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“The Portuguese conquest of Goa dates back to the 16th Century, and mango, and curry, both come to us via Portuguese – mango began as ‘mangai’ in Malayalam and Tamil, entered Portuguese as ‘manga’ and then English with an ‘o’ ending,” she says. In the 15th Century, it’s introduced into the Caribbean and Africa and it grows, so the word, the plant and the spice spread across the world.” As global trade expanded through European conquests of the East Indies, the flow of Indian words into English gathered momentum. “Ginger comes from Malayalam in Kerala, travels through Greek and Latin into Old French and Old English, and then the word and plant become a global commodity. One landmark book records the etymology of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases. Long before the British Raj – before the East India Company acquired its first territory in the Indian subcontinent in 1615 – South Asian words from languages such as Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam and Tamil had crept onto foreign tongues. Loot, nirvana, pyjamas, shampoo and shawl bungalow, jungle, pundit and thug. What are the roots, and routes, of these Indian words? How and when did they travel and what do their journeys into British vernacular – and then the Oxford English Dictionary – tell us about the relationship between Britain and India? Image Credit:- Storypick Image Credits:- Storypick Image Credit:- Storypick Image Credit:- Storypick Image Credit :- Storypick

Little did we realize how it happened, but the contribution of India towards the English language cannot be overseen! The words that have become part of everyday English. India’s influence on the English language has been inconspicuous but major.