01355383 Varieties of English and Cultures of English Native Speakers 04 | Page 24

Through sailing, trades and colonisation, thousands of words
from several languages entered the English vocabulary. For
instance, words like crew, detail and passport are from
French; embark, canoe and port come from Spanish and
Portuguese; landscape, cruise and yacht are derived from
Dutch. Many names of fruits and vegetables, like banana,
apricot, potato and cocoa, first appeared in English around
this time as well. In addition, English started borrowing words
from all over the place: tea (Chinese), bamboo (Malay), coffee
(Arabic), yoghurt (Turkish) and curry (Tamil).
(Bragg, 2003)