Tamil words in English

[N. Ganesan]

Mr. Sarma wrote:
>You are absolutely right. But here we are interested in how "koel"
>entered English. That I do not think is from sanskrit or prAkrit. It
>can be from telugu "kOyila" or from north indian languages like Hindi
>which have the word "kOyal.

I am not so sure. According to the Oxford dictionary, the word
was first used by Erskine in 1826. There is a Erskine hospital
in Madurai. It could have come from tamil too.

N. Ganesan