20 English words you probably didn’t know were of Indian origin
April 9th, 2012 | Posted by in LanguageIt is common knowledge that English constantly borrows from languages all over the world. As a language, it is one of the most commonly evolving, with words in common dictionaries being replaced with almost every new publication. There are many words that are etymologically easy to dissect. Words like Cashmere, Guru, Jungle, Gymkhana, Pajamas, Bungalow are quite obvious in their origins. There are also some lesser known words like Junta, Cheetah, Cummerbund, Khaki (color of dust, in Urdu), Coolie(from the Tamil ‘Coolie’), Veranda, Loot, and of course, Yoga. I recall reading that bifurcate is of Indian origin too. I put together a few words a long time ago for my old blog, I hope they’re still surprising and interesting today.
- First one on our list is Juggernaut. As it sounds, it has its origins in the name of Lord Vishnu, Jagannath. (Wikipedia: During the British colonial era, Christianmissionaries promulgated a falsehood that Hindu devotees of Krishna were lunatic fanatics who threw themselves under the wheels of huge chariots in order to attainsalvation. In rare instances in the Jagannath yatra festival’s past, people had been crushed accidentally as the massive 45-foot-tall, multi-ton chariot slipped out of control, with others suffering injury in the resulting stampedes. This sight led the Britons of the time to contrive the word “juggernaut” to refer to examples of unstoppable, crushing forces.)
- Second one is on the list is the fruit drink Punch (made of fruit juices mixed with water or soda water, with or without alcohol). This word originates from pancha (Sanskrit), meaning ‘five’, because of the five ingredients used: spirit/soda, sugar, lemon, water and tea/spices.
- Bandana is borrowed from bandhna, to tie. (Hindi, Lucknow). Who expected we could put a word in the fashion dictionary before Padma Lakshmi was born!
- Remember the chits you used to take to your exam halls? Chit has its origins in Chitthi, a letter (Hindi).
- Mango. This is from ‘maangai’ in Tamil, for Mango.
- An animal makes it to the list too. Mongoose is from the Marathi word for the same, Mangus.
- A Malayalam word, Chakka, is what gave birth to Jack Fruit. More interestingly, Coir came from the Malayalam word kayaru, which in turn was borrowed from Kayir, Tamil.
- On a slightly dull, yet bright note, Opal is from Sanskrit Upalah. Another stone, Marakata, travelled all the way to the Greek language, and then Latin under the guise of smaragdus, and became the English Emarald.
- The scaly reptiles are here! Serpent is from the Sanskrit Sarpam.
- The next reptile has a weird avatar here. Apparently fashionable Victorian purses were made of crocodile skin. The Hindi word for croc is Magar/ mugger. Street robbers were thus called Muggers.
- Here’s a word you would not have expected. Sugar is from Middle Latin succarum, from Arabic sukkarand Persian shakar ultimately from Sanskrit sharkara.
- Another word for ‘sugar’ in Sanskrit is Khanda. This one travelled to Persia, and then to France as Sucre Candi, and then to England in the form of Candy.
- An interesting journey was made by Zen. Yes, it’s Japanese, for meditation. The Chinese called itch’an. And we called it, Dhyaana (Sanskrit).
- Rice is from where the most Rice is eaten (as far as popular jokes go, at least): in Tamil, it is arisi.
- When our elders wanted a massage, they would ask their slaves to champu (Hindi, verb) their scalp. Today, it led to Shampoo.
- In Tamil, money is called kaasu. In English, we call it, Cash.
- For the Chemistry geeks, Indians knew of a chemical and they called it Sulvari. In Latin, it became Sulfur. You know what it is now.
- Going back to the roots of English(or Maths): The numbers Eight and One are from their Tamil equivalents: yettu and onru.
- Going back to the roots of our own birth, two words that people all over the world use and are most sentimental about(at least on Facebook) are Mother and Father. They have their own roots in Sanskrit, Matru and Pitru.
- This word is the one I was most amazed about. In Tamil Nadu, people were terrified of large snakes that could swallow elephants whole. They called this snake, aanai kondan- literally meaning, elephant killer. The rest of the world seemed too lazy to invent a new word, so they simply anglicized the reptile to Anaconda.
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Haha! Informative post. Amazing how words originate from one language to other. Pancha and Punch Juice.
Also Anai Kondan = Anaconda . Mind == Blown