Tamil Words in Eng. Lang

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Tamil contributions to the English language

Tamil is, according to some, the oldest continuous living language in

the world. Its earliest known inscriptions date back to 300 B.C., and

its ancient classical literature, the renowned cankam poems, are

dated back to 100 B.C. (although Tamil tradition ascribes a period of

some 10,000 years to their formation).

Did you know that there is a Tamil word in the Bible? King Solomon's

ships traveled to exotic lands and famously brought back "ivory,

apes, and peacocks" (3 Kings 10:22). In the Hebrew text, the word

used for 'peacock' is tukki, which comes from the Tamil word for

peacock: tôkai. This shows the great antiquity of the Tamil

civilization.

 

Here are several words that the ancient and noble Tamil language has

given to English:

 

 

 

candy — Thanks to Tamil for this sweetness! Originally there was the

phrase sugar-candy, from French sucre-candi, from Italian zucchero

candi, from Arabic sukkar qandî. It meant 'candied sugar', i.e. sugar

that, when cooked at the right temperature, forms a ball when dropped

into cool water, as candymakers know. The Arabs got the word from

Persian qand, from Sanskrit khaNDu. Sanskrit got the word from Tamil

kaNTu, meaning a ball of candied sugar, related to kuNTu, 'ball'. The

word may have originated in the autochthonous MuNDari languages of

India, belonging to the Austroasiatic family.

 

 

catamaran — the light watercraft that is nowadays so popular wherever

water sports abound is named from the Tamil words kaTTu 'tie' and

maram 'wood, tree': simply two trees tied together!

 

 

chapati — the name of the Indian whole-wheat tortilla came through

Hindi, but its origin is Tamil cappaTTai, from cappa 'thin, flattened

out'. It may be coincidental, but it also looks similar to the Tamil

word câppiTu 'eat'!

 

 

cheroot — this variety of cigar is called by the Tamil word curuTTu

meaning 'rolled up', from the word curuL 'roll, scroll, curled

leaf'.

 

 

coolie — menial laborers are called coolies after the Tamil word

for 'wage, hire': kûli.

 

 

corundum — the hardest mineral next to diamond, corundum (aluminum

oxide) forms rubies, sapphires, and topaz; its name comes from a

Tamil word for 'ruby', kuruntam, which may have come from Sanskrit

kuruvinda.

 

 

curry — Tamil Nadu is a land where vegetarian food prevails; the

Tamil word for 'vegetables', hence dish made of vegetables, is kari,

and the delectable dishes of Tamil Nadu are so flavorful they have

given their name to Indian food in general!

 

 

ginger - Traced back through Greek zingiber to Sanskrit srngavera,

the name of ginger (Zingiber officinale) is really of Dravidian

origin. The Tamil name for ginger is iñci, and vêr means 'root'. The

word iñci was probably ciñci in early Proto-Dravidian, which could

explain the Sanskrit form. While srngavera became associated with

srnga, 'horn', nevetheless clearly the word is not Sanskritic in

form, but Dravidian, and the Sanskrit etymology was invented later.

Ginger is native to South India.

 

 

madras — many fabrics are named after the city they were made in or

exported from; the lightweight cotton fabric is woven all over India,

but the especially colorful variety made with brightly hued dyes

takes its name from the capital city of Tamil Nadu, which may come

from an Arabic word meaning 'academy, place of study' (compare the

Hebrew word for study: midrash). However, the native (and official)

Tamil name for Madras is cennai.

 

 

mandala — the Sanskrit word for 'circle' is maNDala, and it comes

from the Tamil word muTalai 'sphere', from the root muTa- 'to bend,

curve'. Another word from the same root is muTTai 'egg'.

 

 

mango — this sweetly fragrant, succulent tropical fruit (Mangifera

indica) is called mân in Tamil; the Tamil word for 'unripe fruit' is

kây, so mân-kây became mangga in Malay and then mango in English via

Portuguese. Why do we call the mango after its unripe version? Maybe

because of commerce: fruit merchants shipped green mangoes because of

their longer shelf life, to ripen later, and the non-Tamil merchants

were used to hearing "mân-kây", so that became the basis of their

word for them. When Tamilians eat mangoes, they call them mâm-palam,

using the word for ripe fruit.

 

 

mulligatawny — the Tamil name for this spicy soup simply

means 'pepper water', which says it all: miLaku means 'pepper' and

taNNîr means 'water'.

 

 

orange — this word can be traced back through French une orange,

Spanish naranja, Arabic nâranj, Persian nârang, and Sanskrit nâranga

to the Tamil word nâru- 'to be fragrant, to sprout up'. However, the

present-day Tamil word for orange is ârañcu. Borrowed back from

English—it's gone full circle!

 

 

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.

 

 

patchouli — one of the world's most darkly mysterious and alluring

fragrances is made from the root of a plant, Pogostemon patchouli,

that grows in South India: paccai or paccu means 'green' and ilai

means 'leaf'; even though nearly all plants have green leaves, this

one is singled out for being named after its green leaves. Variant

forms of this compound name are pâcilai and paccuLi.

 

 

poon — this is the strong, lightweight wood of a tree (Calophyllum

sp.) of southern India and Sri Lanka, useful in shipbuilding, called

pûna in Singhalese, from the Tamil word punnai. In the ancient cankam

poetry, the flowering punnai tree is invoked by a forlorn lover

pining for the absent beloved.

 

 

tatty—A tatty is a screen woven of cooling vetiver grass, sprinkled

with water and hung over open windows in the tropics, to serve as a

fragrant natural air conditioner. The Tamil word for this screen is

taTTi, from the verbal root taTu- 'to hinder, block, prevent, screen,

partition'.

 

 

vetiver — the Tamil name of this aromatic herb (Vetiveria

zizanioides), veTTivêr, is derived from the phrase meaning 'root that

is dug up' (because of its usefulness): veTTi- means 'cut, engrave,

dig' and vêr means 'root'.

 

 

 

 

(Note on pronunciation: in Tamil, the stop consonants become voiced

after nasals, so

-nk, -ñc-, -mp-, and -nt- are pronounced

-ng- -ñj-, -mb-, and -nd-.)

 

There are many other words traceable back to ancient Dravidian (which

is like saying Old Tamil, for Tamil is by far the most archaic of all

Dravidian languages), loanwords into Sanskrit and other Indic

languages, including anaconda, beryl, cot, cowrie, gherao, gunny,

hartal, kala azar, kamala, mongoose, mugger (crocodile), nelumbo,

nullah, pundit, ragi, Romany, tank, toddy. I should also mention

words that came from Malayalam, the language that originated as a

branch of Tamil: areca, atoll, betel, cachu, calico, catechu, coir,

copra, jackfruit, teak. Other Dravidian contributions include dhole

from Kannada and bandicoot from Telugu.

 

Perhaps most fascinating of all is the discovery that the name India

itself is of Dravidian origin. It came from Persian hind, from

Sanskrit sindhu, meaning the River Indus and the province of Sindh.

Linguistic archaeology has recently uncovered the presence of

Dravidian speakers in Sindh in prehistoric times. The Proto-Dravidian

word for 'date palm' is cintu, the source of the name of Sindh and

the Indus, hence of India. Date palms are still grown in Sindh as

they were in prehistoric times. The modern Tamil word for date palm,

derived from this ancient Dravidian word, is întu.