<P> Trade items such as borax, coffee, cotton, hashish, henna, mohair, muslin, saffron; Islamic religious terms such as jihad, hadith and sharia; scientific vocabulary borrowed into Latin in the 12th and 13th centuries (alcohol, alkali, algebra, azimuth, cipher, nadir); plants or plant products originating in tropical Asia and introduced to medieval Europe through Arabic intermediation (camphor, jasmine, lacquer, lemon, orange, sugar); Middle Eastern cuisine words (couscous, falafel, hummus, kebab, tahini). </P> <P> Cardinal numbering in English follows two models, Germanic and Italic . The basic numbers are zero through ten . The numbers eleven through nineteen follow native Germanic style, as do twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, and ninety . </P> <P> Standard English, especially in very conservative formal contexts, continued to use native Germanic style as late as World War I for intermediate numbers greater than 20, viz., "one - and - twenty," "five - and - thirty," "seven - and - ninety," and so . But with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the Latin tradition of counting as "twenty - one," "thirty - five," "ninety - seven," etc., which is easier to say and was already common in non-standard regional dialects, gradually replaced the traditional Germanic style to become the dominant style by the end of nineteenth century . </P> <P> Linguistic purism in the English language is the belief that words of native origin should be used instead of foreign - derived ones (which are mainly Romantic, Latin and Greek). "Native" can mean "Anglo - Saxon" or it can be widened to include all Germanic words . In its mild form, it merely means using existing native words instead of foreign - derived ones (such as using "begin" instead of "commence"). In its more extreme form, it involves reviving native words that are no longer widely used (such as "ettle" for "intend") and / or coining new words from Germanic roots (such as word stock for vocabulary). This dates at least to the inkhorn term debate of the 16th and 17th century, where some authors rejected the foreign influence, and has continued to this day, being most prominent in Plain English advocacy to avoid Latinate terms if a simple native alternative exists . </P>

Why does the english language contain so many words from other cultures