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Identification of some ancient and very basic items in the vocabulary of the Indo-European language
by P. Priyadarshi

Nipples, being fundamentally associated with human existence, must have had a prime place in the early human language, and the early IndoEuropean people must have had words emphasizing various semantic aspects of the female nipples. However, many such valuable words of the Indo-European vocabulary have been not identified so far by the IndoEuropeanists, largely because of ingenuity or owing to lack of imaginativeness. Some previous wrong Eurocentric and often racist conclusions have survived and have not been discarded till date. These too vitiate identification of PIE words. The linguistic common ancestors of us humans, more particularly the Proto-Eurasiatics, over the last 60,000 years, had a fine prosodic sense, which prompted them to making similes and symbolic speech. For the sake of modesty, often allegorical words were used. Thus, we get today similar/ cognate words for nipple and lime-fruit (Sanskrit nimbu) in the IndoEuropean family and also outside the family. Thus although the word nipple does not find a place in the Swadeshes List of basic human vocabulary (207 meaning list), yet its cognates are widely distributed across the language families, not as a consequence of often naively claimed extensive borrowings but, in our view, because of common origin of the language families. For example Vietnamese nim v

(nipple) is phonologically quite close to Indian nimb (lemon, lime-fruit). In the same way we have Proto-Zhuang Tai *nom.A (breast); Thai nohm (breast), maa naao (lemon).

nimbu (Sanskrit lemon): A half lemon from side view. Note its extreme resemblance with female breast and nipple.

Not only the Sanskrit word nimbu (lemon), but also nimba (Sk., Azadirachta indica) too is in fact a cognate word of the English nipple.

Fig showing the fruits of Indian tree nimba or Azadirachta indica. Size along length of the
fruits is about 6 to 10 mm.

Fig. Ripe nimba fruits

The human nipple, which resembles the nimba fruit in size and shape

Fig. pippala (Ficus religiosa) berries

Fig. pippala (Ficus religiosa) ripe fruits

Similarly, the Proto-Indo-Europeans also applied the word pippala (Sanskrit, Ficus religiosa) to mean the female nipple (Sk. pippalaka, nipple), because the ripe berries of the fig tree resemble the nipple (Pokorny:91). Hence we get Eng. pap (nipple), M. Eng. pappe (nipple, breast), Swed-Nor. dial pappe (breast); Lithuanian ppas (nipple); Latin papilla (nipple) etc. (see Starostin:286). The darker-skinned south and central Indians have black nipples, which in a maiden resembles a nevus or mole.

Old High German tila means breast and Old English delu means nipple

Indians call the dark skin-nevi tila (Sanskrit, literally sesame seed). This semantic association of sesame-seed and a nevus or nipple has survived in the OHG word tila (female breast) and O.E. delu (nipple; see Pokorny:242).

A facial nevus, called tila in Sanskrit

Sesame seeds, called tila in Sanskrit

The seeds of umbel plant dill (Old English dilli)

The seeds of dill, which seem identical to the Indian oilseed tila (sesame).

Thus we find that there are at least three sets of cognate words, all of which have one of the meanings nipple: 1. Nipple; Sanskrit nimbu (lemon); Sanskrit nimba (neem tree). 2. Papilla; Sanskrit pippala (Ficus religiosa). 3. Old High German tila (nipple); Sanskrit tila (sesame, black naevus, oil). Nipple, nimbu, nimba Philological Material: The original meaning seems to be a small knob-like squeezable something (wild fruit). Later the meaning expanded to include meanings like nipple, lime-fruit, the shrub, peeling off etc. English nipple, nave hub of a wheel, to nip verb, Old English neb small projection; Lith. , nip, pinch; Ltv. - picken, pluck, Iter. t; Lith. - to peel off; pluck, to pinch, to pick up; Greek Hes. *gneibh to press together, Middle Dutch nipen pinch, grasp etc. (see Pokorny: 559-563 for a complete list). Other similar words are nibble, nimble, knobble. English lemon; Sanskrit , Sindhi l o (Turner supplement. list CDIAL 7247), Gujarati l , Maithili l u, Bhojpuri lemu (all meaning lemon); Spanish lima (lemon); Persian l , laimun, l , limun (lemon; Steingass). O.E. lind lime tree, Middle English lynde lime tree; Latin l the white humour in the eye (Valpi:224). The word entered into Arabic as limah citrus fruit.

In the Germanic languages, the sense twig has survived: Old Icelandic limr a twig, lim and lime a twig, glue (Lehmann, L47). The sense of twig is present in the following Indo-Aryan words: Sanskrit nimna (low grounds); Hindi nihuk- (to bend, CDIAL 7229); Bihari lib- (to bend), lam- (bend, pliable). In fact the whole set of words may be related with another PIE root-word *knei-b- (to incline, bend; Pokorny:608): O.H.G. nicken (bend, be bent); Lith. , knbti (to snap, fold). By mb > pp mutation, we get the word nipple from Sanskrit nimba (CDIAL 7245; Hindi ; Azadirachta tree), the bitter berries of which exactly resemble a young ladys nipple. However, the small lime fruit or lemon too has a similar sounding name (CDIAL 7247). Both the plants are part of common wild flora of India. Unfortunately some sceptics have suggested its arrival from Austronesian (Turner:413; EWA 166). Thus English nipple, and Indo-Aryan and nimba are cognate words, linked with the common semantic connection of squeezability.

tila (black wart, sesame oilseed) Sanskrit tila (black wart, sesame oilseed). Following dispersal out of India to places where sesame was not found, its cognate words have retained various meanings like nipple, fat, etc. Material: M. Irish. del (nipple), Danish dl (mammary glands); Swe. dial. del (nipple), O.H.G. tila (female breast), O.E. delu nipple, teat (Pokorny:242). Greek (tiliai, black popler); Greek stear (fat, oil) > English tallow solid fat (c.f. Sanskrit tela oil); Proto-Gmc. *dilja, O.E. dile, O.S. dilli, O.H.G. tilli, dilli, Dill (Anathum graveolens, a black sesame like seed); Alb. dyll wax (see Pokorny: 234). Although the Germanic words English tallow, Norwegian talg etc have retained the meaning fat, their cognates from warmer parts of Europe have retained the semantic aspect liquidity. Thus we have: Armenian t (rain), t (to rain); M. Irish delt (dew) etc. (Pokorny:196 has failed to note this relationship). It is exact parallel of sneha-snow story. Just as Indian butter (sneha) became snow in north Europe, the sesame oil (tela) became rain in southern Europe.

Archaeeology: Charred sesame seeds have been found from ancient remains at Harappa (Indus Valley) from a layer dating back to 3500 BCE or 5500 years before present (Bedigian and Harlan: Abstract). Bedigian and Harlan noted that outside India, archaeological findings supporting sesame cultivation are from much later dates. The oldest findings outside India are from: Uratul in Armenia 600 BCE, Hajar bin Umeid in South Arabia 450 BCE and Egypt and China 3rd century BCE (ibid), all dating much later than the Indus finds. New evidence suggests that the Mesopotamian oil plant -g -i was sesame and that the crop and one name for its oil ellu were introduced from India (ibid). The Akkadian llu/lu 'sesame oil' and Sumerian ili 'sesame' are clearly derived from the South Dravidian words el, ellu meaning 'Sesamum indicum' (ibid., also Southworth:203-4 and Witzel 1999:28 pdf). Witzel also noted that the IndoAryan tila and the Dravidian ellu are related words. From ellu are derived Greek elaia and Latin oliva (olive), and the Greek words elaion and Latin oleum (olive oil), from which Germanic oil (E.), olie (Du. oil) etc have derived. The Proto-Italic form was *elaiuom. These all are related to the Indian word ellu. Clearly the archaeological, linguistic and ancillary evidence all point to the Indian origin of the cultivation of sesame and the word ellu (oil) and their subsequent transmission to other parts of the world. However, the transmission of the word into other Indo-European languages must have occurred earlier when the Indo-Europeans started migrating out of India to be differentiated into various linguistic branches. The Proto-Indo-Europeans knew oil and oilseed tila (Sanskrit, sesame). Although the Sanskrit word tila has been thought by Burrow (1947:142, 1948:380) to have been a loan word from the Dravidian into Sanskrit, Turner (CDIAL 5827) and Witzel (Fulltext:15, 2.4.7) seem to agree more with Kuiper (1955:157), who thought these words to be of Munda (Austro-Asiatic) origin. Thus there is a widespread confusion about linguistic origin of the words for oil, however all agreeing that the word was a loan one into the IndoEuropean. Such an early borrowing at the very pre-split level of PIE could not have taken place unless PIE was evolving in India itself, along with Munda and Dravidian languages evolving in the vicinity. Sanskrit and other Indo-Aryan languages, word tila (CDIAL 5827) means Sesamum indicum plant or its seed. However, it also means the black mark

(mole) on skin (CDIAL 5828), which resembles the black seeds of sesame plant. In Dravidian ellu means the sesame seed, oil and even bone (DED 854, 839). The semantic association between sesame and bone might have been through association with fat. Early humans procured fat by heating animal bones.

Pippala (Ficus religiosa) The berry of the ficus tree resembles the female nipple--hence, Sanskrit pippala (nipple, the berry of the fig tree), pippalaka (nipple), piplu (mole, pimple); Latin papilla (nipple), papula (pimple); Lithuanian ppas (nipple, teat); English pimple, Latin papule and Lithuanian pupuolo thick bud (see Pokorny:91 for complete list). Note: This is not the only evidence of knowledge of pippala by the PIE people. There are other sets of cognates with different semantic character, retaining philological affinity with pippala. Examples: 1. Sk pippalika ant; c.f. pimpla wasp, pimpla ant. Pimpla, pimplini, wasp/ ant (examples: Pimpla, Lissopimpla etc). c.f. Sanskrit pippalikA ants (actually tiny wasps, Blastophaga psenes) living inside the pippala berry. However, Turner (CDIAL 8201) thinks the word pippalika is of non-Aryan origin and cites EWA ii 285 for support, which is not correct. Words are: p pl (ant), Bihari pipri (ant), Oriya pimpuri (ant), Old Assamese pimpara (ant), West Pahari phmpi (butterfly).

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The pipari (pippalika) ant Blastophaga psenes: actually it is a tiny wasp, which lives inside the peepal berry.

Pimpla wasp

Pimpla instigator, an ant-like wasp of Europe 2. Butterfly: butterfly carry the semantic aspect (fluttering) of pippala: Lat. pp l , - s (*p-pil-); Gmc.*ff lr - in O.Ice. ffr ld n., O.E. ff ld , O.H.G. ff ltr , M.H.G. ff lt r, Ger. name Falter; Lith. p t l , Ltv. petelgs flatterhaft (*pel-tel-); 3. Many European trees preserve the name pippala: Sanskrit pippala (Ficus religiosa); English poplar, Latin poulus (poplar), German Personal name Pappel (poplar). 4. A related set of cognate words may be pippaka, pippika (Sanskrit, a particular bird), Greek pipu, pipra (a bird), O. Pruss. pepelis (singular), pippalins (birds, plural), and Osc. pipatio (clamour; Pokorny:798-801 and 830).

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References: EWA 166; quoted by Turner CDIAL 7247; EWA Manfred Mayrhofer, Kurzgefasstes etymologisches Wrterbuch des Altindischen. Heidelberg, 1953-. Burrow, T., 1947, Dravidian Studies VI:The loss of initial c/s in South Dravidian, Bulletin of School of Oriental and African Studies, 12:132-147; Burrow, T., 1948, Dravidian Studies VII: Further Dravidian words in Sanskrit, Bulletin of School of Oriental and African Studies, 12:365-396; Burrow, T., BSOAS xii 142, 380); Kuiper, F.B.J. Rigvedic loan-words. In: O. Spies (ed.) Studia Indologica. Festschrift fr Willibald Kirfel zur Vollendung seines 70. Lebensjahres, Bonn: Orientalisches Seminar 1955; Witzel, M., 1999, Early sources for South Asian substrate languages, Mother Tongue (special issue, Oct 1999). Bedigian, D. and Harlan, J.R., 1986, Evidence for cultivation of sesame in the ancient world, Economic Botany, 40(2):137-154. Southworth, F. C., 2005, Linguistic archaeology of South Asia, Routledge Curzon, London & New York.