Mr. Everything is Indian strikes again!

“Bhenjotibad”.

Awesome.

The British brought tomatoes into India?? Whoa!

Great post Ennis ! And Bhenjotibad... hilarious.

Already knew about this but I find it quite funny because the word 'vilayti' is said a lot by Punjabis and when you hear how we say it and how the original British soliders in India changed its prounciation to 'blighty' you can only imagine how difficult it must have been to understand them when they tried to actually speak Hindi / Punjabi.

The British most likely popularised the use of tomato in the subcontinent, certainly K. T. Achaya thinks so.

But the earliest transfer most likely took place along with potatoes, chilies, et al, via the Iberian connection established in Goa (aka Portugal's Estado da India) by 1510.

Anyway, since this about loan words, let's note that 'tomatl' is not the only word that has been borrowed by Indian languages directly from the original Nahuatl. There's also the 'chicozapota', a fruit which is known by the first half of the native word across the North of India, and the second half through much of the South.

darn those brits. so clever in their foolishry.

ennis,

thanks for the post. Bhenjotibad....made my morning.

I never understood why the British referred to their home country as “old Blighty.”

Me neither, but I stopped trying. After all, these are people that refer to the hood of a car as a bonnet

It could easily have become "Firangistan." And then they'd have called it Frengy, and would have sung anthems celebrating all things Frengy.

Including, one supposes, "curries."

Me neither, but I stopped trying. After all, these are people that refer to the hood of a car as a bonnet

My first reaction was "and the trunk of a car as dicky" but then I looked up the D word and apparently it's strictly an Asian term.

Isn't the trunk the boot? :)

camille, yes.

'chicozapota' - so interesting that this word is split correctly down the line for general northern and southern use. i wonder how they decided which region took which part of the word? and is there an english word for it?

as for tomatoes, i suppose it is one good thing to come out of the raj. i once had to give up tomatoes for 6 months - that was much harder than i had expected :)

ennis - would not the maternal version of bhenjotistan have been more appropriate for mother england?

but what fascinates me is the possibility that the British soldiers not only knew that bilayat meant foreign, but that they used the term with an added layer of irony.
i'm thinking that it's possible that they consciously appropriated the term to refer to Britain while they were in India, not only in the sense of Britain being foreign to India/ns (which would explain why they didn't use an English word. using a Hindusatani word to refer to an English entity underscores the foreignness of England), but also foreign to themselves.
i'm romanticising a bit here, but i think of people like Rudyard Kipling, a man who never fit in totally anywhere, but was most uncomfortable in England. if someone like him used the word "foreign" to refer to the place from which he came, the place to which he might never return, unpacking what he really means gets ... complicated.

several things the British had brought into the country, such as the tomato (bilayati baingan)”.

So the British gave me tomatoes, and therefore the gift of chicken makhni - chalo, it'll be one thing I'm not mad at them for. :)

They brought tomatoes and took back the Kohinoor and the Star of India.

They brought tomatoes and took back the Kohinoor and the Star of India.

good bargain at that. I bet the Kohinoor wouldn't blend well in rasam.

I knew that. Thanks for Bhenjotibad, Ennis

Did y'all know how Hindi lessons for Brits worked?
Examples: There was a brown crow!" --"There was a coal hoe!"

When asked to appeal to her husband for clemency on behalf of Bahadur Shah Zafar, one popsie proudly told him, with suitable emphasis, "Kubeen Nai!"

Among other misunderstood words, there's also juggernaut. Also, speaking of tomatoes and mangling by the British, mulligatawny soup (bastardization of the Tamil "molaga thanni" or "chilli water") is the worst insult you can throw at such a fantastic component of Tamil cuisine. Hypertree, good observation about the Kohinoor and Rasam. What about the stones in the dal though? If you're going to get your teeth chipped, wouldn't a diamond be preferable?

And what about Indians using English? Yeh goodbye kya hai?

Also, speaking of tomatoes and mangling by the British, mulligatawny soup (bastardization of the Tamil "molaga thanni" or "chilli water") is the worst insult you can throw at such a fantastic component of Tamil cuisine.

Sorry, that sentence lost something thanks to an incomplete edit by me. Mulligatawny soup was used to refer to rasam. And somebody needs to fix that most unapettizing Rasam photo on Wikipedia.

but what fascinates me is the possibility that the British soldiers not only knew that bilayat meant foreign, but that they used the term with an added layer of irony. i'm thinking that it's possible that they consciously appropriated the term to refer to Britain while they were in India, not only in the sense of Britain being foreign to India/ns (which would explain why they didn't use an English word. using a Hindusatani word to refer to an English entity underscores the foreignness of England), but also foreign to themselves.

I think you give them too much credit. Back then people didn't live that long, and probably most of the British in India had been born in England. I doubt they saw themselves as more of brown sahibs than white ones. And in any case, the word was popular across the Raj, at which point the possibility of knowing irony ceases. It was also used in a semi-official capacity which would be weird. Why would the Army publish magazines for homesick soldiers in trenches that calls them foreigners? Nationalism tends to be far simpler than that.