words wholly related

horde & urdu

english is a dirty whore who will sleep with just about any other language out there. because of longstanding affairs with latin and french and greek and german, there are trillions and trillions of english words that are wholly related to trillions of other english words. english’s relationship with the the turkī language (spoken by the turks of eastern turkestan) was a one night stand at best and even then it was more of a sloppy liaison in a gas station men’s room than anything substantial. this is why it is all the more spectacular that enough words from turkī have trickled into english that two of them are actually wholly related.

horde comes from the turkī word ordā which means “camp.” urdu, the major language of pakistan was named for its birthplace, the urdu bazaar (literally, military camp market) in delhi, india.

bonus relationship: were i to start a feature entitled, languages wholly related, i would note that even though urdu and hindi are written in totally different scripts and draw vocabulary from separate sources, they are basically the same language: hindustani.