आज का शब्द / آج كا شبد / ਅੱਜ ਦਾ ਸ਼ਬਦ

[muckefuck]

जर्मन / جرمن / ਜਰਮਨ jarman

I suppose I shouldn't be in the least surprised to find that the Hindi/Urdu/Panjabi for "German" is a borrowing from English, given that the German state only formally came into existence thirteen years into the British Raj. But I rather suspected at least one would have preferred a reflex of Persian آلمانی almānī. It's rather ironic, in fact, to have an English borrowing for "German" when the native word for "English", अँग्रेज़ी / انگريزی / ਅੰਗ੍ਰੇਜ਼ੀ ãgrezī, obviously comes from somewhere else. (Portuguese ultimately? Hobson-Jobson is silent on the subject.)

It's also curious to see the country designated as जर्मनी / جرمنی / ਜਰਮਨੀ jarmanī when I might have expected the final -ī to be taken as a nisba ending and analogically expanded to jarmaniyā.

Comments

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

That's pure speculation on my part, Raja. The modern Portuguese word is inglês, but ingrez is an earlier variant form and the Portuguese were in the right place at the right time for transmission to have taken place.

[aadroma.livejournal.com]

Speculation or not, it's a helluva lot better than anything I've come up with ...