“Cocoa” is an example of a loanword─that is, a word that originated in one language and was later adopted by another. The word came to English indirectly from cacao, the Spanish word for the plant that chocolate is made from. Spanish had borrowed it from Nahuatl, an Indigenous language of Central Mexico, in which the world's original form is cacahuatl. "Iguana" is also Indigenous in origin and entered English through Spanish. But in this case, the original source was Taino, a language of the Caribbean islands, in which the word for the group of related lizard species is twana.
The author makes which point about the Spanish language?
Explanation
Context: The text traces two loanwords: "cocoa" reached English from Spanish cacao, which Spanish took from Nahuatl, and "iguana" reached English through Spanish after Spanish borrowed it from Taino. The task is the point the author makes about Spanish.
Answer: A) It has served as a medium through which Indigenous languages have influenced English.
Why? Both examples follow the same route, from an Indigenous language into Spanish and from Spanish into English. That makes Spanish the intermediary carrying Nahuatl and Taino words into English vocabulary.
Traps:
- B) No totals are given for Spanish or for Indigenous languages, so nothing supports a claim that their contributions are roughly equal.
- C) The passage shows Spanish borrowing from Nahuatl and Taino, but never shows Spanish words passing into those languages.
- D) Two individual words are not counts; the text never compares how many words Spanish took from each language.