6 ms·

More anecdotal cross-cultural fun stuff... I have some Lebanese friends and noticed that their children seem to start eating labneh (somewhere between thick yog

More anecdotal cross-cultural fun stuff... I have some Lebanese friends and noticed that their children seem to start eating labneh (somewhere between thick yoghurt and soft cheese) very early. Also the Armenian word for cheese is 'paneer'. People across the world can share a lot in common if they want :)

davchana 8y ago
Paneer is also exact word for home made cheese in Punjabi language. Not a new one.
- danans 8y ago
  Both usages are borrowed from the Persian language
  - elsonrodriguez 8y ago
    Of note is that Persian, Armenian, and Punjabi (along with English) are all a part of the same language family: Indo-European. The cross-pollination of words between the members of the family always amuses me.
    - vinay427 8y ago
      A lot of words in Hindustani (Hindi/Urdu) and other north Indian languages today are immediately from Persian but indirectly from Arabic as well, which makes things more interesting as it adds historical events (invasions, spread of religion, etc.) into the mix.
    - twic 8y ago
      Given which, i wonder what the root of "paneer" is in Proto-Indo-European, as it doesn't seem very similar to "cheese". I looked it up, and didn't find a good answer. I did find a few other things, though. Apparently "cheese"/"Käse"/etc is from a word something like "kwat", meaning "to turn sour". I would guess that Russian "kvass" is from the same root, BICBW. Russian and other Slavonic languages have "syr", from a Proto-Indo-European word cognate with "sour". I have no idea what the difference between syr-sour and kwat-sour is. The romance "fromage"/"formaggio" is from a root meaning "formed", because southern European cheeses are made in moulds or something (except in Spain and Portugal!). I always assumed this was connected with the fact that southern European cheeses are more likely to be soft than in northern Europe, but that's conjecture. If so, the etymology tells you that soft, formed cheeses came after hard cheeses, and largely displaced them. Anyway there's more here: https://www.languagesoftheworld.info/etymology/say-cheese.html https://www.languagesoftheworld.info/etymology/say-cheese.ht...
      - danans 8y ago
        It's not a definitive etymology, but there is this Sanskrit (therefore Indo-Iranian) term which may be related: payasya पयस्य mfn. (-स्यः-स्या-स्यं) 1 Made from milk, (curds, butter, cheese, &c.) itself derived from the word "payas" which means "water or milk". It's a possible connection to the "pa" part of the Persian word "paneer", at least. https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/WILScan/2014/web/webtc/servepdf.php?page=502 https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/WILScan/2014...
    - danans 8y ago
      Given the huge geographical spread of IE languages (in Eurasia spanning from Bangladesh to Iceland), the cross-pollination between IE and non-IE languages is even greater than the intra-IE cross-pollination, as is evident from degree to which these languages have diverged and mixed with neighboring language families like Semitic, Caucasian, Dravidian, Uralic, Turkic, Basque, etc. IE languages do share a unique inherited relationship also, based on their common origin, but the use of the word "paneer" in India isn't due to inheritance, but rather borrowing. The inheritance is most visible in today in words like kinship terms and pronouns.
    - gnulinux 8y ago
      FWIW, Armenian used to be classified as a Persian language because its vocabulary is extremely close to Persian languages. Later, modern linguistics understood that (using comparative methods) Armenian is a language isolate within Indo-European family and has no relation to Persian languages (other than Proto-Indo-European). What confused linguists for about a century is that Armenian happened to borrow almost its entire vocabulary from Persian!
lunaru 8y ago
On related note and I believe posted in HN before, I've always found the Tea/te vs Chai/Cha naming of tea very interesting and this article shows the spread of the word geographically: https://qz.com/1176962/map-how-the-word-tea-spread-over-land-and-sea-to-conquer-the-world/ https://qz.com/1176962/map-how-the-word-tea-spread-over-land...

davchana 8y ago

Paneer is also exact word for home made cheese in Punjabi language. Not a new one.

danans 8y ago
Both usages are borrowed from the Persian language
- elsonrodriguez 8y ago
  Of note is that Persian, Armenian, and Punjabi (along with English) are all a part of the same language family: Indo-European. The cross-pollination of words between the members of the family always amuses me.
  - vinay427 8y ago
    A lot of words in Hindustani (Hindi/Urdu) and other north Indian languages today are immediately from Persian but indirectly from Arabic as well, which makes things more interesting as it adds historical events (invasions, spread of religion, etc.) into the mix.
  - twic 8y ago
    Given which, i wonder what the root of "paneer" is in Proto-Indo-European, as it doesn't seem very similar to "cheese". I looked it up, and didn't find a good answer. I did find a few other things, though. Apparently "cheese"/"Käse"/etc is from a word something like "kwat", meaning "to turn sour". I would guess that Russian "kvass" is from the same root, BICBW. Russian and other Slavonic languages have "syr", from a Proto-Indo-European word cognate with "sour". I have no idea what the difference between syr-sour and kwat-sour is. The romance "fromage"/"formaggio" is from a root meaning "formed", because southern European cheeses are made in moulds or something (except in Spain and Portugal!). I always assumed this was connected with the fact that southern European cheeses are more likely to be soft than in northern Europe, but that's conjecture. If so, the etymology tells you that soft, formed cheeses came after hard cheeses, and largely displaced them. Anyway there's more here: https://www.languagesoftheworld.info/etymology/say-cheese.html https://www.languagesoftheworld.info/etymology/say-cheese.ht...
    - danans 8y ago
      It's not a definitive etymology, but there is this Sanskrit (therefore Indo-Iranian) term which may be related: payasya पयस्य mfn. (-स्यः-स्या-स्यं) 1 Made from milk, (curds, butter, cheese, &c.) itself derived from the word "payas" which means "water or milk". It's a possible connection to the "pa" part of the Persian word "paneer", at least. https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/WILScan/2014/web/webtc/servepdf.php?page=502 https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/WILScan/2014...
  - danans 8y ago
    Given the huge geographical spread of IE languages (in Eurasia spanning from Bangladesh to Iceland), the cross-pollination between IE and non-IE languages is even greater than the intra-IE cross-pollination, as is evident from degree to which these languages have diverged and mixed with neighboring language families like Semitic, Caucasian, Dravidian, Uralic, Turkic, Basque, etc. IE languages do share a unique inherited relationship also, based on their common origin, but the use of the word "paneer" in India isn't due to inheritance, but rather borrowing. The inheritance is most visible in today in words like kinship terms and pronouns.
  - gnulinux 8y ago
    FWIW, Armenian used to be classified as a Persian language because its vocabulary is extremely close to Persian languages. Later, modern linguistics understood that (using comparative methods) Armenian is a language isolate within Indo-European family and has no relation to Persian languages (other than Proto-Indo-European). What confused linguists for about a century is that Armenian happened to borrow almost its entire vocabulary from Persian!

lunaru 8y ago

On related note and I believe posted in HN before, I've always found the Tea/te vs Chai/Cha naming of tea very interesting and this article shows the spread of the word geographically: https://qz.com/1176962/map-how-the-word-tea-spread-over-land-and-sea-to-conquer-the-world/ https://qz.com/1176962/map-how-the-word-tea-spread-over-land...