3 highlights
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The English adventurer and buccaneer William Dampier, traveling around the world in the 1690s once found himself on the southeastern coast of India, in Tamil Nadu. He was the first to write in English about a kind of vessel he observed there. It was little more than a raft made of logs. The word Catamaran, a yacht or boat with two parallel hulls, is derived from the Tamil word, kattumaram, for tied wood. Incidentally, Dampier introduced many words to the English including avacado, chopsticks, cashew and barbecue
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The word Thug comes from the Hindi word thag referring to ‘thief’, based on the Sanskrit word sthagati meaning ‘he conceals’. There was a steady rise in the use of the word in the English language after the book ‘Equator: Journey Around the World’ was published in 1897 where Mark Twain reports of a criminal network called ‘Thugee’, that operates on Indian roads and victimized travelers.
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Few more words that have entered the lexicon via India include bandana, which derives its name from the Hindi word bandhana, dekko which means a quick glance, derived from the Hindi word dekho, and several others such as jungle, pyjama, cashmere, and bungalow.