The universal language

"OK" is the most frequently spoken word on the planet, and these 9 follow

Learning languages is hard. But, fortunately, some terms rooted in daily universal experiences don't change much when crossing borders. If you say "mama, "papa," "taxi," or "banana," anywhere in the world, they’ll recognize those nouns immediately —even if the context provided is entirely blurry. The question is: Why did these words barely change over time and across different languages? Let’s explore the stories behind the most spoken words on the planet.

"OK" is the most spoken word on the planet. And it started as a typo joke. In 1839, the initials "O.K." were first published in the Boston Morning Post, meant as an abbreviation for "oll korrect" — a popular slang misspelling of "all correct."

Following that gag, politics intervened. In 1840, President Martin Van Buren's reelection supporters formed "O.K. Clubs" across the country, since Van Buren was nicknamed "Old Kinderhook" after his hometown in upstate New York. From there, telegraphs carried it coast to coast, and eventually it spread from North America all the way to the Moon, where Buzz Aldrin spoke it after the Apollo 11 landing.

Is it a real word? According to science, it is. In 2013, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics investigated "huh?" in naturally occurring conversations across ten languages and presented evidence for two claims. One, the term is universal. Two, it is genuinely a word.

They later expanded the study to 31 spoken languages from around the world and found that all of them have a word with a nearly identical sound and function as the English "huh?" With all its nuances and differences, most human languages on Earth independently arrived at similar rising syllables for not understanding something in conversation.

Why do unrelated languages, spoken by people who never met, use almost identical words for "mother" and "father"? In Swahili: mama. In Polish: mama. In Mandarin Chinese: māma. In Quechua, spoken in the Andes of South America: mama. This mystery puzzled linguists for generations.

This isn’t a case of cognates (words borrowed from one language to another). The answer here lies in babies: "mama" and "papa" are among the easiest sounds to produce, because they combine bilabial consonants and open vowels. "Mmm" is often the first consonant babies experiment with.

The term "hello" had floated around English since the 1820s, mainly as a shout to get someone’s attention, like "hey" or "oi." But it was barely more than that before telephones existed.

Then, in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, and it was time to decide what callers should say when they picked up. Bell himself suggested the traditional nautical hail, "Ahoy." It was Thomas Edison who suggested "Hello!" in a letter dated 1877. By 1889, telephone operators had become widely known as "hello-girls." By then, the greeting had jumped to everyday conversation, and eventually every language on Earth picked up a version of it.

It is said that "Coca-Cola" is one of the most recognizable terms on the entire planet, much like the word "OK." This makes sense: the soft drink is sold in more than 200 countries. The name wasn’t the result of a marketing team or a focus group. It was coined in 1886 by the company’s bookkeeper, Frank M. Robinson, who derived it from the drink's two original ingredients: coca leaf and kola nut.

The drink was invented in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1886 by Dr. John S. Pemberton, who originally marketed it as a medicinal tonic. Today, approximately 1.9 billion servings of Coca-Cola beverages are consumed each day, so wherever in the world you are, the brand needs absolutely no introduction.

The word "coffee" has traveled far. Its story starts in the Ethiopian highlands with a by-now popular legend that depicts a 9th-century goat herder who noticed his goats wouldn’t sleep after eating berries from a certain bush. Thus, the idea of the drink made from those berries spread in Ethiopia.

From there, it moved to Yemen, where it was documented in a 15th-century text as a drink made from roasted coffee beans. It was assigned the Arabic word qahwa, which traveled with the drink. The product was traded by the Ottomans, who influenced several other languages, and from it derived the Italian caffè, the Dutch koffie, and the French café. So, the term has mutated slightly in each language, but it remains similar enough to identify it easily all over the world.

Every night, hundreds of millions of people all over the world put on a Persian garment with a Persian name. The word "pajamas" comes from the Persian pay-jāma, a compound of pay (foot or leg) and jāma (garment). In 15th-century Persia, it referred to loose trousers worn by men and women for comfort, and the term entered English in the 18th century when British colonists encountered the garment in India.

But the original pajamas were not sleepwear for a long time. Victorian high society adopted them as fashionable, exotic loungewear, and it was by the early 20th century that the two-piece sleeping suit had spread across the Western world. Today, most countries in the world have very similar names for this garment.

"Safari" is the name for a very specific activity. For many tongues in the world, the word itself conjures jeeps, binoculars, lions, and zebras.

But its original meaning was distant from the current one. It comes from the Arabic safara, which means "to travel." In Swahili, safari simply means any kind of journey, not just a wildlife expedition. For the English language, it was first recorded by explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1859. British colonists in East Africa understood the word to apply to hunting expeditions, and, by the middle of the 20th century, Hollywood had cemented its modern image with films romanticizing the African bush.

Today, Apple’s decision to name its search engine "Safari" brings the term closer to its original meaning than to the one related to wildlife exploration.

Banana is one of the most consumed fruits on Earth, and its name has traveled with it. The word "banana" first appeared in English in the 1590s, borrowed by Spanish or Portuguese explorers from a West African word, possibly from the Wolof language, spoken in what is today Senegal and Gambia.

Most historians sustain that Africans began harvesting the fruit at least 4,500 years ago. When Portuguese and Spanish ships began trading across the world in the 15th and 16th centuries, they encountered the fruit, borrowed its African name, and carried both across the Atlantic. Today, the word sounds remarkably similar in many languages: banana in English, Spanish, Italian, and German; banane in French; 바나나 (banana) in Korean.

From Buenos Aires to Bangkok, you can step off a plane having never spoken a word of the local language, hold out your hand, and say one word: "Taxi." You will get the exact same thing. But the story of this two-syllable word is a tangle of countries and languages.

The original word was "taximeter," coined by German inventor Friedrich W. G. Bruhn in 1891. This was a device that measured the fare by distance. It was the French who shortened taximètre to taxi. A company imported them to New York under the market name "Taxicab" and decided to paint them yellow, since it was the most visible color. From there, both the short name and the iconic color stuck. Today, it is a symbol universally shared that you’ll find in every major city.

Deep roots

11 everyday words with indigenous roots

English is a very welcoming language in the sense that it incorporates terms from many other languages from all over the world. And, as it couldn’t be otherwise, Native American languages have lent many of their words and terms to English speakers. Some traveled through Spanish or French before settling into English, and others arrived directly through early contact and trade, helping shape the way we speak today. Did you know about these 11 terms?

The word "canoe" comes from the Taino term canoa, which was first used by Caribbean islanders long before Europeans arrived. Early explorers adopted it to describe the slim, sturdy boats they saw.

Over time, "canoe" became the standard English word for a small paddled craft. Today it still carries that sense of simplicity and closeness to nature.

The word "barbecue" comes from barbacoa, another Taino term for a wooden frame used for cooking meat over fire. Europeans adopted it and applied it to both the method and the gathering itself.

Today, "barbecue" means everything from a backyard cookout to a regional cooking style. Its origins highlight the deep culinary influence of Native Americans in the nation's current culture.

"Skunk" comes from the Algonquian word squnk, which means "urinating fox" (quite a fitting term, indeed). This was an obvious reference to the animal’s strong defensive spray. Early settlers adopted the term directly.

Since English had no better name for the creature, the Native word stuck. Today, the word skunks is also used as playful slang.

The word "moose" originates from Eastern Abenaki, a part of the Algonquian family, where it meant "he strips off bark." Yes, it described the animal’s habit of tearing bark from trees.

The name entered English quickly because settlers relied on Native knowledge of local fauna. The word remains unchanged because of its accuracy and usefulness.

"Raccoon" comes from the Powhatan word arakun, meaning "he scratches with his hands." It described the animal’s clever, humanlike front paws.

Settlers adopted the term because it captured the creature’s behavior beautifully. Today, the raccoon is used as a household symbol of curiosity, not unlike the animal itself.

The term "chipmunk" most probably comes from the Ojibwe word ajidamoo, which means "one who descends trees headfirst." Early English settlers adapted the sound into today’s form.

Though the spelling changed over time, the lively image of a chipmunk racing down a tree face-first stayed.

The word "caribou" comes from the Mi’kmaq term qalipu, which means "snow shoveler," referring to the animal’s habit of digging through snow for food.

French settlers brought the word into English, keeping its descriptive nature. The name still connects the modern animal to the winter landscapes it belongs to.

"Totem" comes from the Ojibwe word ototeman, which means "kinship group." It described symbols representing clans and shared roots.

English adopted it to describe carved poles and symbolic elements. Though broader in modern usage, it still hints at the original sense of community, identity, and heritage.

"Coyote" comes from the Nahuatl word coyōtl, which was used by Indigenous tribes of central Mexico. Spanish speakers adopted it, and English borrowed later.

The word kept its meaning, and it remains one of the most direct links between the English language and Nahuatl.

The tasty avocado’s name traces to the Nahuatl word ahacatl, which refers to the fruit and to a body part as well. Spanish speakers transformed it into aguacate.

Later on, English speakers adapted it to avocado. While the name sounds contemporary and culinary, it has ancient Native roots.

The last Nahuatl word and also the last word on the list comes from the term xocolātl, which describes a bitter cacao drink that was consumed long before Europeans arrived in America. The name traveled from Spanish to English.

Though the product changed dramatically, the word survived. Today, chocolate is a universal symbol of sweetness, with rich and deeply indigenous roots.