English words from non-English places

Two books I read recently were goldmines of word origins, a subject I find interesting.

In Hero of the Empire, Candice Millard's account of Winston Churchill's daring escape during the Boer War, she mentions the possible origins of such words as:

Early trench coats

trench coat — So called because British soldiers wore a similar coat designed by Thomas Burberry in the trenches in France during World War I. Earlier Burberry made gaberdine coats for soldiers fighting in South Africa.

sniper — In India, riflemen skilled enough to kill small birds called snipes were termed snipers.

khaki — Derived from a Urdu word for dust.

corral — The Boers got their word kraal from the Portuguese word curral, meaning a circular livestock enclosure. The English turned it into corral.

Tony Horowitz serves up even more word origins in A Voyage Long and Strange:

saga — It "stems from a Norse word for 'say,'" says Horowitz.

canoe — From the native word canoa, heard by Christopher Columbus.

hammock — Caribbean islanders called this swinging bed a hamaca.

tobacco — Islanders smoked rolled-up weeds, which they called tabacos.

cannibal — Natives told Columbus about a man-eating tribe called the Canibales.

hurricane — From the Taino word huracan.

barbecue — From the Taino word barbacoa.

Appalachian — There was an Indian tribe in Florida called the Apalachee.

moccasin — From the Algonquin word mockasin

tomahawk - From the Algonquin word tomahack.

raccoon — From the Indian word aroughcun.

Horowitz also suggests, without much conviction, that the Indian chammay, meaning friend, may be where the English got the word chum.