English is notorious for pickpocketing words from other languages and passing them off as its own. The number of words borrowed from other European languages easily reaches the thousands. But it doesnt stop there. Over centuries of exploration and conquest, English plundered words from languages around the globe, and continues to use words from languages that have long since gone extinct. The Americas are no exception. Here are ten English words that actually originate from Indigenous American languages.Original WordOrigin LanguageEnglish WordHuanuQuechuaGuanoCharkiQuechuaJerkyPunchu (or Pontho)Quechua (or Araucanian)PonchoChiliNahuatlChiliXocolatl (xocol + atl)NahuatlChocolateXacalliNahuatlShackHunraqan (or Huracan)Mayan KicheHurricaneSicarMayanCigarBarbakoaTanoBarbecueBatataTanoPotatoIndigenous Languages of the AmericasA Quechua-Spanish dictionary published in Lima, Peru in 1604. Source: Library of CongressBefore European conquest, over 1,000 known languages were spoken in what are today the Americas. In the centuries since Columbus first set sail, many of these languages have fallen out of use, while others remain widely spoken in Indigenous communities. It is estimated that 25 million people continue to speak one of the Americas Indigenous languages today, including Quechua, spoken by over seven million people, and languages like Chocho, spoken by fewer than 1,000 people in Mexico.It goes without saying that if one lands in a new place, spots a plant or animal never seen before and says, Hey, whats that? and someone responds, Its a Blimberhopper, well, thats what it is. But how and why foreign words are adopted into other languages is not always so clear-cut.And while its perhaps no surprise to discover Indigenous words peppering Spanish, the language of the culture that ultimately conquered most of Central and South America, there are hundreds of examples of these Indigenous languages infiltrating English as well.With the caveat that etymology is not an exact science, modern linguists have theoretically traced all ten of the following English words to the Indigenous languages of the Americas.High-Altitude South American Imports From QuechuaIllustration of Manco Capac, the last Inca, in Historia general del Piru by Martin de Mura, 1616, via Getty Museum & Research CenterQuechua, or Runasimi in Quechua itself, was spoken long before the Inca empire came to rule over present-day Peru and parts of Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador, and Chile. However, it was designated the official language of the empire (which, despite its strength and size, lasted just shy of 100 years), and its continued use was encouraged by Spanish colonizers through the mid-18th century. Today it is the most common Indigenous language family in South America and remains an official language in both Peru and Bolivia.Quechua is an agglutinative language. Instead of using long strings of separate words, it attaches suffix after suffix to a core root word. A single word in Quechua can express what takes an entire sentence in English.1. GuanoEnglish loves a good euphemism and often employs nicer sounding words for objectively gross things, so its no surprise English has a special word for seabird and bat excrement used for fertilizer: guano. What may be a surprise is that guano was actually borrowed from Quechua by the Spanish colonizers and ultimately adopted by the English as well.Huanu, the Quechua word for dung, was used to refer to the excrement-derived fertilizer from seabirds that populated the coast of what is today Peru and was highly prized and protected by the Incas.2. PonchoAll-Toqapu Tunic, Inca, 1450-1540. Source: Dumbarton Oaks Museum, Washington D.C.Given the rain, cold weather, and obvious need for wearable, water-resistant wraps in England and other parts of Europe, its a bit shocking that English had no word for such a garment and had to adopt someone elses.There are two main theories regarding the etymology of the word poncho, but both take us to South America, the birthplace of everyones favorite wearable blanket.Some etymologists trace poncho back to the Quechua word punchu, used for a woven blanket-style garment with an opening in the middle for the wearers head. Archaeologists have found evidence of woven ponchos in the Andes dating back thousands of years. Others believe the word comes from the Araucanian word pontho, meaning woolen fabric, used by the Mapuche in what is today Chile.3. JerkyWhat could be more American than beef jerky, a stick of dried meat you carry with you as you round up cattle on the prairie?Not only was the method of drying meat to create what we know today as jerky originally learned from the Incas, but the word itself also came from their language too. Charki is a Quechua word meaning dried flesh, and this simple method of preserving llama and alpaca meat took advantage of the regions mountain climate. Meat was salted and left to dry in the hot sun during the day and then frozen in the cold nights.Charki became charqui in Spanish and ultimately Anglicized as jerky.Culinary Staples Borrowed From NahuatlTribute roll from the Codex Mendoza, documenting tributes paid by towns conquered by the Aztec Empire, c. 1541. Source: Codex Mendoza, Instituto Nacional de Antropologa e HistoriaBefore the Spanish conquest, the people of the Aztec Empire spoke Nahuatl, a language, in various forms, still spoken by over a million people in what is today Central Mexico. Most linguists studying the language believe it actually originated in what is the present-day southwestern United States and spread south. So perhaps its northward trajectory into English is just a return to its roots?Like Quechua, Nahuatl compounds words, but it takes it a step further through polysynthesis. Instead of combining words in a sentence, Nahuatl glues nouns, verbs, adverbs, and pronouns into a single word-sentence.4. ChiliA hearty bowl of chili on a cold winters day is so delicious you probably never stopped to consider where the name came from.Chili is taken directly from the Nahuatl word chili, used for what we now call peppers. Some linguists like to specify that chili specifically referred to hot peppers, but as thats the only type of the fruit native to the Americas, its rather redundant, akin to saying pepper peppers.Though the exact origins of chili are unclear, it appears to have evolved from a variety of stews being consumed in what is now Mexico and Texas in the 18th and 19th centuries, in which chilis, often powdered, were the key ingredient. Todays chili often lacks the heat and spice that inspired its name, so one would be forgiven for not making the connection.5. ChocolateImage illustrating the ritual drinking of chocolate, Codex Borgia, c. 1500. Source: British Museum, LondonWhen one thinks of Mexican food, chocolate may not necessarily be the first thing that comes to mind. However, present-day Mexico is where Spanish conquistadors first encountered the delicious treat that soon spread around the world. The chocolatey sweets we consume today are dramatically different from the cold, bitter spiced cocoa beverage the conquistadors discovered Montezuma enjoying, but though the food has evolved, the name has remained more or less the same.Xocol means bitter in Nahuatl, and atl means water or drink, so the name is a literal description of what the Aztecs were consuming at the time. The word xocolatl may look quite different from chocolate, but when you factor in the way the letter x is pronounced in Nahuatl, a sound similar to the English sh, its not such a stretch to see how xocolatl transformed into chocolate over the centuries.6. ShackMuch like the object in question, this word origin explanation is a little shaky but still worth exploring. The first use of the word shack to describe a rickety hut is dated to the late 19th century in American English. However, a similar word was being used in Mexican Spanish, jacal, derived from the Nahuatl word for wooden hut: xacalli. We already know the Nahuatl x sound is similar to the English sh, and the Spanish j is pronounced as a guttural h sound, so its quite possible shack is an Anglicization of one or both of these words.The Many Languages of the MayaImages from the Dresden Codex, one of only four Mayan manuscripts still in existence, c. 1250. Source: Library of CongressMany different languages, dozens of which are still spoken today primarily in southern Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize, were spoken within the Maya civilization, which itself comprised various cultures and peoples living in Mesoamerica over a period of thousands of years. Mayan is the widely used umbrella term for all of the languages originating in this region and civilization, which include Kiche, Yucatec, and Mam, just to name a few.Though the decline of the Mayan civilization predated the arrival of the Spanish by several hundred years, smaller empires and cities were still thriving when the conquistadors arrived in the Yucatan, and loan words from their languages were readily adopted into Spanish and English.One of the defining features of Mayan phonetics is glottalized consonants (written with an apostrophe, like k, t, or p). To make these sounds, you briefly close your vocal cords (the glottis) and build up air pressure behind them, creating a sharp, popping pop sound when released.7. HurricaneIf you live on the East Coast of the United States, you know when hurricane season is, but between boarding up the windows and loading up sandbags, the origin of the word is probably the last thing on your mind. Not only is the word hurricane borrowed from the Maya, but it was also one of their gods.Hunraqan, one-legged in Mayan Kiche, or Huracan, was the god of wind, storms, and fire. When angered, he unleashed the violent storms the region is famous for, and they were named in his honor.The Tano people of the Caribbean also had a goddess who conjured up wild storms, or juracan, leading etymologists to suggest one culture adopted the word from the other. Hurricanes didnt exist where the Spanish had come from, so they adopted the Indigenous word, which was ultimately Anglicized as hurricane.8. CigarRelief featuring a Mayan priest or god smoking a cigar, Palenque, c. AD 600. Source: National GeographicWith angry gods unleashing punishing winds and torrential rains, the Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica no doubt needed to relax, perhaps with the aid of one of the Americas most famous native plants, tobacco.Tobacco was used for thousands of years throughout the Americas before the conquest. In Mayan civilization, it was used as an offering to the gods as well as medicinally and recreationally.While evidence of tobacco pipes and flasks in the pre-Columbian Americas has been discovered, the Maya were also documented to have rolled tobacco leaves for smoking and had a word for itsicar. This word was adopted by the Spanish as cigarro and ultimately by English speakers as cigar. In fact, some of the most expensive cigars available today are part of a collection of 600-year-old Mayan sicars discovered in Guatemala in 2012, which you can claim as your own for just a half million U.S. dollars!Caribbean Encounters and the Legacy of the Tano LanguageColumbuss first encounter with the Tano, in Christopher Columbus arrives in America by Johann Theodor de Bry, 1594, via Rijksmuseum, AmsterdamInca, Aztec, and Maya are perhaps the big three civilizations of the pre-Columbian Americas, but numerous smaller or more dispersed Indigenous groups and tribes thrived in the region before the conquest, and their languages were also ripe for the picking, particularly the earliest group to be encountered by Columbus, the Tano.The Tano were a subset of the Arawak Indigenous peoples who occupied the Caribbean island known today as Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Jamaica. Unfortunately, the Tano were exploited to the point of near extinction by Columbus and his men within just a few decades. Yet their influence remains in some of our most everyday items. You can thank the Tano for hot summer days spent swinging lazily in a hammock and even your favorite summer cookout tradition.Tano grammar and culture revolved around Cem, a word that simultaneously meant a deity, an ancestor spirit, and the physical object or carving through which that spirit was channeled. Communication with the cem occurred through ceremonial songs called aretos, which functioned as spoken oral histories, passing down laws, genealogies, and myths across generations.9. Barbecue Given the many millennia that humans have been cooking meat over fires, if one guesses the origin of the word barbecue, it would likely seem much older than it is. When the first Europeans stumbled upon the island of Hispaniola, they discovered the Indigenous inhabitants roasting meat in a unique way: on a rack of green wood over a fire. The word used for this wooden rack was barbakoa, though it was not specific to cooking; it was also the word used for the wooden racks they would sleep on.The Spanish conquistadors adopted both the word and the cooking style, lumped them together as one, and spread it throughout the Americas. The meats used and precise cooking methods differed depending on time and place, but the word for roasting meat on a rack over a fire remained more or less the same: barbacoa in Spanish and, ultimately, barbeque in English.10. PotatoIllustration of a Tano man in a hammock, from Historia general y natural de las Indias, islas y tierra firme del mar ocano by Gonzalo Fernndez de Oviedo y Valds, 1851, via Biodiversity LibraryPotatoes are known to have originated in what is today Peru, so why is the English word for them derived from an Indigenous Caribbean language?The first potato to reach Europe was what we now call sweet potato, which the natives of Haiti called batata and is actually unrelated to the many varieties of potato originating in Peru. When Peruvian potatoes made their way to Europe a few years later, they were similar enough in cultivation (both grow underground) and appearance that Europeans simply used the name they already had for starchy tubers. The Tano batata became patata in European Spanish and ultimately potato in English.In South America, potatoes were and continue to be called papas, the Quechua word for this native species, while the sweet potato is called camote in Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, and several other countries, a word that derives from Nahuatl.