Words from Sanskrit
18 words in Curio passed through Sanskrit on their way into English.
About Sanskrit
Old Indo-Aryan language of the Indo-European family · spoken today
Where
Northern Afghanistan, northern Pakistan and northwestern India → across South Asia, then Southeast, East and Central Asia as a language of religion and high culture
When
Speakers
49.7K
as of 1991
Native speakers, Wikidata figure for 1991
Family path
- Sanskrit
- PrakritHindustaniHindiPersianBengaliMiddle PersianTamilAncient GreekIranian
- English
Where it came from
Sanskrit arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age. Its most archaic form, Vedic Sanskrit, is found in the Rigveda, 1,028 hymns composed between 1500 and 1200 BCE. Along the way it absorbed the names of newly encountered plants and animals, and Dravidian languages influenced its phonology and syntax.
Source: Wikipedia
The words, A to Z
- atoll
A ring-shaped reef with a story that sailed from the Maldives to Portugal before landing in English.
- avatar
Before it meant a little icon standing in for you online, it meant a god stepping down to earth.
- bandana
The cloth you knot around your neck carries the idea of knotting itself, right in its name.
- candy
That sweet word in your mouth traveled through four languages before it ever touched your tongue.
- cot
The small bed you'd fold up and carry with you once traveled all the way from a word for a wooden bedstead.
- dinghy
This little boat's name may once have meant a hollowed-out trough.
- guru
The word for a spiritual teacher started out simply meaning "heavy."
- jackal
This scavenging canine carried its name across four languages before slipping into English.
- jungle
A word for tangled wilderness that started out meaning the exact opposite — bare, dry land.
- karma
The idea that what you do comes back around has been part of English for less than 250 years.
- lemonade
A word that traveled from a citrus grove all the way through the grammar of French suffixes before landing in your summer glass.
- lilac
This pale purple flower's name traces all the way back to a word for the color blue.
- musk
A perfume note that traces back, oddly, to a word for mouse.
- nirvana
The word for perfect peace literally means being snuffed out like a candle.
- pariah
The word for someone cast out began as the name for someone who kept a rhythm.
- pepper
A tiny berry from India traveled through Greek and Latin mouths before landing on your dinner table.
- pundit
The word for a confident TV commentator once meant a genuinely learned scholar.
- rice
This tiny grain carried its name across half the world before it ever reached an English plate.