What core phenomenon about language does this compilation of quotes aim to illuminate, and how do the diverse perspectives (from trade records to ancient philosophy) collectively build a comprehensive understanding of it?

From the book

αθ' ἕκαστον ἔθνος ἰδιώματα ἀδύνατα εἰς ἄλλο ἔθνος διὰ φωνῆς σημαίνεσθαι "— Iamblichus , De Mysteriis , vii. cap. v. i.e. "For it is by no means always the case that translated terms preserve the original conception; indeed every nation has some idiomatic expressions which it is impossible to render perfectly in the language of another." "As well may we fetch words from the Ethiopians , or East or West Indians , and thrust them into our Language, and baptize all by the name of English , as those which we daily take from the Latine or Languages thereon depending; and hence it cometh, (as by…

ts which have been imported, such as loquot , leechee , chow-chow , cumquat , ginseng , &c. and (recently) jinrickshaw . For it must be noted that a considerable proportion of words much used in Chinese ports, and often ascribed to a Chinese origin, such as mandarin , junk , chop , pagoda , and (as I believe) typhoon (though this is a word much debated) are not Chinese at all, but words of Indian languages, or of Malay, which have been precipitated in Chinese waters during the flux and reflux of foreign trade. Within my own earliest memory Spanish dollars were current in England at a…

ich we have been tempted to introduce sundry subjects which may seem hardly to come within the scope of such a glossary. The words with which we have to do, taking the most extensive view of the field, are in fact organic remains deposited under the various currents of external influence that have washed the shores of India during twenty centuries and more. Rejecting that derivation of elephant which would connect it with the Ophir trade of Solomon, we find no existing Western term traceable to that episode of communication; but the Greek and Roman commerce of the later centuries has left its…

been taking note of such words, and that a notion similar to his own had also been at various times floating in my mind. And I proposed that we should combine our labours. I had not, in fact, the linguistic acquirements needful for carrying through such an undertaking alone; but I had gone through an amount of reading that would largely help in instances and illustrations, and had also a strong natural taste for the kind of work. This was the beginning of the portly double-columned edifice which now presents itself, the completion of which my friend has not lived to see. It was built up from…

hāna , buggy-khāna , 'et omne quod exit in' khāna , including gymkhāna , a very modern concoction (q.v.), and many more. Taking our subject as a whole, however considerable the philological interest attaching to it, there is no disputing the truth of a remark with which Burnell's fragments of intended introduction concludes, and the application of which goes beyond the limit of those words which can be considered to have 'accrued as additions to the English language': "Considering the long intercourse with India, it is noteworthy that the additions which have thus accrued to the English…