# Indo-Aryan: Aloo



## lcfatima

Alu means potato in Hindi/Urdu and also Farsi and other related languages. I think it is a cognate and not a lexical adoption (although interestingly aloo is used for potato in some dialects of Gulf Arabic instead of bataat as a lexical adoption). Anyhow, what a rich word this is, as there are some fruit that bear the name aloo, such the zard aloo, or apricot, and the aloo bukhara, or plum/prune. My question: does "aloo" qualify some semantic category? What do aloo as potato and aloo as in zard aloo or aloo bukhara have in common? They seem so different. why are they all aloo?


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## Flaminius

> My question: does "aloo" qualify some semantic category?


I am not sure if there is an exact semantic category for it but you seem to be pointing out that _aloo_ is often used as a general term for any fruits.  Apricot is _zard aloo_, or yellow fruits and plum/prune is fruits from Bukhara.  Potatoes are not fruits by the definition of modern botany but a general word covering the two comes in handy for everyday life.

In fact, Indo-Aryan languages are not the only case that has a name for a specific fruits that has been extended to mean general fruits.  For example, Romans called peach "Persian apples."  See here for more Latin examples.


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## Alijsh

*âlu *means plum in Persian. *zardâlu *is apricot. We have also *shaftâlu* which is a variety of peach (*holu*). Plum has more varieties e.g. *âlu Bokhârâ* (Bukhara plum), *âlu qermez* (red plum)

Potato is *sibzamini *in Iranian Persian, apparently a calque from the French "pomme de terre" (*sib*: pomme; *zamini*: de terre). As for Afghanistani Persian, they say کچالو for potato. I can't tell you its exact pronunciation, perhaps *kachâlu*.

EDIT- I just looked the Persian Wikipedia article about potato. Potato was brought to Iran by Mirzâ Melkom Khân during the kingdom of  Fath Ali Shah Qajar. People called it Alu Melkom (Melkom plum) but I don't know why they called it "plum". Perhaps, because of its appearance!


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## lcfatima

Thanks. Oh, alu is used for potato in Ajami and Balochi as well so I just presumed it was also Farsi, my mistake. "Seb" means apple in all those languages, too.

Interesting stuff. Thanks again.


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## Alijsh

You're welcome. In fact, you're not wrong. Alu Melkom was then contracted to Alu and is still used in some dialects but not in standard Persian. We say sibzamini and Afghans say kachâlu/kechâlu/kochâlu (as you know, short vowels are not normally written in Arabic and Arabic-derived scripts and therefore I can't recognize from the written form the vowel sound accompanying the k)


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## panjabigator

lcfatima said:


> Alu means potato in Hindi/Urdu and also Farsi and other related languages. I think it is a cognate and not a lexical adoption (although interestingly aloo is used for potato in some dialects of Gulf Arabic instead of bataat as a lexical adoption). Anyhow, what a rich word this is, as there are some fruit that bear the name aloo, such the zard aloo, or apricot, and the aloo bukhara, or plum/prune. My question: does "aloo" qualify some semantic category? What do aloo as potato and aloo as in zard aloo or aloo bukhara have in common? They seem so different. why are they all aloo?



Just a side note: I've never heard "zard aloo" used in Hindi or Panjabi.  I've always heard "khurmanii," which cannot phonetically be a word from Indic origin.  Is that the same word used in Urdu?

Pg


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## lcfatima

khobani also means apricot in Urdu, I have never heard the term "khurmanii," Zard aloo sounds kind of somehow poetic to me for Urdu, but I have seen it written in recipes before


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## Alijsh

panjabigator said:


> Just a side note: I've never heard "zard aloo" used in Hindi or Panjabi.  I've always heard "khurmanii," which cannot phonetically be a word from Indic origin.  Is that the same word used in Urdu?


kh_u/o_rmâ means date in Persian and kh_u/o_rmâlu means persimmon. We have also kh_u/o_rmandi which is another kind of it.

EDIT



lcfatima said:


> khobani also means apricot in Urdu, I have never heard the term "khurmanii," Zard aloo sounds kind of somehow poetic to me for Urdu, but I have seen it written in recipes before


khobâni is dried apricot. Today, we call it *bargeye zardâlu* though.


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## panjabigator

lcfatima said:


> khobani also means apricot in Urdu, I have never heard the term "khurmanii," Zard aloo sounds kind of somehow poetic to me for Urdu, but I have seen it written in recipes before



Hmmm, a new difference between the languages.  I've never heard of /khobanii/ but Urduword.com does list it as an option.


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