Are there any words in common English that come from obscure languages?

Answer 1

All you need to do is think about the massive Imperialism of the British Empire and you'd realize how many opportunities there have been for foreign language borrowing in English.. Here are a few examples. Think about how much these small and in some cases extinct languages influence our everyday vocabulary. This is not an exhaustive list nor is it even close to being all the words we have derived from the given languages but it was fun looking them up. From Senegal, Gambia the Wolof langauge gives us chigger, yam, banana. The Amazon rainforest in Peru and Bolivia the Tupi language gives us cashew, tapioca and piranha. From Sierra Leone the Temne language gives us cola but not pepsi or coke. From Southern India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia the Tamil language gives us curry, mango, pariah. From the Northern Philippines the Tagalog language gives us boondocks and yo-yo. From Sumeria the extinct Sumerian language gives us abyss, cane. From Carthage the extinct Punic language gives us map, purse. From Phoenicia an extinct Phoenician language gives us bible, gypsum, purple. From Siberia the Nenets language gives us parka. From Angola and the Congo the Kongo langauge gives us chimpanzee, bongo, funky, zombie. From Western India the Gujarati language gives us tank. From Northeast Spain the Catalan language gives us capsize, paella. From Bangladesh the Bengali language gives us bungalow, dinghy. From Ancient Persia an extinct language called Avestan gives us paradise, magic, bronze. In Coastal Colombia and the Caribbean from the Arawak language we get tobacco. From Syria, Palestine from an almost extinct language, Aramaic, we get the name Jesus. From ancient Mesopotamia and the Akkadian language which is also extinct we get cherub.

Answer 2

Yes, there are several words in English that originate from more obscure languages. For example, "kangaroo" comes from the Australian Aboriginal language, "yogurt" is derived from Turkish, and "jungle" has roots in Hindi.