Where Did That Word Come From? Quiz

Answer: Spanish

'La Cucaracha, la Cucuracha....' Oh, shut up, Baloo! Catchy song - nasty insect. But SOMEONE must love them - there are SOOOO many! Afrikaans is the Dutch based language spoken by a lot of South Africans.

Answer: Hindi

From 'champna' - to knead. As in what you do with the dough when making bread - similar action to washing long thick hair, perhaps?

Answer: Greek

Meant a private person. There is a Russian word like idiot, as in 'Bolshoi idiot' (from Mussorgsky's opera Khovantschina), but instead of being an insult to a ballet dancer, that means 'the chief is coming'! You probably didn't want to know that. Hard luck, you do now!

Answer: Czech

Yes, really. Comes from the word for worker, in 'Rossum's Universal Robots' by the Czech author Karel Capek (who also wrote 'War with the Newts'. So there.)

Answer: Arabic

From 'qand' meaning sugar. The old Arab peoples liked sweet things. The modern ones probably do, too.

Answer: Hebrew

I must say this one surprised me, too. From 'shekar' meaning intoxicated. Yes, well... They were making cider in Kent in 55BC, but they wouldn't have called it cider 'cos they didn't know any Hebrew in Kent in 55BC.

Answer: Inuit

Originally covered with seal skin. The Welsh boat is a coracle - circular unlike the long thin kayak. A lot harder to steer, too. Can be used as a rather heavy umbrella, though.

Answer: Portuguese

From 'feitico' (with one of those little hooks - cedilha - under the c). Means magic.

Answer: Scots Gaelic

Originally meant a war cry. Now just advertising and politics, really.

Answer: Arabic

A lot of words starting al- come from Arabic. And this isn't really one 'cos the al comes at the end! Amir al bahr means prince of the sea. We got it via other places in Europe, a bit shortened, but that's where it started.

Answer: Dutch

From 'jagt' pronounced something like yagghhht, which the English couldn't face and turned into the far more genteel yacht (pronounced yot).

Answer: Arabic

Means 'joining of fragments'. Sanskrit is an ancient language of India, from whence came the so-called Arabic numbers we use today. Well, the Arabs were nearer to us and had borrowed them already.

Answer: Scots Gaelic

From 'uisge beatha', which means the water of life. As does akvavit, eau de vie and several others, but they ain't whisky. And before anyone says what about Irish Gaelic, Irish whiskey has an E in the name. So there. Scotch whisky is matured in secondhand casks, by the way, (sherry was their original contents). What is it they say about the Scots being stingy? (It's OK for me to say that - my mother's family is Scottish!) No idea how it came about that they do it that way. Tastes great, and that's what counts.

Answer: German

From Schlacke meaning dross. All German nouns have capital letters - we only use them for Proper Names.

Answer: Finnish

If you haven't scored TEN points (that's ONE question right) on this quiz, you haven't been paying attention. This last one was a free and generous gift. The type of thing we call a sauna is in use in several northern countries, but we use the Finnish name for it.

Incidentally, a lot of people in Finland speak Swedish and it's from them we get our name for that land. The Finnish speakers talk of Suomi. And while we're at it, the Lapps are really the Sami, and Father Christmas lives ...