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While it doesn't drive me nuts, I see where you're coming from. It's actually taken from the Indian word 'kadhi', where the 'dh' sounds a bit like an 'r' if you
by osrec 8y ago
While it doesn't drive me nuts, I see where you're coming from. It's actually taken from the Indian word 'kadhi', where the 'dh' sounds a bit like an 'r' if you roll the 'd'.
Western settlers were unable to pronounce the 'dh' correctly, so they ended up calling it curry. Also, kadhi is a very specific dish in North and South India, but outside of India, it's become the general term for anything with a spicy sauce.
- vram22 8y ago>While it doesn't drive me nuts, I see where you're coming from. It's actually taken from the Indian word 'kadhi' AFAIK, kadhi is the Marathi and Hindi word for a specific dish, made mainly of heated buttermilk with spices in it, eaten with rice and other things, or had as a drink. So what you say seems unlikely to be the origin of the bigger umbrella term curry as used in English in the West (and also some in India, where we informally say we had aloo curry or cabbage curry or whatever curry for lunch or dinner). See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry#Etymology
- osrec 8y agoActually, it indeed a specific dish in South India as well (often made from yogurt - https://www.thespruceeats.com/south-indian-yogurt-curry-1957993 https://www.thespruceeats.com/south-indian-yogurt-curry-1957...). Indians saying aloo 'curry' or cabbage 'curry' is more likely due to India's colonial past, rather than it being a general term the Indians coined. It's well known that curry is one of those words that the English/Portuguese borrowed from South India and then generalised to mean 'pretty much any Indian dish'.