A Wanderwort is a word that was spread among numerous languages and cultures, usually in connection with trade, so that it has become very difficult to establish its original etymology, or even its original language. The separation of wanderwörter from loanwords is not unambiguously possible, and they may be considered a special class of loanwords.

Examples

Typical examples of wanderwörter are sugar

Sugar

Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...

, ginger

Ginger

Ginger is the rhizome of the plant Zingiber officinale, consumed as a delicacy, medicine, or spice. It lends its name to its genus and family . Other notable members of this plant family are turmeric, cardamom, and galangal....

, copper

Copper

Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...

, silver

Silver

Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

, cumin

Cumin

Cumin is a flowering plant in the family Apiaceae, native from the east Mediterranean to India. Its seeds are used in the cuisines of many different cultures, in both whole and ground form.-Etymology:...

, mint, and wine

Wine

Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...

, some of which can be traced back to Bronze Age

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...

 trade.

Tea, with its maritime variant tea

Tea

Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...

and Eurasian continental variant chai (both variants have entered English), is a very illustrative example whose spread occurred very late in history: tea is from Hokkien

Hokkien

Hokkien is a Hokkien word corresponding to Standard Chinese "Fujian". It may refer to:* Hokkien dialect, a dialect of Min Nan Chinese spoken in Southern Fujian , Taiwan, South-east Asia, and elsewhere....

, specifically Amoy, from the Fujianese port of Xiamen

Xiamen

Xiamen , also known as Amoy , is a major city on the southeast coast of the People's Republic of China. It is administered as a sub-provincial city of Fujian province with an area of and population of 3.53 million...

, hence maritime, while cha (whence chai) is used in Cantonese and Mandarin. See Tea: etymology and cognates for further details.

Another interesting example is orange

Orange (word)

The word orange is both a noun and an adjective in the English language. In both cases, it refers primarily to the orange fruit and the colour orange, but has many other derivative meanings....

, which originated in a Dravidian language (likely Telugu

Telugu language

Telugu is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu...

 or Malayalam

Malayalam language

Malayalam , is one of the four major Dravidian languages of southern India. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India with official language status in the state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry. It is spoken by 35.9 million people...

), and whose likely path to English included, in order, Sanskrit, Persian, possibly Armenian, Arabic, Late Latin, Italian, and Old French. See Orange: etymology for further details.

Also noteworthy is the word arslan (lion) of Turkic origin, whose variants are now widely distributed from Hungarian, Russian, Manchu to Persian, although merely serving as personal names in some languages; used as Aslan

Aslan

Aslan, the "Great Lion," is the central character in The Chronicles of Narnia, a series of seven fantasy novels for children written by C. S. Lewis. He is the eponymous lion of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and his role in Narnia is developed throughout the remaining books...

 in the English novel series The Chronicles of Narnia

The Chronicles of Narnia

The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of seven fantasy novels for children by C. S. Lewis. It is considered a classic of children's literature and is the author's best-known work, having sold over 100 million copies in 47 languages...

.

Some ancient loanwords are connected with the spread of writing system

Writing system

A writing system is a symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in language.-General properties:Writing systems are distinguished from other possible symbolic communication systems in that the reader must usually understand something of the associated spoken language to...

s, an example would be Sumerian

Sumerian language

Sumerian is the language of ancient Sumer, which was spoken in southern Mesopotamia since at least the 4th millennium BC. During the 3rd millennium BC, there developed a very intimate cultural symbiosis between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespread bilingualism...

 musar,
Akkadian

Akkadian language

Akkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...

 musarum 'document, seal', apparently
loaned to Proto-Indo-Iranian

Proto-Indo-Iranian language

Proto-Indo-Iranian is the reconstructed proto-language of the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European. Its speakers, the hypothetical Proto-Indo-Iranians, are assumed to have lived in the late 3rd millennium BC, and are usually connected with the early Andronovo archaeological...

 *mudra- 'seal' (Middle Iranian

Iranian languages

The Iranian languages form a subfamily of the Indo-Iranian languages which in turn is a subgroup of Indo-European language family. They have been and are spoken by Iranian peoples....

 muhr, Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

 mudrā). Some even older, late neolithic

Neolithic

The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...

, wanderwörter have been suggested, e.g. Sumerian balag, Akkadian pilakku-, or PIE pelek'u- 'axe

Axe

The axe, or ax, is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood; to harvest timber; as a weapon; and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol...

'. However, Akkadian pilakku- really means 'spindle

Spindle

The term spindle may refer to:In textiles and manufacturing:*Spindle , a device to spin fibres into thread*Spindle , is the main rotating part of a machine tool, woodworking machine, etc...

', and Sumerian balag is properly transcribed balaĝ (ĝ stands for [ŋ]), means 'a large drum or harp' and was borrowed into Akkadian as balangu-.

A similar, more recent example is kitab "book", originally from Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

and now spread to nearly every language in historical contact with Islamic traders, including (among others) Swahili, Persian, Turkish, Hindi and Indonesian.