Word
Where does Yogurt (the word) come from?
Yogurt comes from Ottoman Turkish yoğurt, built on a root meaning 'to thicken'. English travellers were writing it 'yughurd' by the 1620s, and the spelling still wobbles between yogurt and yoghurt.
More Words
Word
Tapir (the word)
📍 Atlantic coast of Brazil
Tapir comes from tapi'ira in Old Tupi, once spoken along Brazil's coast. Three tapir species live in the Americas, but the fourth, the black-and-white Malayan tapir, lives in Southeast Asia. Their closest living relatives are horses and rhinos.
Word
Boomerang (the word)
📍 Sydney region (Georges River), Australia
Boomerang comes from an Aboriginal language of the Sydney area, written down as 'bou-mar-rang' in 1822. Yet the oldest known boomerang, carved from a mammoth tusk, was found in a cave in Poland.
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Word
Spa (the word)
📍 Spa, Belgium
Spa is named after Spa, a small town in eastern Belgium whose healing springs drew visitors from 1326 on. The popular claim that it stands for the Latin 'sanitas per aquam', health through water, only appeared in the 21st century.
More from Asia
Nature
Siamese cat
📍 Thailand (formerly Siam)
Siamese cats come from Thailand, once called Siam, where old manuscripts of 'Cat-Book Poems' describe them. In the late 1870s the American consul in Bangkok sent one, named Siam, to President Rutherford B. Hayes: the first documented Siamese in the US.
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Invention
Chopsticks
📍 Ancient China (Yellow River plain)
Chopsticks come from ancient China, where they were first used mostly for cooking and for picking bits out of stews. Six bronze chopsticks about 3,200 years old were found in the Shang ruins near Anyang.
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Invention
Paper
📍 Northern China (Gansu to Luoyang)
The oldest paper scraps, from the 2nd century BC, were found in China, and Han court official Cai Lun refined papermaking around 105 AD. Egypt's papyrus was a different material.