Talk:قسط

Is the Tamil from Sanskrit कोष्ठम् (koṣṭham)? —Aryaman ^{(मुझसे बात करो)} 19:11, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

@Aryamanarora: I have only added the Tamil word because the Arabic Wikipedia claimed the Greek is from Tamil (sounded strange to me from the beginning). But however Gernot Katzer who knows spices well writes:

“Die Pflanze Saussurea lappa (syn. S. costus) (Asteraceae) wächst nur in der indischen Region Kashmir; in Indien kennt man sie als putchuk oder kushtha [कुष्ठ], im Westen eher unter dem Namen Kostuswurz. Die getrocknete Wurzel verströmt ein starkes Aroma, das hauptsächlich in der Parfümerie genutzt wird; aus dem spätantiken bis frühmittelalterlichen Europa sind aber auch Kochrezepte damit überliefert.”

“The plant Saussurea lappa (syn. S. costus) [i.e. the plant which has been more commonly known as Kostwurz beside the actual costus] only grows in the Indian region Kashmir; in India it is known as putchuk oder kushtha [कुष्ठ (kuṣṭha)], in the West rather under the name costus root. The dried root emitts a strong aroma that is mainly used in perfumery; but from the Late Antiquity or Early Middle Age Europe there are also cooking receipes containing it transmitted.”

You should create कुष्ठ (kuṣṭha) which is also linked from राम (rāma) and कोष्ठ (koṣṭha), and differentiate the various plants well, and some other guy could well make the Ancient Greek entry to complete the chain (whom to ping?). I have to change the etymology of the Arabic to the correct word (probably Sanskrit कोष्ठ (koṣṭha), but what is कुष्ठ (kuṣṭha), just a variant?); I also see that Saussurea costus bears the Arabic word as does Costus gen. Sadly German etymology sources do not tell me where German Kostwurz comes from, not Helmut Carl Die deutschen Pflanzen- und Tiernamen (1957) nor Wolfgang Pfeifer do include it. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 13:54, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

The Sanskrit entry कोष्ठ (koṣṭha) will become a nice etymology tree. According to the English Wikipedia page of Saussurea costus the word is in Persian, Hebrew, Hindi, Bengali কোথ (kōth), Kashmiri, Gujarati, Punjabi, Kannada (but apparently not Malayalam and Telugu) in addition to the already mentioned languages. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 14:25, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

I have known this spice site for years, but I did not realize its extent. So many different indices! And the whole is even translated to English (stupid of me to translate the quote). It has a multilingual index, Aryaman, you should work through the Indian part of it! Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 15:20, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

@Palaestrator verborum: I've started Sanskrit कुष्ठ (kuṣṭha). It seems कोष्ठ (koṣṭha) has no relation to it, it was just a guess I made since Tamil always seems to borrow the nominative singular form of nouns from Sanskrit. Thanks for the website! Btw, since you speak German, you may find Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen useful for Sanskrit etymologies. It is not difficult to find a PDF online. —Aryaman ^{(मुझसे बात करो)} 20:26, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

I see that कोष्ठ (koṣṭha) means ”intestine, stomach” in Sanskrit and Hindi, so there is no such plant word in Sanskrit, right? Weird guess then from you. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 21:04, 7 November 2017 (UTC)