Did You Know These Words Come From Chinese?

The word "tea" may sound as English as any other word in the language, but it actually from a Chinese dialect. In fact, the name for this beverage in most places around the world fall into three categories: cha, chai, or te, all three are different pronunciations of the same Chinese character 茶 in different dialects.

Rickshaw originates from the Sino-Japanese word jinrikisha, written in Chinese characters as 人力車 (人 = human, 力 = power or force, 車  = vehicle), which literally means "human-powered vehicle". Such  vehicles were extremely common in China, as well as other East Asian  countries in the early 1900s.

The root of "chop chop", with the meaning of "hurry up" in modern English, can be traced back to the Qing Dynasty, when British seamen first encountered Chinese fishermen in the South China Sea. The phrase is an English pidgin version of the Cantonese word "chok chok"(速速), similar to "快快" in Mandarin.

The earliest forms of the word, such as "touffon", later "tufan", "tuffon", and others were derived from  from Hindustani ṭūfān, which came from the Chinese word "tai fung" (台风). The modern spelling "typhoon" dates to 1820, preceded by "tay-fun" in 1771 and "ty-foong", all derived from the Chinese tai fung.