2009/01/01 by William Bruce Guthrie
Arts and Humanities · #Economics #History #Linguistics #Linguistics and Cultural Studies #Linguistics and language evolution #Linguistics, Language Diversity, and Identity #Philosophy
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/00437956.2009.11432594
openalex publication_date 2009/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Authorities admit the etymology of the word turmeric is obscure, traced in the best references to an almost unknown French original used in commerce and that but rarely. No one has posited an origin for the French term or traced any early history, except to guess that it may come from neo-Latin. Meanwhile there are forms nearly identical to the English word in the trade languages of Southern and Eastern Asia, and ancient Asian languages attest to antecedents for the word's components. The paper argues that the ancient written records and current spoken forms support a theory that turmeric is itself the word which is inaccurately echoed by pharmacological Latin and commercial French.