The word for “no” is pretty different from the English “no” in some languages. In Kichwa, you’d say “mana” or “ama,” depending on whether you want to say “no” to a statement or make a negative command (as in “no smoking” or some such thing.)
The Arabic for “no” is “la,” which sounds pretty different from its English counterpart.
Other “shared” words surely include various product names or names in general. Coca Cola is very universal (with limited local variations such as “coke” or “cola”).
Other words may be such words that are invented lately. E-mail (even if individual countries proudly try to localize it). As a Swede, I am proud of smorgasbord and ombudsman. BTW, “IKEA” is not “Swedish for common sense”.
Someone said the word “shus” (as in “be quiet”) should be the most universally used (according to a Swedish language researcher), but surely “ouch” and the variations “aooo” “aii” (when expressing pain) is more commonly used… (in spite of modern variations including SH_T! or F_CK!)
filemat
As to the Mexican use of poncho; I think it might be regional. My family is from central Mexico (the state of Hidalgo and Mexico City) and it’s not a word we used. (My mom used to laugh at this word when we lived in Michigan.) A blanket with a slit in it was something we called a jorongo (j is pronounced kind of like the ch in loch; accent is on the middle syllable). Sarape to us is any kind of traditional blanket.
And as for nicknames, in at least one of the families we know Poncho is a nickname for Alfonso.
GT
Okay, so I guess it varies…this is my idea of what a sarape (sorry about the spelling) is. Although my own family isn’t Mexican, I have close relatives who are and I’ve spent a lot of time there (mostly in Mexico City, where my family lives) and when I was a kid I often wore what we always called a sarape, but is what people in this thread seem to be defining as a poncho.
The word “fax” is known in a heckuva lot of countries.
I found an interesting cite in Spanish that talks about sarape and jorongo as being the same thing, but with the jorongo having a hole in it for the head. The source for sarape is apparently a Nahuatl (Aztec language) word combination. It talks of sarapes and jorongos as being used by charros (Mexican cowboys). It discusses poncho as a word that refers to those worn by Argentine gauchos. The Online Etymology Dictionary confirms poncho as a word with South American roots. Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary also cites the word’s Araucanian roots.
This English-language article from México Desconocido magazine talks about quite a few different words for blanket: “tilma, gabán, chamarro, jorongo, cotton, cobija and frazada.” The only one it mentions with a hole for the head is the jorongo. Doesn’t mention poncho at all.
Seems like there are quite a few words that are widely used in many languages but might have different names in one language. Avocado comes to mind. It’s an aguacate in most Spanish-speaking places, except in some parts of South America. Best part of the etymology is that the original Nahuatl word (ahuacatl) means testicle as well. In most other languages, it’s either avocado or something very similar to it. Here’s the Wikipedia entry with information about the names for avocado. Same deal with banana, which has a bunch of regionally-varying names in Spanish, but is generally something very like “banana” in most European languages I could find. Papaya and mango seem to be the primary names for these fruits in most European languages as well. (There are regional variations for both of these, but I think that these are the words everyone goes back to if they want to make sure someone from another country or region understands what they’re talking about.
Does anyone know words for these in non-European languages? I’m especially interested in mango since it’s cultivated in so many parts of the world.
GT
[QUOTE=Bambi Hassenpfeffer]
That’s an odd claim, given that I can think of 4 names for it in Spanish alone:
[ul][li] mamón (like Portuguese mamão, which is also not “papaya”), [/li][li]lechosa,[/li][li]fruta bomba (BOMB FRUIT! – my favorite), [/li][li]and papaya.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
So, papaya is not the/a word in Spanish for the English papaya? 
I looked up all three words in my Hebrew dictionary (only non-European language I know). None are listed. It’s probably not a very good example, though, since most words that aren’t in the Bible were simply stolen from other languages, usually English or Arabic.
Little anecdote on mangos: I think my mom must have first had mangos in Mexico, because to this day, she pronounces the word Spanish-style. (And my mom’s Spanish is pretty weak.) I think I was fifteen or sixteen when I realized that in English, we say it differently.
back at ya. The fourth word up there is “papaya”, so yes, that’s a word in Spanish for papaya. La papaya is the fruit; el papayo is the tree.
Oddly enough, mango means both mango and handle. Separate origins, same word.
However, in various Spanish-speaking areas (e.g. Puerto Rico), the mango fruit is called mangó, with stress on the end syllable, rather than the beginning.
As for poncho vs. sarape, that probably has a lot to do with whether there was already more than one native word for that particular thing before a standardization to Castillian.
I’m sorry. I was a bit addled yesterday. Let me start over…
My SO had claimed that papaya is one of those words that is the same in all languages. We later found a exception, a language that had a different word for papaya. I don’t remember which language that was.
Well, you can still throw Spanish at him if you want to, cause like I said there are at least three other words for papaya.
Okay, this is where I got confused. I don’t think having additional Spanish words for papaya takes anything away from the idea that papaya is papaya the world 'round.
The Chinese moms I know (a small sample, it’s true) use the “shhhhh” sound to get their babies to pee. It’s the running water thing. Rather a relevation for adoptive moms from the west, who get to China, get their wonderful new baby, try to deal with the first upset/cry and get peed on.
YMMV. 
In a lot of Eastern Europe, “paprika” refers to red or bell peppers of the sort you’d cut up for a salad or roasting or even black pepper. The spice paprika would be specified with a modifier IIRC. I found this equally confusing.
I don’t know about ponchos, avocados, or papayas, but “mango” comes from the same root in Cantonese: “mon guo.” I’m illiterate in Chinese, but I am assuming that the “guo” part of is the same “guo” that means “fruit” in words like “ping guo,” which means “apple.”
Banana is unrelated to the European root: “heung tsiu”