Animals, plants & weather

savanna

Oviedo recorded zavana, a Taíno word for treeless grassland, in 1535; English took it from Spanish twenty years later, French savane passed it to German and Russian, and it now names grasslands from Africa to Australia.

Weakest linkProbable

The road to English

From Spanish to French

From French to German

From French to Russian

From Spanish to Portuguese

From Spanish to Catalan

From English to Japanese

1535Taíno

Hops are evenly spaced; labels show the year each form is first attested.

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