At 2008-02-07 20:23:00 +0530, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > No, actually it's exactly backwards. China got sugar from India, which > might have been where sugar was first cultivated. The origin of 'chini' > is not clear, but I seem to remember that it had something to do with > cinnamon.
I refreshed my vague memory: http://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/engl/Cinn_cas.html The unclear parts are the ultimate etymological origin of "cinnamon" and (at least to me) what the link is between cinnamon and sugar that would cause similar terms to be used; but it seems very unlikely that the word means something other than "from China" for sugar. Ironic, isn't it? China got sugar from India, and the word sugar is itself apparently derived from Sanskrit; but Indian languages call sugar "Chini" because cinnamon came to India from China. -- ams
