English has the wonderful habit of collecting words from all the places and people it meets. One such area is the Indian subcontinent. For centuries, English speakers encountered new items, customs and ideas while on the subcontinent as a result of trade, colonial rule, migration and cultural contact. Now, there are numerous words in English that are so naturalised that we often forget their connection to India. Some examples include shampoo, bungalow, pyjamas and loot.
The word loot is a great example to illustrate the connection English has to historical events and to show how customs and words of colonial subjects can enter English. Loot is Hindustani for ‘plunder’ and ‘valuables’ and came to English via the Indian subcontinent. The first recorded use of loot in English was in 1825. However, it gained wider circulation after 1857 as a result of the Mutiny and subsequent reports. Its history is a great example of the connection between language, politics and history.
How Colonial Encounters Changed English
From around the 1600s, the English speakers working in India were required to describe a variety of new foods, clothes, houses and social and administrative arrangements. Contact between British and Indian people led to both verbal and written exchanges.
The army provided another main avenue for transmission, but this time words entered English without passing through a Hindustani version. These exchanges also included the periodicals, stories and plays of the time.
We also need to keep in mind that direct Hindustani-to-English exchanges were not the only ways words were borrowed from Hindi. This was also the case with words of Arabic and Persian origin, as well as other Indian languages. Their histories therefore reflect the multilingual character of the subcontinent rather than a simple exchange between two languages.
Why Loot Became an English Word
The word loot comes from the Hindi word lūṭ, which means plunder or the act of robbing. The history of loot is older than the event that most people think of when they hear about loot: the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
Oxford University Press says that the Oxford English Dictionary has a citation for loot from the year 1788. Loot was already used in Indian speech long before it became common in Britain. Historians say that wars, such as the Indian Rebellion of 1857, helped spread loot to English speakers.
It is important to note that 1857 was not the first time loot appeared in English. Instead, that year was part of the background that made British listeners hear loot often.
Later, loot became an English word for valuables taken by force or by theft. Loot's meaning grew into talk, where people use it to mean money or goods taken sometimes illegally. A word that started in time has now become ordinary in English.
Bungalows, Pyjamas and Juggernauts
Many other common English words have stories like this.
The word bungalow comes from Gujarati bangalo and Hindi bangla, both meaning a house in the style of Bengal. It first described a type of home from that region. Later it spread into English to describe a kind of house.
Pyjamas came into English from Hindustani, which borrowed it from pāy-jāma, meaning leg clothing. It originally referred to trousers worn in South Asia. Europeans saw people wearing these trousers. They began using them as sleepwear. The word entered everyday English.
Then there is juggernaut, coming from Jagannath, the Hindu god who is worshipped in Puri in Odisha. The word came into English because of the contact that happened during the time when the British were in India and saw the Jagannath tradition and the big Rath Yatra parade.
As time went on, the word started to mean something. It now refers to a big and strong force that seems hard or impossible to stop.
Other words that are connected to the area include jungle, thug, dacoit, cot, dinghy, chutney and cheetah. Each of these words has its history. Not every one of them can be linked directly to Hindi. Still, when you look at all of them together, they show the ways through which language takes in experiences from other cultures.
The Exchange Continues
The flow of words between India and English did not stop when the British left. Today, Indian English keeps adding expressions that come from cultures, how people relate to each other and everyday life.
In 2017, the Oxford English Dictionary added 70 words in one update. These included jugaad, dadagiri, achcha, timepass and gulab jamun. At that time, the dictionary listed 900 words that were special to Indian English. These numbers show what the dictionary had at that time, not the number of words that come from India in the English language.
Such additions show that dictionaries do more than just keep words safe. They also record how language changes over time. As Indian English grows through books, movies moving between countries and online chats, new phrases keep spreading to people.
More Than Words
The past of words like loot, shampoo, bungalow and pyjamas tells us that language doesn’t stay within borders. Words move with people, things, traditions and big moments in history. Along the way, they often change what they mean.
So the effect of languages on English isn’t just about where words come from. It’s a sign that language mixing's part of a bigger story of culture meeting. That story includes colonial times and also simple daily conversations.
A word can travel across oceans, lose some of its meaning and become so common that no one remembers where it started. Still, its history stays in the language. English might have taken its words to the world. It also brought back words from the places it met.
References:
- Oxford University Press — Loot – Podictionary Word of the Day
- British Council — 70 Words Project: How Words Enter a Language
- Royal College of Surgeons of England — Sake Dean Mahomed and the Benefits of Shampooing
- Oxford University Press — The Origins of the Juggernaut
- DD News — From Abba to Dadagiri and Gulab Jamun, 70 Indian Words Added to Oxford Dictionary
- NDTV — Bapu, Mata, Devi, Didi Among Newly Included Indian Words