots Gaelic is actually Gallic

	H0limkill:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 22:11 GMT	0 points
	Wow robot is so used in daily life but only 10% know where the word comes from !?

	Speenatch:	Nov 16th, 2010 at 22:16 GMT	5 points
	@smarty - Interestingly enough, the word was not coined by the Hashshashin themselves but by their enemies. Hashish is an extract of cannabis which has been used recreationally throughout history; the word pretty much calls them potheads. The term originated purely derogatorily, though; current theories suggest that they didn't indulge in hashish at all.