Talk:List of English words of Sanskrit origin

sthiti = state ?

state as in condition. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.61.20.11 (talk) 05:57, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes! It is "state" as in condition! So, "How is his condition?" translates to "Unkee sthiti kaisee hai?".--therash09 (talk) 14:17, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Matru : Mother, Pitru : Father, Bhratru: Brother ?

If a source of certain words is latin, is it possible that latin borrowed it from sanskrit ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vwalvekar (talk • contribs) 11:06, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

"Path" and and "ic" suffix

Sanskrit has same word with same meaning and pronounciation. Many indian languages use "ic" suffix just like english. e.g. bhugol-bhaugolIC. an example in english would be "semitIC".

Words of Doubtful English Use

Yes indeed there are quite a few Sanskrit words in English. However, there are too many common words in Sanskrit and English as both are Indo-European languages and Sanskrit the older one. Example, Sanskrit to English: cut=cut, nas=nose, irm=arm, hrt=heart, naam=name, dwar=door, widhwa=widow, madium=medium, uppar=upper, charittar=character, etc. The list is endless.

Many of the words on this page are not in general use in English. Shall I list them? Leegee23 (talk) 13:45, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Words of Doubtful Sanskrit Origin

yes there are quite

Emerald

Another one not supported by the ref given. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/emerald says that the source is Semitic b-r-q, from which the Sanskrit marāk(a)la is also derived. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.234.205.16 (talk) 23:53, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Candle

This one is wrong. A cite ref is given http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=candle but whoever added it in has misread the source. It says "cf. Skt. cand-" but in etymology, "cf" does not mean "derives from", it means "compare" i.e. a cousin word descended from the same root. The actual root is PIE *kand. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.234.205.16 (talk) 23:23, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Curriculum

Sanskrit Gurukulam or place of learning from a guru. However i havent found any specific references regarding such other than hearsay at the moment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.195.110.183 (talk) 05:01, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

"curriculum" is a nice straightforward Latin word meaning "running" or "course". So Gurukulam is a false friend. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.234.205.16 (talk) 23:40, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Axis

What is the Sanskrit word.

Sanskrit is aksah. Looks like this one branched off fairly early, since PIE has aks. [1] deeptrivia (talk) 20:55, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Zen

That is definitely chinese

No, Zen is Japanese pronounciation of Chinese Chan, which of course, is the Chinese pronounciation of dhyana. [2] deeptrivia (talk) 20:55, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Ginger

Should 'ginger' be listed on this page? I think it should be moved to the Tamil page instead. vide http://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/engl/Zing_off.html

Agree. Entry in Tamil page exists, so I removed the entry here. Ambarish | Talk 15:37, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Orange

I can't find the reference right now, but I'm pretty sure that "orange" comes from an old sanskrit word. But its evolved quite a bit, so I'm not sure if it should be included here. This was the "evolution" as I remember it:

na rangi -> naranj (?) in arabic naranj -> spanish naranjo naranjo -> english narange, final o dropped and j changed to ge to fit into english spelling. a narange -> an arange, this happened alot in english At some point the a changed to o, not sure why...

This is basically correct. The origin of the Sanskrit word itself is disputed; it might be Tamil or Munda (see http://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/engl/Citr_sin.html#etym)

Navigate

What's 'navigate' doing here? Doesn't it come from the Latin 'navigo' - to sail? Felix Dance 07:55, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

The word navigation actually comes from the Sanskrit nav gatih DaGizza ^{Chat (c)} 08:26, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

• The ultimate source of navigation is unclear and if it is included here its entry should note this uncertainty.--Hraefen 23:59, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

All of the sources that claim that the word navigation is from nav gatih do not deal with etymology, but instead Indian nationalism. But the article even gives a different word for the etymology of navigation: Navigathi. There are only two entries on google; one is a pdf and the other is a webblog, so nav gatih (197 entries) is more popular. Both are not factually accurate since etymonline even gives the year of the word: "1533, from L. navigationem (nom. navigatio), from navigatus, pp. of navigare ". Mar de Sin ^{Speak up!} 20:07, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I have removed navigation. There is not a shred of evidence that it has anything to do with Sanskrit. OED gives its etymology: < Middle French, French navigation voyage (late 13th cent. in Old French), action of travelling by water (mid 16th cent.), art or science of travelling by sea (mid 16th cent.), action or art of travelling through the air by means of an aircraft (1742) and its etymon classical Latin n{amac}vig{amac}ti{omac}n-, n{amac}vig{amac}ti{omac} the action of travelling by ship, sailing, a voyage < n{amac}vig{amac}t-, past participial stem of n{amac}vig{amac}re NAVIGATE v. + -i{omac} -ION1. Cf. Italian navigazione (1304-8), Spanish navegación (c1440; 1519 in sense 3 as nauegacion in passage translated in quot. a1543). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:04, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Sapphire

The article states "from a Semitic tongue, but probably finally from Sanskrit sanipriya", however the source reads "some linguists propose an origin in Skt. sanipriya". That is a big difference, and at the very least this source does not support a "probable" Sanskrit origin 82.227.196.67 (talk) 16:14, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Factual accuracy

Many of the words on this list (e.g. mother/brother/navigation/etc.) do not come from Sanskrit but Latin or Proto-Indo-European. They do have similar Sanskrit counterparts, but are very distantly related. To say that they are from Sanskrit is factually incorrect, because the etymological sources that actually give the Sanskrit counterparts have then as words from P-I-E and not as anything in the direct etymology of the English word. Mar de Sin ^{Speak up!} 19:50, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

That's what I was thinking. Several of the words seem to be just distantly related instead of being *from* Sanskrit. I get a feeling of bad linguistic self-esteem (desperate attempts to find matches) from the whole article.--Snowgrouse 11:31, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Would you please detail your opinion giving distantly related examples? --Chapultepec 17:26, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I will remove some of the words inaccurately describes as being from Sanskrit, but feel free to discuss. Mar de Sin ^{Speak up!} 19:58, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

The article lists family terms such as father, mother, brother, and sister as of Sanskrit origin, but most linguists consider these to be of Anglo-Saxon origin deriving from proto-Germanic. For example, see Online Etymology Dictionary for origins of these words. The source cited for "sister" [3] actually states that the word is of mixed old English and old Norse origin and merely states that it is akin to the Sanskrit cognate, not derived from it. The source for the other three words [4] is someone's blog and hardly seems like a reliable source. The author of this blog seems to be claiming Sanskrit origins for English words based on similarity alone. For example, the word "brother" is claimed to derive from Sanskrit through Greek(!), a far-fetched claim considering that Germanic languages closely related to English all have highly similar words for brother (as well as mother, father, and sister).--Smcg8374 (talk) 07:07, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Sine

The word "Sine" is listed with the following explanation:

"This has an interesting path. Aryabhata's sanskrit word jya was translated, though proximity of sound, into Arabic jiba (A bay or a cove in Arabic), and ultimately into the Latin word sinus (literally meaning a bay or a cove), from which the modern term sine is derived. (Source: "The Argumentative Indian" by Amartya Sen)"

Even if Sen's surmise is correct, it makes "sine" a word inspired by the Sanskrit meaning, and not a word of Sanskrit origin. The OED etymology is: [ad. L. sinus a bend, bay, etc.; also, the hanging fold of the upper part of a toga, the bosom of a garment, and hence used to render the synonymous Arab. jaib, applied in geometry as in sense 2. Cf. F. sinus, Sp. and It. seno.] I am therefore removing it from the list. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fowler&fowler (talk • contribs). at 03:17, 6 January 2007

Names of gods

Should these be counted as Sanskrit words? Proper names are a different matter from common nouns. List of Hindu deities would surely be the proper place to which to move them?HeartofaDog 00:19, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

If they appear in an English dictionary, they are certainly English words, and of course of Sanskrit origin.

Chapultepec 06:46, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

It would be an eccentric dictionary that included Sarasvati etc as English words. See below. HeartofaDog 00:09, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that instead of adding the rather long list of Hindu deity names to this page, it would be better to simply refer a reader to the page List of Hindu deities. Since the list of deities is prohibitively long, actually adding them to this page would turn off a reader who is looking for the common English words, which would then be relatively few and far between. Also, with the Hindu deity names, there will be pretty much no extra etymology to be explained than what might already be there on the deity (Wikipedia) pages. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

PS Or the Hindu deity list could be added in a separate section at the end of this page. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:44, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

What I was suggesting was actually the precise opposite, that the names of deities in THIS article should be removed TO the List of Hindu deities - for the reason that they are not words (ie, common nouns), but names - see below. HeartofaDog 00:09, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi, now I'm at work, after a couple of hours I'll be able to work on this article, meanwhile don't worry I won't take all the list of deities here :), in fact these are the most prominent ones that you can find in an English dictionary. And I don't think that I will be able to find the other deities in a normal dictionary. From now on I will concentrate on finding common words like emerald, jackal etc., and of course I will make lots of re-wording and contractions in the sentences to comply with the copyright laws. Now I'm getting back to work :)

Chapultepec 15:52, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I think you are not entirely grasping the real and significant difference between a common noun, like emerald or bungalow, and a proper noun (or name) like Sarasvati or Ganesh, and if your dictionary doesn't make the distinction, perhaps it's not a good dictionary (or needs more careful reading). The place for these names is not in a "List of Engish words", because they are not English words: they are the English-language forms of proper names - exactly the same as Anglicised placenames like Madras and Delhi. They would be better moved. HeartofaDog 00:09, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi again, at first I must state that the online dictionaries I use are the prominent ones, such as Merriam-Webster or American Heritage Dictionary, not ordinary dictionaries. If these words take place in such dictionaries, they are most probably English words.

Secondly, these dictionaries take only the most prominent of the gods, that is to say, you can't find all the list of Hindu deities in these dictionaries. And it doesn't do any harm if the user learns a couple of prominent Hindu gods that took place in major English dictionaries.

As for the common nouns, those ones comprise the great majority of the list and I'm currently working on them, there are a bit more common nouns to be added to the list.

Chapultepec 08:49, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

As I say, these are not "English words" - they are the anglicised forms of proper names. There is a difference between common nouns and proper nouns, which will not go away just because your sources blur it, for whatever reason. It doesn't really matter either whether these are "prominent gods" or obscure gods - if you include the names of deities, big, small or imaginary, you must logically also include names of people and places - which is unnecessary, because such lists already exist, as does a list of names of Hindu gods.

The idea behind this list is a very good one - but it needs to be integrated with the other articles on related subjects. If you must keep these names, at least group them together in a separate section - but is there really much point in having, effectively, two lists of names of Hindu deities (a full one and a partial one)? Would it not be more productive to add any that are missing to the existing list at List of Hindu deities, and link to it? HeartofaDog 11:36, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments about the idea behind this list.

As per List of Hindu deities, there is already a link to that page at the bottom of the article.

As per Hindu deities, I must say that these words are not private names nor geographical place names. These are religious terms and hence they might be considered English words. And let's not forget that I found these terms in major English dictionaries. So, this is not a claim of my own.

About grouping them together in a sub-group, perhaps we can do it. But in fact I don't like the idea of dissecting the list into sub-groups since it's gonna spoil the overall continuity of the list. I would prefer an integral one to be able to give the reader the chance to skim alphabetically all the through the article.

Chapultepec 11:55, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

The name of a deity is not a religious term - it is a NAME. Place names are NAMES, people's names are NAMES, deities' names are NAMES. This is not a list of names: the List of Hindu deities IS a list of names - the names of Hindu deities, in fact.

It is pointless to create a second list of these here, and by doing so you are clogging this list up with unnecessary content, so you are actually making two perfectly good articles less useful. Put the names on the list of names, put the words on the list of words. End of! HeartofaDog 15:18, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, place names and people's names are private names, but these gods are nouns and religious terms. Please vide infra:

American Heritage Dictionary - Agni

And additionally, deities are in fact a small percentage of this list, and only the most prominent ones are in the list, no more than 10. So, what's the reason of this discussion?

Chapultepec 15:42, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Just read it again from the beginning - one day the penny may drop. HeartofaDog 18:41, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm with Heartofadog. I had no idea what the vast majority of these words meant, and I was wondering when I'd stopped being able to understand my own language. Then I realized that the words I didn't understand were invariably names of God's. Completely unnecessary. I suggest they be removed. Bakarocket 15:01, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Is it possible even for a native speaker to be able to know every word in the English vocabulary? Chapultepec 07:20, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I think they should definitely be removed, these are not English words, contrary to 'nirvana' and 'karma', which are in use indeed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.227.196.67 (talk) 16:18, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

The Number 3?!

The article claims that the number three (3) in English is derived from Sanskrit, I find this highly unlikely. Surely 3 is derived from other Germanic and European languages which preceded English, and ultimately derived from the Proto-Indo-European language, not Sanskrit. I cannot even imagine how the English would for some bizarre reason adopt an Indian word for one of the primary letters, especially since the two cultures have only been in contact for about a thousand years or so. The entry is not cited in any way, and it looks like the work of some armature linguist who thinks he sees something, unless someone can come up with a citation for the number 3 being derived from the Sanskrit language, I'm going to delete the entry. --Hibernian (talk) 06:00, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I've also just seen that the word "Name" was claimed as Sanskrit, I find this also highly dubious for the same reasons. "Name" and similar words are very common in most Indo-European languages (example: French = nom, Dutch = naam, Irish = ainm, etc, are these also supposed to be from Sanskrit?), just because Sanskrit has a similar word does not mean the English term is derived from Sanskrit, all it means is that English and Sanskrit have the same common ancestor, namely P.I.E. Both of these entries were added by User:Nvram, I suggest he/she explain their reasoning here and cite what source (if any) this is coming from. --Hibernian (talk) 06:08, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Citation: Thri (meaning Three) Sanskrit, Treis (G) in Latin, Three in English. Its not adopted directly in English but via Latin which might have shared roots with older sanskrit or mother language.

About the PIE theory: Sir William Jones – the English Philologist who for the first time in 1786 suggested in his book “The Sanscrit Language” that Greek and Latin were related to Sanskrit and perhaps even Gothic, Celtic and Persian languages were related to Sanskrit.

It was this work which later gave birth to the so called Proto-Indo-European theory which instead of looking into Sanskrit being the root language of all Indo-European languages, suggests that all Indo-European languages including Sanskrit came from another so far unheard of language called PIE or Proto-Indo-European language.

Well, the irony is that till today there is no literature in the world about the so called PIE. There is no inscription found anywhere in the world written in the so called PIE. Nobody knows how the PIE was. Nobody knows who spoke it or in which part of the world was it spoken. No known ancient culture in the world talks about such a language being the root of the language they spoke. Simply put there is NO PROOF about the existence of this language

English words which are derived from Latin/Greek/Persian which are in turn derived from Sanskrit.

Above excerpts are taken from article: http://www.hitxp.com/articles/culture/sanskrit-greek-english-latin-roman-words-derived-pie-proto-indo-european-language/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.254.178.29 (talk) 15:23, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

A few Words

There is no evidence that "Smart" is of Sanskrit origin, and the citation doesn't even say that, it compares it to cognates in Greek, Sanskrit and Latin. That does not in any way imply that the words are of Sanskrit origin.

It is also claiming that the Latin word "Argentinum," and thus all of its derived terms, are from Sanskrit. The citations in that entry don't mention anything about the Sanskrit origin, in fact, they're citations that I would deem unnecessary.

"Ginger" is back on here, but the only evidence I can find is that it is of Dravidian origin. I am going to remove it shortly.

"Son" is claimed. Really? It's an old English word, at what point did the Anglo-Saxons encounter Sanskrit-speaking peoples?

The main problem that this list seems to have is the unwillingness among some to differentiate Indo-European roots from direct borrowing. There are very few borrowings from Sanskrit into Latin and Greek. There was very little contact. I would also like to point out that Avestan, a language closely related to, but not derived from, Sanskrit would have had extensive contact with the Greeks. We, however, do not have as deep of knowledge of Avestan as we do of Sanskrit.

Finally, about half these entries were adopted into English via Hindi, and we have a list of English Words derived from Hindi. The latter is significantly shorter and becomes mostly redundant, especially because most Hindi words come from Sanskrit. I suggest that we prune this of adaptations taken from Hindi, leaving those to their own article. Franzose (talk) 17:20, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Bartleby version of American Heritage Dictionary - gone

In the references, links that are supposed to display definitions from the Bartleby version of the American Heritage Dictionary display only the Bartleby main page instead. Bartleby no longer contains this work. The definitions are available (one at a time) from http://ahdictionary.com/. David F (talk) 00:45, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Should the linked articles be updated with their respective etymology origins?

Hindivindi (talk) 05:54, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

That looks like a good idea. bobrayner (talk) 22:47, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Geometry, Para, Trikonamiti

The word Geometry is derived from the Sanskrit word Jamiti and Para (pronounced as Pa rah) also means something that is different in Sanskrit. For example, Paranormal means something that is not normal and Para Shakti means a power that is not from here, a power from somewhere else. Trikonamiti is a Sanskrit word for Trigonometry, I think the word might be derived from Sanskrit. I have necessary references for these words, so I think we can go ahead and add these words to this list. I already added Pundit. Please let me know if I'm wrong. Thank you.

from Greek trigonon "triangle" (from tri- "three" (see tri-) + gonia "angle" (see -gon)) + metron "a measure" (see meter (n.2)). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Christos orestis (talk • contribs) 10:13, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Not English words

The use of non-English words have spoiled the intent of this page. To say that the words "Amrita" and "Buddha" are English words is just silly. Words like Regal, King, Cow, Same, Man, etc. are more suitable as being actual longterm English words that are of ancient Sanskrit/Indo-European origin.

"Right" and "Action" is also originated from Sanskrit/Indo-Eropean origin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.58.204.5 (talk) 19:41, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Removing non-English words.

I have started removing words that have no meaning or use in English that is different from meaning and use in the source languages. This isn't a glossary of religious terms nor of places in foreign counties. I know some of these word are defined in English dictionaries, but that does not mean they are now English words. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 07:07, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Many of these are totally inaccurate

Rabies is not from Sanskrit, it's from Latin rabies, from rabio, which is a cognate of rabhas, not descended from it. Same thing for navigate... Is this entire article being edited by hindu nationalists or something? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.43.73.64 (talk) 04:31, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Some more words that aren't from Sanskrit according to Wiktionary.

Path, "From Middle English path, peth, from Old English pæþ ‎(“path, track”), from Proto-Germanic *paþaz ‎(“path”)" - Wiktionary.

Rye, Does this has another meaning? Because the grain is: From Middle English, from Old English ryġe, from Proto-Germanic *rugiz, from Proto-Indo-European *wrugʰyo- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vatterholm (talk • contribs) 12:20, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

 Done. I removed path as it was unsourced anyways. The citation for "Rye" is the American Heritage Dictionary entry here. However that entry says it is a Romani word, so I removed it. People who add these things think that if it is in an English dictionary, then it counts as an English word. I see no reason to think that. Also people are adding words on the basis that if they sound something like the Sanskrit word, then it must come from Sanskrit. There is no reason to assume that as well. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 04:19, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on List of English words of Sanskrit origin. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070203220223/http://dinosauria.com/dml/names/dinoc.htm to http://www.dinosauria.com/dml/names/dinoc.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 19:01, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

It doesn't take much to make this list...

The word "probably" occurs so frequently in this article that, with the exception of obvious proper nouns, I wonder if its author has a political agenda. It was therefore no surprise to discover so many challenged words on this talk page. It's as if the page was written by the Hindi version of Gus Portokalos from the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" — a character trying to show how every word in English is actually of Greek origin.

1. Every proper noun should be excluded from the page. Rajah, swami, Cashmere, Ambarella, Kedgeree, these are not English words but Sanskrit proper nouns. What is the purpose for including them? If a native Sanskrit speaker pronounces my surname, does that magically make it a Sanskrit word borrowed from English? Of course not. Proper nouns are not "English words of Sanskrit origin" but "Sanskrit words commonly recognized by native English speakers." Applying this point of view would remove, what, 80% of the words from this list?

2. Basic words with specific meanings are unlikely to be of purely Sanskrit origin. I about died laughing when I read about mother/father/brother/sister on this talk page (Gus Portokalos is alive and well!). What words were being used by the non-sanskrit-speakers when they encountered the sanskrit-speakers? Such specific relationships would certainly have been understood pre-visit and words would already be in place. What reason would another language have to borrow the words (unless heavily influenced by the culture, resulting in a very high percentage of "borrowed words")? There was a comment earlier on this Talk page suggesting there is no evicence whatsoever that P.I.E. ever existed. Frankly, this is circumstantial evidence. Something pre-existed the languages to inject a common phrase for basic family relationships. Sanskrit is not so old that no one could possibly get the word for "brother" from any other source. Pal and Sandal are words that easily fall into this category. Gratefully, there are only a few (and every one of them have the word "probably" in their description).

3. Of the remaining words, how do we know which were borrowed from Sanskrit, and which were borrowed into Sanskrit? Sanskrit is not so old that anyone could claim there's a "good chance" it was one and not the other. How do we know "shawl" comes from Sanskrit and wasn't, instead, borrowed into Sanskrit from Persian? Who made the shawl (or a strip of cloth) first? The object is so common and the action is so common that the question might be asked, "who invented cloth first, the Hindi or the Persians?" (BTW, article link 106 should be "https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=shawl".) The AHD claims it's "ultimately" from Sanskrit, but they don't explain how. Who used the word in a written context first? Who used shawls frist? Who wove cloth first?

When you remove all the words that don't belong here (proper names, common-source, and questionable source), what's left is a very short list of principally words describing thievery (which I did find interesting). Consequently, I question the motivation of this article and judge its quality to be quite poor. It appears to be nothing more than a list of words that include the word "Sanskrit" in their description. JBH (talk) 20:55, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

This list was created along with a whole bunch of similar lists for other languages. See Lists of English words by country or language of origin and see Talk:Lists of English words by country or language of origin for discussions as to why these lists exist and what should be on them. My stab at a simple statement of purpose: it is linguistic knowledge. Also, people who enjoy browsing Wikipedia use lists like this to find articles of interest.

Strict inclusion criteria has been difficult to form, but the standard criteria that applies to all article content applies here. If the entry does not have a supporting citation from a reliable source, it can be removed. The discussion Talk:Lists of English words by country or language of origin#Clarification of Intent of Articles mentions the criteria: Can it be found in English dictionaries? I like that. The words rajah, swami, cashmere, ambarella and kedgeree are all in Merriam-Webster and by the way, are common nouns not proper nouns in English. Only cashmere is based on a proper noun Kashmir. Maybe you meant something different like a word that is properly a noun. If a word makes it into an English dictionary then we can say it has "entered" the English language and is a candidate for inclusion on this list.

I see the word "probably" is used 13 times currently in the article. I only checked one, but in that case the citation used the word "probably" so it is justified there. Questioning cited derivations will end up sinking into WP:OR and I do not want to go there. If a citation says it somehow is derived from Sanskrit we should not second guess it.

I would oppose any blanket deletion of entries (all the nouns, all the probable's, etc.). If the list was stupid long, then I might want to tighten the criteria, but it is not long and seems fine as is. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 10:23, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

References

The majority of these words are Proto Indo European cognates and not of Sanskrit origin

The majority of these words are Proto Indo European cognates and not of Sanskrit origin. Because they are a common family, the ancestor of Sanskrit (PIE) is often the source of both the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and derivative English words. Most of these additions are people noticing a similarity which usually indicates a cognate and falsely labelling it as Sanskrit origin without a citation. The true list would be much shorter and most of the words would be introduced through a modern vernacular Indian language that actually interacted with English such as Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Kannada, Punjabi, etc. I question the value of a page with this much misinformation.Iṣṭa Devatā (talk) 21:36, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Each word is suppose to have a citation the mentions a Sanskrit origin. Sometimes if the word links to an article that mentions a cited Sanskrit origin, that good enough. You are welcome to remove any word that is not cited in some way. I have removed words in the past that were cognates. Do you have any particular word in mind? Richard-of-Earth (talk) 07:59, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

How did no one notice this

Someone changed Indo-european to YAMS and it remained through many subsequent edits since January 23rd. Iṣṭa Devatā (talk) 22:05, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Huh, I do watch this page. It happen with this edit back at the end of January. I just somehow missed it. Thanks for catching it. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 08:46, 5 March 2018 (UTC)