Populations and Languages probably already had a pre-existing word for help, water, food, before English became the trade language. When a new concept is introduced via English there is a chance the (simple) English word will be borrowed for that thing.
this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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Because you have the important words before you come into contact with another culture. You only borrow words you lack
Survival words, as you would expect, exist in every language and have existed in every language for a long long time, likely since their inception. It is rare for a word that has existed for a long time to be removed from the lexicon, especially for another languages word entirely (though it does happen).
A "taxi" as a concept is a relatively recent invention, meaning a word for it did not exist in any language before then. And by the time it was invented, the world was far more interconnected than it had once been. As such, many languages, instead of create a whole new word for this new concept, borrowed the word from the place that created it, which in this case spoke English.
A similar case exists for the word "okay". I don't know if it's just a legend or a true story, but supposedly it was a way that a former president use to give his approval on documents, stamping it with the "OK", which stood for Ol' Korral, his ranch. Regardless, "OK" (sometimes lengthened to "okay") became ubiquitous and synonymous in the US with approval or acceptance of something. Again, due to the connectiveness of the world that is only a recent development, relatively speaking, the new shorthand phrasing spread to languages where there wasn't already an equivalent. It is a handy shorthand way to express a sentiment of approval, so many we happen to adopt it wholesale.
There are similar words, phrases, and abbreviations we use in English as well, sometimes with some anglicized spelling or pronunciation, sometime just a straight carbon copy. Names of foods like "burrito" (Spanish), "beef" (French), "hors d'oeuvres" (French), "sushi" (Japanese), or "cookie" (Dutch). Concepts like schadenfreude (German), a metropolis (Greek), or avatar (Sanskrit). Phrases like "R.S.V.P." (i.e. "répondez s'il vous plaît", French), modus operandi (aka, "m.o.", Latin), Et Cetera (aka "etc.", Latin), and Faux Pas (French). The more connected the world is, the more language mixing we will have, especially as new concepts arise and are borrowed by others.
The origin of OK is unknown, but there are many many theories. My favourite one is that it's an abbreviated phonetisation of all correct - "ol korekt" based on some meme fad that people did at the time. Also apparently that was dock workers that were doing that, from which sailors caught it and they distributed it around the world.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/OK#etymonline_v_2557
Also, you reminded me of one of my favourite Wikipedia pages (see Examples section): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gairaigo_and_wasei-eigo_terms
The survival related ones came to have names because they are integral to survival. People needed to address them, and so they did. With local isolation or dialects or divergence.
Okay, taxi, cola became popular and expanded their reach. They did not arise in individual and dispersed areas, they traveled.
In a similar vein, this concept is useful to try and figure out where certain technologies were invented independently and where they spread through trade.
Taxi is something that travelers use a lot of. You fly into a foreign city that speaks a language you don't understand, but if the native population want to get your tourist money, they better know what you call a "car for hire" service. Seems like it is an easy word to say that could be quickly adopted by most languages for economic reasons.
Plus, cars have only been around for just 100 years, so there is no historic word for a taxi that goes back 1000 years. Every language would need to create a new word for that service, so might as well just adopt what other languages use. The same is true for a lot of technology terms. For instance, I know the word "computer" is very similar in Greek, Spanish, Italian, Russian and probably a ton of other languages.
It's easy to just use sign language for those.
Waving your arms frantically, and miming a drink or eating food are pretty universally understood.