'rice'

hi all...

 

this is the first mail to cybalist...let me introduce myself...i am a bengali speaker from india, and a linguistics enthusiast...not a professional linguist, though...

 

with regard to the origin of "rice", i thought i'd make a point...

 

"warizi" and "vrihi" are words which, i feel, quite comfortably sit into the accepted notions of IE linguistics...the  "w" and "v" are, of course, actually the same sounds: the semivowel being converted into the fricative in classical pronunciation of sanskrit...the trill is retained, as it would in vedic, and not converted into a lateral, as it would be in an eastern dialect...and the "z" <> "h" modifications are also well attested, e.g. in the famous zend avesta : rigveda hymn to mitra (z. av. mithra) as in: mitram yajAmi "hotrabhyah" (RV) and mithram yazai "zaothrabyo" (ZA)...

 

so the dravidian hypothesis seems quite meaningless...someone please correct me if i am wrong...

 

interestingly, the modern word for rice in north-indian languages is derived from a very different word. 'rice' words 'cAl' in bengali and 'cAwal' in hindi derive from 'taNDulah' in sanskrit, itself probably deriving from either dravidian or austric...

 

the malayalam word for rice 'ari' is also specialized...meaning only uncooked dehusked rice grains...the word for cooked rice being 'cora' and uncooked dehusked rice being 'nella'...the bengali word cAl is also similarly specialized, being equivalent only to malayalam ari...the hindi word cAwal is far more generic and would be equivalent to the english word 'rice' in all respects...

 

regards...

 

aniruddha