Tamil words in English
Dominique.Thillaud
thillaud at UNICE.FR
Tue Feb 10 09:58:56 UTC 1998
>>I am sure it is a Tamil loanword appearing not only in English but also in
>>other European languages (e.g. Czech ryze via Greek oryza).
'a' --> Gr. 'o' is incredible.
We know in ancient Greek two words for the rice:
o'ruza is considered as borrowed from eastern iranian (see afgan vriZE)
ori'ndEs is considered as borrowed from western iranian (see persan birinj)
(for "wr" --> Gr. "or", see Schwyzer, Gr.Gr. 1,313, n.2)
Both are probably related to the vedic vrIhi'.
The first greek word give Latin oryza --> Italian rizo and all
other western names.
A long time before the Indo-Portuguese ...
It's highly probable that vriZE, birinj, vrIhi are not Eurindian
but loan words (rice is an eastern plant), nevertheless a link with Tamil
arici seems phonetically curious.
Regards,
Dominique
Dominique THILLAUD
Universite' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France
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