Talk:List of English words of Dravidian origin

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Verify sources[edit]

I created this page by copying the sourced content from List of English words of Malayalam origin, List of English words of Tamil origin, and List of English words of Telugu origin. I have not checked those sources, though, either in terms of reliability or that they actually verify what is suggested here. I see, for example, that Online Etymology Dictionary says that peacock is from Greek taos, which in turn is "said to be ultimately from Tamil tokei (but perhaps is imitative)". That note of doubt is not represented here, but maybe it should be. Cnilep (talk) 03:54, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Done; I moved several of the words to the uncertain/general list, and added some citations of the Oxford English Dictionary, both the second and the third edition. Cnilep (talk) 06:44, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Indo-Arayan is not Dravidian[edit]

An editor recently added rice to this list. The editor cited an unpublished term paper as a source – which is less reliable to begin with. That paper does not even suggest that rice is of Dravidian origin, though. It speculates that the word has Vedic, Nuristani , or Iranian roots, and that possibly-related Dravidian words "do not have Proto-Drav. origin" but come from other sources. Cnilep (talk) 23:25, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What to do with uncertain etymology[edit]

Recently User:Muvendar added a section of Kannada words. That's great, except that two of the three words added have uncertain etymology. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the origin of dhole is "unknown" and that of bamboo is "doubtful". In both cases, the Kannada words suggested by Muvendar are suggested as possible sources, but neither is fully accepted.

In that case, is it better to note the uncertain origin, as the article currently does for candy and toddy, among others? Or should they simply be included – or on the contrary, removed? Personally, my suggestion would be to add fuller descriptions. In that case, however, the question of whether to move them to the "Dravidian languages" section may be controversial.

Here are excerpts from the OED Online:

dhole: "In Kannada, tôḷa is the wolf: can this be, through some confusion, the source of dhole?"
bamboo: "Original source doubtful: now in Malay (Central Sumatra), Sundanese, and Javanese (West and Central Java) bambu; but some consider it an introduced word there, and take the original to be Kannada bănbŭ or banwu."

Cnilep (talk) 06:07, 8 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

idli[edit]

The article currently cites Lexico (a defunct web site) for the notion that idli is possibly from Malayalam or Kannada. The Oxford English Dictionary suggests instead that it comes from Tamil. However, none of the other dictionaries that I consulted agree – mostly because they don't include idli as an English word. I'll check some other sources when I get to the library. Cnilep (talk) 23:53, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I checked Merriam-Webster 10th, Longman Advanced, American Heritage, plus several online dictionaries. OED is the only one that includes idli. The Cambridge World History of Food describes the making of idli, but not the word idli. Wordnik has it but only cites Wiktionary as a source, and Wiktionary cites OED. Cnilep (talk) 07:37, 25 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]