List of English words of Czech origin / Seznam anglickych slov prevzatych z cestiny

As I have said many times in the past, without the Czechs, people would be still dancing naked around the fire like they were  in the Neanderthal era. This list is yet another proof of this:  English words that were originated from the Czech language (take that!!!!):

CZ: Jak jsem rekla jiz mnohokrat v minulosti, bez Cechu by lide na celem svete stale tancovali jako neadrtalci kolem ohne. Nize uvideny list je toho dalsim dukazem: anglicka slova prevzata z ceskeho jazyka (diky za typ, Vlastiku!):

* Absurdistan (in Czech Absurdistán) – word created by Eastern Bloc dissidents, passed into English mainly through works of Václav Havel.
* Budweiser – after Budweis, the German name of Budějovice, a city in southern Bohemia
* dollar – from German thaler, a nickname for the silver coins that were minted from the ore found in Jáchymov in western Bohemia, called Joachimsthal in German (literally Joachim’s Valley)
* háček – a diacritical mark, literally “little hook”, e.g. č is letter c having háček. Also known as “caron”.
* howitzer – from houfnice, a 15th century Hussite catapult; houf meaning crowd or band

* kolache – from koláč or koláček.

* pils, pilsner, pilsener – after Pilsen, the German name of Plzeň, a Czech city. The name of the city is derived from Old Czech plz (damp, moist).[1]
* pistol – from píšťala, an 15th century Hussite firearm (disputed-alternative sources have been suggested)
* polka – from Polák or polský, a Czech dance named in remembrance of the November Uprising of 1830; or from Půlka, in English half because of its tempo
* remoska – is a small electrical cooker made in Czech republic, sold and well-known in UK. Its origin is in the name of company which made it – REMOS which is abbreviation (revize, elektro, montáže, opravy, servis = revisions, electro, assembly, repairing, service).
* robot – from Czech robota (labour, drudgery), introduced in Karel Čapek’s play R.U.R. from the 1920s.
* semtex – a plastic explosive named after Semtín, part of the city of Pardubice, Czech Republic, location of its manufacturer.
* tunelling – a colloquial term for financial fraud committed by company’s own management or major shareholders. Widely used in the Czech Republic (and Slovakia) since the first half of 1990s to describe the massive asset stripping during transition from planned economy.

Sometimes you can read, that hocus-pocus is of Czech origin, because pokus means trial. But its just a coincidence, its origin is in latin.

PS: This list was recommended to me by one of the avid Czechmate Diary readers and also one of the greatest commentators this blog – Vlastimil. Thank you, Vlastiku!

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Czech_origin