User:KYPark/sugar cane

sugar cane

eng: sugar cane fre: canne à sucre (fr) f ita: canna da zucchero f por: cana-de-açúcar (pt) f spa: caña de azúcar f dut: suikerriet (nl) n dan: sukkerrør n deu: Zuckerrohr (de) n ice: sykurreyr m swe: sockerrör n cze: cukrová třtina f mac: шеќерна трска f (šéḱerna t'rska) pol: trzcina cukrowa f rus: сахарный тростник (ru) m (sáxarnyj trostník) ukr: цукрова тростина f (cukróva trostýna) Ara: قصب السكر m (qáṣab al-súkkar) per: نیشکر (neyڑakar) chi: 甘蔗 (gānzhe) jpn: 砂糖黍 (さとうきび, satōkibi) kor: 사탕수수 (satang-susu)

It may be best guessed from the above translations that all of these are a calque of the unknown origin or etymon beyond Proto-Indo-European. See also Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/cane. --KYPark (talk) 03:00, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Not quite. The Persian and everything above it in your table got the "sugar" part of it by borrowing, ultimately from India, where in Sanskrit शर्करा (śárkarā) is attested as meaning both gravel and sugar. The ś corresponds to a k sound in the Indo-European centum branches, as shown by related words such as calculus and calcium, and the current consensus seems to be that the k is the original sound and the ś is a more recent innovation in part of the Indo-European dialect continuum. Simply put, It can't be pre-Indoeuropean because it can be traced back to a form incompatible with your guess at the Indo-European stage. You would have to explain why it changed from an sh form to a k form, and then back. You would also have to explain why we should ignore other pronunciations such as tang for the same characters in the same languages. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:23, 25 August 2012 (UTC)