Whereas eggplant was coined in English, most of the diverse other European names for the plant derive from the Arabic: باذنجان bāḏinjān. Bāḏinjān is itself a loan-word in Arabic, whose earliest traceable origins lie in the Dravidian languages. The Hobson-Jobson dictionary comments that "probably there is no word of the kind which has undergone such extraordinary variety of modifications, whilst retaining the same meaning, as this".
4 Comments
bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de · 3 pts · 1y
A German children's magazine once had eggplant seeds in an issue as the "crazy easter egg tree". We don't call them eggplant but aubergine.
Trollivier@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 1y
Same in French :)
merde@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 1y
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggplant
Trollivier@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 1y
Interesting!