The key that came by sea
Turn a chaabi in Delhi or a chaavi in Rajkot and you are, by the standard account, saying a Portuguese word. Four centuries of Portuguese forts and ships on the Gujarat coast left both languages a layer of household words, some shared, some taken by only one sister, and a couple whose road nobody can trace. Then English arrived and the same thing began again, in each language’s own way.
Lock a door in Delhi and you turn a चाबी chaabi. Lock one in Rajkot and it is a ચાવી chaavi. A Hindi speaker hears a mispronunciation. It is nothing of the kind. By the standard account both are Portuguese chave, key, and the Gujarati is the more faithful copy, keeping the v that Hindi hardened to a b. Even the first sound is a fossil: Lisbon now says chave with a sh, but by most accounts sixteenth-century sailors still said ch, and that is what both languages kept. The key came by sea, and so did a good deal else.
The Portuguese reached India’s western coast at the very end of the fifteenth century and wanted Gujarat above all, where the trade was. In the 1530s a sultan of Gujarat, hard pressed by the Mughals, let them fortify Diu, and they took Daman a generation later; both stayed Portuguese until 1961. Bassein, Vasai today, south of Daman, was theirs from 1534 until the Marathas took it two centuries later. Surat, the great port, never was: it was a factory town, with foreign trading houses rather than forts, though for much of the sixteenth century its ships sailed on Portuguese passes. A form of Portuguese served, by most accounts, as the coast’s trade language into the eighteenth century, so Gujarati had it within earshot for more than four hundred years. Hindi, far from the sea, got its share at second hand, through the ports.
What remains is a layer of household words, most of it shared. Tobacco is तंबाकू tambaaku in Hindi and તમાકુ tamaaku in Gujarati, from tabaco, a plant the Portuguese had just met in the Americas; Hindi added a nasal, Gujarati did not. A priest is पादरी paadri in both, from padre, father. The pineapple is अनानास anaanaas and અનાનસ anaanas, from ananás. Bread is the clearest case. Portuguese pão ends in a nasal vowel, and the sisters handled it differently: Hindi wrote it out as पाव paav, while Gujarati kept the nasal, the ં of પાઉં paau. The tale that it is named for a quarter measure, or for feet kneading dough, is folk etymology; the Gujarati form, nasal and all, gives the game away.
Cabbage shows where confidence ends. Gujarati કોબી kobi is Portuguese couve with little changed, and Marathi has the same word. Hindi गोभी gobhi is generally taken to be the same loan, but neither the g nor the bh is what couve would normally give, so the link is usually asserted rather than shown. This app records the Gujarati side with confidence, the Hindi side with a hedge.
Not every word reached both sisters, and the misses are as telling as the hits. The potato came with the Portuguese, and Gujarati took their word for it: બટાકું bataaku is Portuguese batata. Hindi reached back into Sanskrit instead and called the newcomer आलू aaloo, from ālu, an edible root, a name an older tuber passed to the new one. Rooms went the other way: Hindi कमरा kamra is usually put down to Portuguese câmara, though the road may run through Persian and this app leaves its origin open; Gujarati kept its own ઓરડો ordo. No rule predicts which sister takes a word; there is only the record of who stood on the quay when it came ashore.
Two words keep a question mark. Soap is साबुन saabun in Hindi and સાબુ saabu in Gujarati. But Arabic ṣābūn, carried north by Persian, and Portuguese sabão, carried in by sea, are by most accounts one Latin word at bottom, so the form cannot tell the route. The Gujarati form without a final n looks Portuguese and the Hindi form with one looks Persian, but that is a tidy story, not evidence; the honest filing puts the Hindi side under Arabic and leaves the Gujarati route open. The iron for pressing clothes, इस्त्री istri and ઇસ્ત્રી istri, is often put down to Portuguese too. Several derivations have been proposed and none is agreed, so the honest label says so and leaves it there.
The English eclipsed the Portuguese, and with them came the newest shared layer. A bus is बस bas and બસ bas, letter for letter. A table is टेबल tebal and ટેબલ tebal, both hearing the English t as a retroflex. School is the richer case. Both have the English word, स्कूल school and સ્કૂલ skool, but it is masculine in Hindi and feminine in Gujarati, presumably from the feminine word it displaced, નિશાળ nishaal. Behind that word, by the usual account, stands the Sanskrit word for a hall, the शाला of पाठशाला paathshaala and the શાળા shaala of Gujarati, with the family habit showing even there: Hindi’s l is Gujarati’s ળ.
Sanskrit had no letters for the open vowels of bank and college, so both scripts improvised. Hindi writes बैंक baink with the ai it already had and spells college with a crescent mark, कॉलेज. Gujarati gave both sounds letters of their own, ઍ and ઑ, so બૅન્ક benk and કૉલેજ kolej are spelled as they are said. It is the mirror image of the Persian z, where Hindi added a mark and Gujarati did without, the argument A bazaar without a z makes in full.
So what does a shared loan prove? That two languages stood in the same place at the same time, and nothing more. Marathi has chaavi too, and so do coastal languages that are no kin to either. What makes Hindi and Gujarati sisters is the vocabulary nobody borrows, the words for hand and house and three, the argument Sisters, not strangers makes in full. Yet even the loans show the family face at the endings. Gujarati gave batata a neuter, tabaco a feminine and the papaya a neuter પપૈયું papaiyu, while Hindi made पपीता papeeta masculine, with the aa that Gujarati answers with o or u. The words came by sea. What each sister did with them, she had learned at home.
