Wanderwort origins and the Indus Valley Civilization?
score:5
Sad to say, probably not. Let's look at the reported itenerary of these words:
Rice: via Old French ris and Italian riso from Latin oriza, which is from Greek ὄρυζα oryza, through an Indo-Iranian tongue finally from Sanskrit व्रीहिस् vrihi-s "rice", derived from proto-Dravidian.
So this word was first imported to Sanskrit (an Indo-Euorpean language descended likely from the language spoken by folks who destroyed the Indus Valley Civ), then to Greek, likely during the immediate time post-Alexander when those two languages would have been in contact. So no, unless you count having your territory overrun to be "trade", this wouldn't be one.
You see a similar pattern with your other two words:
Orange through Old French orenge, Medieval Latin orenge and Italian arancia from Arabic نارنج naranj, via Persian نارنگ narang and Sanskrit नारङ्ग naranga-s meaning "an orange tree", derived from proto-Dravidian.
Sugar through Old French sucre, Italian zucchero, Medieval Latin succarum, Arabic: سكر sukkar and Persian: شکر shakar ultimately from Sanskrit शर्करा sharkara which means "ground or candied sugar" (originally "grit" or "gravel"), from proto-Dravidian.
Both of these went into Sanskrit first, then into Persian, then to Arabic. The Sanskrit would indicate an Indo-European takeover of the words in the subcontinent. The Persian -> Arabic implies that the actual trade that moved these words west didn't happen until the Middle Ages. The Persians took over their namesake territory in the near east from the Greeks in the early middle ages. Arabic wasn't a particularly important (or well-traveled) language until about the 7th Century AD.
So it looks like in all cases the outside world only knows these terms thanks to the (Indo-European) Sanskrit speakers. Where trade outside the subcontinent is concerned, the trading parties appear to have been Greeks and Persians, trading with Sanskrit speakers.
Upvote:0
Wikipedia gives etymology of the word, search each word separately. Mango originated from the Malayalam via Portuguese (also manga) during spice trade with Kerala in 1498. Rice Originated from Indo-Aryan (as in Sanskrit vrīhí-) and subsequently to Proto-Dravidian *wariñci according to Witzel and others. Orange Originated from the Sanskrit word for "orange tree" (नारङ्ग nāraṅga), which is probably of Proto-Dravidian origin. Anaconda The word anaconda is derived from the name of a snake from Sri Lanka. However, the name commonly used in Brazil is sucuri, sucuriju or sucuriuba. Reference: Wikipedia.
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