E-Tamil-ogy

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This was going to be a post about the dreaded E word (“exotic,” in case you’ve erased it from your memory) and its usage on me the other day, accompanied by excessive and unwelcome flirtation. However, recalling the incident renders me ill and sorely tempted to post the guy’s name and contact information here – bad move.

Instead, I’ll celebrate the language percolated down from my ancestors – Tamil, and its offerings to English – and linguistics in general. No, I don’t mean Tam-glish, with terms like shamachu-fy1 or “An’one see my pie?”2 but actual English words that originate in Tamil like catamaran and orange. Tamil Contributions To The English Language contains a list of terms derived from Tamil. The crux of this post is not glorifying Tamil, as the list seems to (“the great antiquity of the Tamil civilization”), but to celebrate the transmutation of language, all languages, when in contact with another. Our ancestors got around a lot more than the current understanding of history allows for and this is evident in language. While physical proof of such contact has been absent, destroyed or undiscovered, how we communicate via our vocal chords is the living evidence of cultural evolution.

For instance, the Italian word for key is chiavi, also the Tamil word for the same item (chaavi – Hindi, llave – Spanish, taste – German, tecla chave – Portuguese, clef – French, nøkkel – Norwegian, sleutel – Dutch). There is one of two possibilities for this coincidence – that the word was coined in one place and carried to another, or that the same word was invented separately in two different places to describe the same thing. Given that a significant majority of the world speaks Indo-European languages, I vote for the former theory.

Language is fascinating, as are dialect, accent and semantics. I feel honored to live in a part of the United States where so many collide. The ethnic geography of Brooklyn on the Bayou is so intricate that navigating it requires the knowledge of several Romance languages and a few African ones, too. In the end, you get used to the speak and the fact that we’re all in the same pot of gumbo no matter where we originated.

1 Shamachu-fy: To cook. I’d love to go out, but have to shamachu-fy for relatives arriving tomorrow.
2 An’one see my pie?: Has anyone seen my bag?

57 thoughts on “E-Tamil-ogy”

  2. Thanks Maitri, for posting on one of my favorite subjects. A few days ago I was discussing the word ferengi with a scientist I know, a very smart guy. I said, “I thought it was Malaysian, because there’s this place in Malaysia called Batu Ferengi. But then I learned it’s Hindi, so it must have come from India to Malaysia.” He looked perplexed for a minute, then said, quite earnestly: “I thought it was Klingon.”

  3. But then I learned it’s Hindi, so it must have come from India to Malaysia.

    ahem… I believe the post is about Tamil contributions to English 🙂

  4. Maitri,

    Apropos..here’s a quiz: -)

    Q1. Identify the word for a fruit

    From 545 to the 15th c., Europeans knew it only as the Indian nut or ‘nut of India’. The Portuguese and Spanish authors of the 16th c. agree in identifying the word with the Portugese and Spanish word for ‘grinning face, grin, grimace’, also ‘bugbear, scarecrow’. The name being said to refer to the face-like appearance of the base of the shell, with its three holes. Historical evidence favours the European origin of the name, for there is nothing similar in any of the languages of India, where the Portuguese first found the fruit.

    Q2. Identify the word

    It originates from the Turkish word for adventurer, guerilla. ‘In India it became common in sense of predatory horseman, freebooter’. It is a name for the warlike Turkish people now subject to Russia, occupying the parts north of the Black Sea. From them the Poles organized a body of light horsemen, in which capacity they formed an important element of the Russian army.

    Q3. This affliction characterized by an unbalanced state of mind, originated in Deolali, Maharashtra among the services. Deolali had a mental institution. Identify the term.

    Q4. During the days of the East India Company, what was an “Indiaman”?

    Q5. Arguably, the mother of all sitters in terms of quiz questions: Ya Hasan! Ya Hussain! The Anglicized form of these repeated wailings and cries of Muslims as they beat their breasts in the Muharram procession; hence this festal ceremony. Which term in English?

    Q6. This word originates from the Tamil word kurundam, in Telugu kuruvindam, Hind kurun; Sanskrit. kuruvinda. It is a crystallized mineral belonging to the same species as the sapphire and ruby, but opaque or merely translucent, and varying in colour from light blue to smoky grey, brown, and black. What word?

    Q7. It is a word for a small boat, wherry-boat. Originally, a native rowing-boat in use upon Indian rivers; of various sizes and shapes, resembling sometimes a canoe, sometimes a wherry. In the West of India applied to a small sailing-boat used on the coast. What type of boat are we referring to?

    Q8. A venomous snake of the genus Bungarus, common in Bengal. Any more clues will be a dead giveaway. Name the snake.

    Q9. Another sitter. The root of this word is from Sanskrit. A generic name for all grades of Chinese officials; there were nine ranks, each of which was distinguished by a particular kind of ‘button’. [Chinese kwan.] Formerly extended to other Asiatic officials. What word?

    Q10. In Hindi it was “marka”, in Sanskrit the word for ape is “markaa”. What is the current English word for an animal, derived from a possible perversion of these names?

    Q11. The native country of this fruit appears to have been the northern frontier of India, where wild fruits of this type are still found, and the name may have originated there. Ironically, the word may have got modifed in Tamil, then migrated to Europe and made it back to Tamil in a re-modifed form. Which fruit?

    Q12. The English word for this fruit is actually from the Arabic for ‘date of India’. It is a brown pod containing one to twelve seeds embedded in a soft brown or reddish-black acid pulp, valued for its medicinal qualities, and also used in cookery as a relish, etc.

    Q13. Obscure phrase in English derived from the Hindi thik hai – all right; It means “In order, correct, satisfactory.” Lord Mountbatten, now Governor General of India, is credited in the New York Times Magazine (June 22, 1947, p. 45) with ‘giving currencyÂ’ to the phrase. This Royal Navy term for ‘okayÂ’ is derived from the Hindustani.

    Q14. Originally introduced from India, where the word is found in several of the native languages, It is the word for an open portico or light roofed gallery extending along the front (and occas. other sides) of a dwelling or other building, freq. having a front of lattice-work, and erected chiefly as a protection or shelter from the sun or rain. What word?

  5. This post reminded me of the time I walked into a hospital cafeteria in Tucson, AZ and had a laugh when I saw that one of the soups of the day was:

    Mullitagawny Soup

    Mulligatawny soup is derived from (Tamil) மிளகு (miLaku) meaning pepper, and தண்ணீர் (taNNeer) meaning water. So basically rasam.

    I don’t, however, know what mullitagawny soup is…

  7. Quizman, are we going to get answers to your questions? Also, I just wanted to say that I’m on a mission to introduce the words yechal and kundraavi into the English language. They’re great words that say so much with so little and anyone who wants to join me is welcome (most of my non-desi friends now use this word on a regular basis).

    I don’t, however, know what mullitagawny soup is…

    I ordered it once at a restaurant. It’s really bad rasam.

    the dreaded E word (“exotic,” in case you’ve erased it from your memory)

    As a side question, I’ve never had this word used on me, but I know countless women (not just limited to desis) who can relate to your experience and absolutely hate the word. My question is, why? Other than the banality of the whole thing, and I also assume it’s generally used by annoying guys who are trying to hit on you, what’s so bad about being considered exotic? I for one am really happy that I’m not your typical blonde haired, blue eyed, american dude.

  8. I am personally interested in the contribution of Tamil to English language. A long time ago, when I was a student and had taken up a phonetics class, I read about the “root” words of english words. If you look up the Oxford English dictionary, you will see that the English word Mango’s root is the Tamil word “Maanga” and the root of the word “Rice” is the Tamil word “Arisi”. There were a ton of such words, but alas I don’t remember too much from 16 years ago 🙂 Good writeup and thanks. -ash in the Bay Area

  10. A few days ago I was discussing the word ferengi with a scientist I know, a very smart guy. I said, “I thought >>it was Malaysian, because there’s this place in Malaysia called Batu Ferengi.

    NinaP – Weird, i had the exact same discussion couple of days ago, a Thai friend refers to her white boy friend as Phirang or ferang, which is basically firangi(foreigner) in hindi. I thought that was interesting

  11. Q1. Identify the word for a fruit

    From 545 to the 15th c., Europeans knew it only as the Indian nut or ‘nut of India’. The Portuguese and Spanish >>authors of the 16th c. agree in identifying the word with the Portugese and Spanish word for ‘grinning face, >>grin, grimace’, also ‘bugbear, scarecrow’. The name being said to refer to the face-like appearance of the base >>of the shell, with its three holes. Historical evidence favours the European origin of the name, for there is >>nothing similar in any of the languages of India, where the Portuguese first found the fruit.

    cashew??

  12. Thanks for the quiz quizman. Some of them have been answered in the post — “catamaran” ?

    Q12. The English word for this fruit is actually from the Arabic for ‘date of India’. It is a brown pod containing one to twelve seeds embedded in a soft brown or reddish-black acid pulp, valued for its medicinal qualities, and also used in cookery as a relish, etc.

    Tamarind i.e. tamr-i-hindi.

    Is Q13 ‘tip-top’ and Q14 ‘Verandah’ ?

  13. For instance, the Italian word for key is chiavi, also the Tamil word for the same item (chaavi – Hindi, llave – Spanish, taste – German, tecla – Portuguese, clef – French, nøkkel – Norwegian, sleutel – Dutch).

    The Hindi word for key is chaabi and not chaavi.

  15. Nina, you’re killing me.

    Nice list Maitri. I’m not entirely convinced of all of the etymological histories, but they’re fascinating to contemplate!

  16. Quizman, my answers below. Hope this doesn’t ruin the fun for everyone.

    Q1: coconut

    Q2: Tartars?

    Q3: whatever it was, my ex-girlfriend has it.

    Q4: An Indiaman was a ship bound for India (or the Far East).

    Q5: uhh…”Easter?” hahahaha!

    Q6: Corundum

    Q7: Dinghy?

    Q8: Krait

    Q9: mandarain

    Q10: meerkat?

    Q11: dude, this is so damn vague…no idea.

    Q12: Tamarind

    Q13: I cheated on this one and used Google…who the bleep ever said “tickety boo” with a straight face?

    Q14: Veranda?

  17. Salil: Correct on 1, 4,6,7,8,9,10,12,13 and 14.

    Ashvin: Correct. 12 and 13.

    From the OED:

    Coco (Coconut) The early writers, from Cosmas 545 to the 15th c., knew it only as the Indian nut or ‘nut of India’; coquos (plural) is quoted first from the Roteiro de Vasco da Gama (Portuguese, 1498-9); The Portuguese and Spanish authors of the 16th c. agree in identifying the word with Pg. and Sp. coco ‘grinning face, grin, grimace’, also ‘bugbear, scarecrow’, cognate with cocar ‘to grin, make a grimace’; the name being said to refer to the face-like appearance of the base of the shell, with its three holes. Historical evidence favours the European origin of the name, for there is nothing similar in any of the languages of India, where the Portuguese first found the fruit; and indeed Barbosa, Barros, and Garcia, in mentioning the Malayalam name tenga, and Canarese narle,

    Tamarind: Sp., Pg., It. tamarindo, med.L. tamarindus, ultimately ad. Arab. tamr-hind , i.e. date of India, whence in the early herbalists and physicians tamar indi, in Marco Polo (Fr. version) tamarandi; in 13th c. F. tamarindes pl. (Hatz.-Darm.), mod.F. tamarin (15th c. in Hatz.-Darm.).] 1. The fruit of the tree Tamarindus indica (see 2), a brown pod containing one to twelve seeds embedded in a soft brown or reddish-black acid pulp, valued for its medicinal qualities, and also used in cookery as a relish, etc. In Commerce, Med., etc. tamarinds means this pulp.

  18. off topic but the ferengi and klingon reminded me of a funny frasier episode where frasier is tricked into addressing his son’s bar mitzvah in klingon, thinking it is hebrew.

    Q.5: hobson-jobson? (so i’ve heard, but your festal ceremony throws me off)

    Q.6: corundum ?

    Q7: coracle?

    Q.11: cashew?

  20. i know this is about tamil, but my family is beedeshi. when i first saw “ferengi” in brown related stuff a few years ago i was wondering how nerdy brown ppl were to ape star trek 🙂

  22. The Portuguese word for key (the metal instrument that fits into a lock) is “chave,” which puts it even closer to the Tamil. (“Tecla” is the word for the key on a keyboard.) “Chave” must have been in use before the Portuguese began exploring South Asia, right? So it’s pretty amazing that the words are so similar.

  24. Well, videshi (Tamil), beedeshi (immoral, heathen Bengali) and ayyalnaatinar/vellinaatukaarar (Tamil) are the equivalent of extranational or outlander, i.e. foreigner, where desh is Hindi/Bengail and naatu is Tamil for land/nation.

    Chaabi is for people who can’t speak right. 😛

  25. Whose God…

    corundum and Hobsob-Jobson are correct. The term ‘festal’ is from the OED. dinghy was the boat.

    Scrap question 11. It was actually Orange, but the question I wrote was indeed, rather vague. The OED has this to say about the etymology of orange.

    ME. orenge, orange, a. OF. orenge (13th c.), orange, = It. narancia (Florio), now arancia (Venet. naranza, Milan. naranz), Sp. naranja, Pg. laranja, also med.Gr.. The Sp. and Gr. are ad. Arabic naranj, in Pers. narang, naring: cf. late Skr. naranga, Hind narangi ; also Pers. nar pomegranate. The native country of the orange appears to have been the northern frontier of India, where wild oranges are still found, and the name may have originated there. The loss of initial n in Fr., Eng., and It. is usually ascribed to its absorption in the indef. article in une narange, una narancia. Med.L. had also the forms arangia, arantia (Du Cange), whence aurantia by popular association with aurum gold, from the colour. So perh. OF. orenge for arange, after or gold.

    The correct answer to question 2 is Cossack: OED has the foll: Cossack Turk quzzaq adventurer, guerilla. ‘In India it became common in sense of predatory horseman, freebooter’ (Yule).]

    Btw, the cut and paste from my word doc leaves out the diacritic marks. Sorry about that.

  26. Stop polluting our wholesome Tamil discussion with your immoral, heathen bengali

    shawbche shoondthor basha pawsawndthaw korawna?

    also, for white people, shadha manush (i.e., “white man”).

  27. maitri: Videshi is also in Sanskrit. You will no doubt know that a related Hindi word in addition to videshi is vilayati, which got transmogrified into ‘Blighty’ for England.

  29. Milli; that’s actually Hindi (from Sanskrit) and it simply means alien. Per Platts:Of or belonging to another, another’s; other, another, strange, foreign, alien, extraneous.

    The term paraya is commonly used in Hindi for “the other” or “not belonging to me” as in paraya dhan (other’s wealth).

  30. Mmmm … I’ll stand by what I wrote. Everything I’ve read to date indicates that pariah is a derivation of the Tamil word “pariyar.”

  32. Quizman,

    You have an quite indepth knowledge of languages, bravo !! Very impressive.

    Please tell us the answer to Q3 of yours. Is Bidismoker correct? I am anxious.

  33. aah, cossack. is doolally, as mentioned by bidismoker, correct? sounds right.

    “You will no doubt know that a related Hindi word in addition to videshi is vilayati, which got transmogrified into ‘Blighty’ for England.”

    never would have guessed that blighty derived from hindi, must have missed that in some of bill bryson’s works. blighty just sounds, well, so english.

    maitri and quizman, fascinating stuff. thanks for providing some relief from a gloomy and opressive thursday afternoon.

  34. Kush: Yes, he is. The term ‘dollaly tap’ came from the mental institution in Deolali, Maharashtra where shell shocked (or heat-driven) soldiers were sent for treatment. (Per the OED).

    Milli: Quite possible. M-W certainly stands by your etymology.

  35. Actually, per Maitri’s link:

    pariah — there is a tribe of drummers in Tamil Nadu and Kerala called paraiyan, who were classified vis-à-vis the caste system as “untouchables”—their name has become generalized for all social outcastes; it comes from the Tamil word parai ‘drum’, also ‘to tell’; drumming and communication go together in ancient cultures. The great sage tiruvaLLuvar, the author of the highly esteemed poetic classic tirukkuraL, was of this tribe.

  37. I’d just like to say that as a result of Quizman’s questions and the number of people that knew the answers, I feel far less intelligent than I felt when I woke up this morning.

  38. These “Indian culture is the basis of everything” sites (the link in the post above) always seem to me a little suspect. Tamil words only entered English via trade or conquest (as the colonizers needed new words or mispronounced things). That Dravidian words bubbled up through Indo-European to Latin to Italian to French to English just shows that speakers of Dravidian languages (Tamil is just one) and Sanskrit’s forbears came into contact with each other. Which everyone already knows. Are those words really Tamil anymore just because the modern Tamil word is similar?

    The fact is that more words are exchanged now between English and the languages of the subcontinent because, well, English is a subcontinental language. When English speakers on internet travel boards ask how to say things in Hindi or Tamil like “hello” and “I’m sorry” and “I love you”, the best answer is “hello,” “sorry,” and “I love you.” There’s no such thing as a language with a “pure” lexicon.

  41. Here’s a related question. This is from a documentary (compered by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame) that was shown on our local PBS channel (KQED).

    Fibonacci encountered the Indian numerical system while he was a child in Algeria. He brought it back to Italy after he grew up. Quite obviously, he brought the mysterious zero with him. He referred to the number by its Arabic name. The Italians were (a) resistant to changing their numeral system (b) very confused about the usage of zero and were rather suspicious. Hence, a modification of the Arabic name for zero made it into the language of Catholic opponents of this new numerical system as a synonym for “dark secret”. This word has the same meaning in the English language today. What word?

  42. Wow, that Tamil contributions site was really interesting. My Malayalam is pretty horrible, but it was interesting to see that all those words were of Dravidian origin.

  43. These “Indian culture is the basis of everything” sites (the link in the post above) always seem to me a little suspect. Well we live in a world where European culture is presumed to be the basis of everything, to hobson-jobson even-steven.

  49. Maitri: Aw, sure. A brownie would be apt, eh?

    Salil: Thanks. Maitri deserves much of the credit for kicking this off by her post. I was merely a comment hog. 🙂

  50. True dat. Maitri, as always, good stuff. Though I kind of want to talk about Nagin, but I’ll do it there instead of here. 🙂

    I still stand by my earlier statement: if you run for mayor of N’awlins, I will move there.