Borrowed words : a history of loanwords in English The rich variety of the English vocabulary reflects the vast number of words it has taken from other languages. These range from Latin Greek Scandinavian Celtic French Italian Spanish and Russian to among others Hebrew Maori Malay Chinese Hindi Japanese and Yiddish. Philip Durkins full and accessible history reveals how when and why. He shows how to discover the origins of loanwords when and why they were adopted and what happens to them once they have been. Publishers website