# Hindi: loanwords from Dravidian languages



## marrish

Hello,

Maharashtra and Odisha separate the territories where Hindi is used from Dravidian-speaking South India. 

Despite this I'm wondering if there are any loanwords from Dravidian languages in Hindi?

All responses are welcome!


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## Qureshpor

I was under the impression that the consonants R/Rh were not part and parcel of Sanskrit alphabet. This implies that words with these consonants are possibly from the Dravidian languages which were spread all over the land mass of India prior to the arrival of speakers of an Indo-European language. There is also of course a group of languages known as Munda languages spoken in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh which should also be taken into account.


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## MonsieurGonzalito

दण्ड = stick
कूल = slope, declivity
बिल = burrow, hollow
(these are present-day words, according to the dictionary)
etc ...
from Substrata in the Vedic language - Wikipedia


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## marrish

Both comments are helpful, thank you. It is certainly correct to indicate early borrowings into Old Indic but I was actually curious about more recent mutual influences between Dravidian languages and Hindi, let's say in the last decades.


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## littlepond

In the last few decades, there have borrowings from Marathi to Hindi (courtesy Bombay slang in films), but I don't recall much from Tamil to Hindi. The word "super" ("soopar") is used a lot by Tamils as an interjection and has made headway from there to Hindi, but then "soopar", is it a Tamil word or a "Tanglish" word? There are of course "kaDhii", "lungii", etc., but then they have been there in Hindi since quite a long time. Even though the Tamil song "Kolaveri Di" was popular all over India, it didn't seem to have given any loans to Hindi.


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## desi4life

littlepond said:


> There are of course "kaDhii", "lungii", etc.,



To the best of my knowledge, कढ़ी _ka.Dhii_ is derived from Middle Indo-Aryan and लुंगी _lungii _is a Persian loanword, so neither is borrowed from Dravidian languages.


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## littlepond

desi4life said:


> To the best of my knowledge, कढ़ी _ka.Dhii_ is derived from Middle Indo-Aryan and लुंगी _lungii _is a Persian loanword, so neither is borrowed from Dravidian languages.



Thanks; didn't know about the "luNgii". I thought kaDhii is from the Tamil "kaaRi", isn't it then?


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## Qureshpor

desi4life said:


> To the best of my knowledge, कढ़ी _ka.Dhii_ is derived from Middle Indo-Aryan and लुंगी _lungii _is a Persian loanword, so neither is borrowed from Dravidian languages.


I have to confess I did not know lungii was of Persian origins. Steingass and Platts give it as Persian but Hayyim does not have an entry for it.


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## marrish

Qureshpor said:


> I have to confess I did not know lungii was of Persian origins. Steingass and Platts give it as Persian but Hayyim does not have an entry for it.


McGregor's Hindi-English dictionary continues with Persian etymology: 
   1) लुंगी (p. 897) luṅgī लुंगी luṅgī [P. _lungī_], f. 1. a rectangular cloth worn wrapped round the waist and falling to the ankles, by men. 2. (_HŚS._) a kind of red cloth used for the above purpose. 3. sheet spread by barbers over their customers' legs (to catch hair).

And there is *لُنگ* *lung* in Persian for a similar thing as in لُنگِ حمّام. It's possible there are no instances of _lungii_ in Persian and the final -ii was added later on.


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## Qureshpor

marrish said:


> ۔۔۔۔۔۔۔And there is *لُنگ* *lung* in Persian for a similar thing as in لُنگِ حمّام. It's possible there are no instances of _lungii_ in Persian and the final -ii was added later on.


I think you could well be right. 
ٰ


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## desi4life

littlepond said:


> I thought kaDhii is from the Tamil "kaaRi", isn't it then?



Despite the phonetic resemblance, कढ़ी is a different word from Tamil "kaaRi" (> English "curry"), which is spelled करी in Hindi (as in चिकन करी).


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## Dib

marrish said:


> McGregor's Hindi-English dictionary continues with Persian etymology:
> 1) लुंगी (p. 897) luṅgī लुंगी luṅgī [P. _lungī_], f. 1. a rectangular cloth worn wrapped round the waist and falling to the ankles, by men. 2. (_HŚS._) a kind of red cloth used for the above purpose. 3. sheet spread by barbers over their customers' legs (to catch hair).
> 
> And there is *لُنگ* *lung* in Persian for a similar thing as in لُنگِ حمّام. It's possible there are no instances of _lungii_ in Persian and the final -ii was added later on.



Interesting. In school, we were taught in our Bengali grammar lessons that "lungi" was a Burmese loanword!!
Longyi - Wikipedia


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## Dib

The word "paNDaal" (पंडाल) seems to be a Dravidian loan:
A Dravidian Etymological Dictionary

However, I suspect, it filtered through English, since the length of the second vowel as well as the retroflex D seem to be "wrong", with respect to the original Dravidian words.


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## marrish

That's very interesting.
(A question aside: is South Indian cuisine/items popular in the North?)

Isn't चिकन करी just a transcription from English?


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## desi4life

marrish said:


> That's very interesting.
> (A question aside: is South Indian cuisine/items popular in the North?)



I believe so. I've had _dosaa _in Delhi and other northern cities.



> Isn't चिकन करी just a transcription from English?



Yes. The Tamil "kaaRi" seems to have only been indirectly borrowed into Hindi via the English "curry" and thus spelled करी. So it would be similar to what @Dib described with पंडाल.


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## Dib

I second Desi4life on both counts. Some common South Indian vegetarian dishes are very popular in the North including Dosaa (डोसा - again likely filtered through English, hence the initial retroflex. Interestingly, in Bengali, it is "dhosa" with an aspirated dental stop at the beginning), iDlii, saamb(h)ar, rasam, upmaa, uttapam, lemon rice, etc. I have even heard that masaalaa Dosaa (i.e. Dosaa stuffed with some potato preparation) was a North Indian innovation. But outside these staples, the diversity of South Indian food is not well-known in the North, East, etc. Kottu paroTTa, IDiyaappam, aviyal, poNgal, etc. are far less likely to be known.


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## littlepond

^ Very true. Another item from the south popular in the north is "menDu vaRaa". The north of course has its own "dahii vaRaa". "rasam" is also known in the north (but less so than "saamb(h)ar").


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## Gope

Dib said:


> The word "paNDaal" (पंडाल) seems to be a Dravidian loan:
> A Dravidian Etymological Dictionary
> 
> However, I suspect, it filtered through English, since the length of the second vowel as well as the retroflex D seem to be "wrong", with respect to the original Dravidian words.


Yes, in Tamil it is written and pronounced as pandal (பந்தல்).


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