The method

How words travel

A word can carry traces of where it has been.

Where they started

English is one stop, not the centre. These are starting places, sketched, not GPS.

From South Asia

नारङ्ग

Sanskrit

A fruit had a name here first.

From China

茶

Chinese

One leaf. Two families of names.

From Baghdad

الجبر

Arabic

Restoration. Then a school subject.

From Mesoamerica

kakaw

Mayan and neighbouring languages

A seed and a drink, named here.

From Persia

پای جامه

Persian

A garment for the legs.

From Greece

ἠχώ

Ancient Greek

The sound had a name first.

Arabic should look Arabic. Chinese should stay Chinese. Greek should stay Greek.

From South Asia
अवतार
Sanskrit
A sacred descent, long before screens.
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From Greece
σχολή
Greek
Leisure first. The building later.
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From Fujian
膎汁
Hokkien
A brine. The tomato came later.
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From Khwārezm
الخوارزمي
Arabic
A scholar’s name became a method.
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From The North Sea world
vindauga
Old Norse
A wind-eye, hiding in the letters.
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From Greece
πανικός
Greek
Of Pan. Then a sudden fear.
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The traveler
A word moves.
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Two roads
One thing can have two names.
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The shape-shifter
The letters can hide an older picture.
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The meaning changer
The same lineage can take a new job.
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The borrowed word
A language can carry in a name it needed.
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The invented word
Someone can coin a word, and the world can take it.
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A name that became a word
A person can become a method.
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A sacred word, later borrowed
A religious word can later name a screen.
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Looks related. Is it?
Looking alike is not proof.
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The trail goes cold
Sometimes the honest work is a blank.
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