Q1.
The table lists common everyday words, highlighting their similar pronunciation across the three languages. By comparing these sounds, you can identify words that are closely related or share common roots in all three languages. With the help of your teacher, use this observation to complete the table.
The table printed on page 93, reproduced with its blanks.
| Sanskrit | Arabic | English |
|---|---|---|
| sandal | sandalwood | |
| tāmbūla | tanbūl | |
| karpūra | camphor | |
| pippalī | filfil |
Answer
The completed table. The blanks are filled by listening to the sounds: the consonants stay, the vowels shift as the word passes from one language to the next.
| Sanskrit | Arabic | English | What the word is |
|---|---|---|---|
| chandana | sandal | sandalwood | The fragrant wood of the sandal tree |
| tāmbūla | tanbūl | betel (leaf) | The paan leaf, chewed after a meal |
| karpūra | kāfūr | camphor | The white crystal burnt in worship |
| pippalī | filfil | pepper | Long pepper — and then pepper generally |
Follow one word all the way. Sanskrit pippalī → Greek peperi → Latin piper → English pepper; and along the Arab sea route, pippalī → Arabic filfil. Same Indian word, two roads, and it is still on your table at home.
Why the sounds change in these particular ways: a borrowed word gets reshaped to fit the mouth of the borrower. Arabic has no p, so p regularly becomes f — that is why pippalī arrives as filfil. Sanskrit ch softens to s in chandana → sandal. Sanskrit karpūra loses its r-cluster and becomes kāfūr, then Latin gives it back as camphora → camphor. Once you know the substitutions, you can spot the family resemblance under the disguise.
Note on ‘betel’: the English word does not sound like tāmbūla or tanbūl, because it travelled by a third route — Portuguese traders took it from Malayalam veṭṭila. So this row shows the opposite lesson from the others: words for the same thing can reach English by completely different roads. Say this in class if the teacher asks why the sounds do not match.
Did you know? Every word in this table is a trade word — sandalwood, betel, camphor, pepper. That is the chapter’s real point. Ships crossing the Arabian Sea with the monsoon “carried not only spices and textiles but also ideas, languages, and stories”, and the English word monsoon itself comes from Arabic mawsim, ‘season’. Language is cargo you can still trace.