Then, with a little reflection, I started to think about what would happen to English if I judged it by this same standard:
The Spaniard could remind me "banana," "cafeteria," "hurricane," "jerky," "mosquito," "potato," "ranch," "stampede," "tomato," and "vanilla," are not English words. They are Spanish.
A German could remind me that "angst," "blitz," and "kindergarden," are not English words. They are German.
A Frenchman would have to stop me every time that I used, "abbreviation," beast," "campaign," "damage," "eager," "fabric," "generosity," "honor," "ignore," "jacket," "kiosk," "language," "mask," "note," "orange," "palace," "quit," "real," "sauce," "taste," "unique," "villain," or "wage."
In fact, the Frenchman could remind me that over 30% of English vocabulary originated from French.
We won't even ask the Greeks and the Latins to chime in to tell us how many words we got from them.
So, stepping back from my language provincialism, I came to see that "Dabo deka" (double decker), "picha" (picture), and "futi" (tape measure, from the standard measurement of a foot) are not English words. They are Swahili words that came from English, just like most of my English vocabulary came from some other language.
In fact, I even had to borrow the title for this post ("language," from Old French; "borrow," from German).
So, can anyone tell me from what English word did the Swahili word "pancha" originate?
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