This is a list of words that have entered into the English language from the Turkic languages. Many of them came via traders and soldiers from and in the Ottoman Empire. There are some Turkic words as well, most of them entered English via the Russian language.
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Languages of Turkic peoples left numerous traces in different languages, including the English language. Turkic borrowings, which belong to the social and political vocabulary, are generally used in special literature and in the historical and ethnographical works, which relate to the life of Turkic and Muslim peoples. The ethnographical words are generally used in the scientific literature, and in the historical and ethnographical texts.
The adoption of Indian (principally Hindustani) words, among which there were some Turkic borrowings, became one of the ways for the words of the Turkic origin to penetrate English. Additionally, several words of Turkic origin penetrated English through Central or Eastern European languages like Russian and Polish. Albanian, German, Latin, Spanish, Italian, French, Hungarian and Serbo-Croatian were also intermediary languages for the Turkic words to penetrate English, as well as containing numerous Turkic loanwords themselves (e.g. Serbo-Croatian contains around 5,000 Turkic loanwords, primarily from Turkish [1] ).
In the nineteenth century, Turkic loanwords, generally of Turkish origin, began to penetrate not only through the writings of the travelers, diplomats and merchants, and through the ethnographical and historical works, but also through the press. In 1847, there were two English-language newspapers in Istanbul – The Levant Herald and The Levant Times, seven newspapers in French, one in German and 37 in Turkish. Turkish contributed the largest share of the Turkic loans, which penetrated into the English directly. This can be explained by the fact that Turkey had the most intensive and wide connections with England. Nevertheless, there are many Turkic loans in English, which were borrowed by its contacts with other peoples – Azerbaijanis, Tatars, Uzbeks, Kazakhs and Kirghiz.
Most of the Turkic loans in English carry exotic or ethnographical connotations. They do not have equivalents in English, do not have synonymic relations with primordial words, and generally are used to describe the fauna, flora, life customs, political and social life, and an administrative-territorial structure of Turkic regions. But there are many Turkic loans, which are still part of the frequently used vocabulary. Some Turkic loans have acquired new meanings, unrelated to their etymology.
To conclude, the words of the Turkic origin began penetrating English as early as the Middle Ages, the Turkic loanwords found their way into English through other languages, most frequently through French. Since the 16c, beginning from the time of the establishment of the direct contacts between England and Turkey, and Russia, in English appeared new direct borrowings from Turkic languages. German, Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, French, Arabic, Armenian, Afrikaans, Hungarian, Yiddish, Hindustani, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Malayan, to a different extent, took part in the process of the transfer of the Turkic words into English. The main language from which the borrowings were made, was Turkish.
A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically, which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, pronunciations, translation, etc. It is a lexicographical reference that shows inter-relationships among the data.
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Shashlik, or shashlyck, is a dish of skewered and grilled cubes of meat, similar to or synonymous with shish kebab. It is known traditionally by various other names in the Caucasus, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and from the 19th century became popular as shashlik across much of the Russian Empire and nowadays in the Russian Federation and former Soviet Union republics.
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Uşak carpets, Ushak carpets or Oushak Carpets are Turkish carpets that use a particular family of designs, called by convention after the city of Uşak, Turkey – one of the larger towns in Western Anatolia, which was a major center of rug production from the early days of the Ottoman Empire, into the early 20th century.
Irregardless is a word sometimes used in place of regardless or irrespective, which has caused controversy since the early twentieth century, though the word appeared in print as early as 1795. The word is mostly known for being controversial and often proscribed, and is often mentioned in discussions on prescriptive and descriptive lexicography.
Calpack, kalpak, or qalpaq is a Turkic high-crowned cap worn by Bulgarians, Turks, Circassians, Dagestanis, Chechens, Ukrainians, Poles, Russians and throughout Central Asia and the Caucasus.
A caïque is a traditional fishing boat usually found among the waters of the Ionian or Aegean Sea, and also a light skiff used on the Bosporus. It is traditionally a small wooden trading vessel, brightly painted and rigged for sail. The caïque is also a typical case of positioning the widest beam far aft, with a long sharp bow.
An orda or horde was a historical sociopolitical and military structure found on the Eurasian Steppe, usually associated with the Turkic and Mongol peoples. This form of entity can be seen as the regional equivalent of a clan or a tribe. Some successful ordas gave rise to khanates.
Turkoman, also known as Turcoman, was a term for the people of Oghuz Turkic origin, widely used during the Middle Ages. Oghuz Turks were a western Turkic people that, in the 8th century A.D, formed a tribal confederation in an area between the Aral and Caspian seas in Central Asia, and spoke the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family.
Slavicisms or Slavisms are words and expressions borrowed or derived from Slavic languages.