"Foreign" Words, One

       Yesterday's post prompted by linguist John McWhorter's  discussion of the prevalence of borrowed words in a language reminded me that I had done an essay on the same subject:


       Strange enough it is that one's own native language is made up completely of everyone else's language, but then to top it off, that one's own native city is made up of two tremendously divergent "foreign" tongues yoked together in a single word!?  I guess one should be scared to open one's mouth for fear of uttering allegiance to strange countries and climes.

       Almost every time you open your mouth to eat as well as to speak, you pay homage:  your morning orange juice, for example--"orange," the word you say you can't find anything to rhyme with, maybe because it's Sanskrit in origin; have a"banana," and while eating it, chew on its sources from the African languages:  Wolof, Mandingo, and Fulani.