Brinjal, Brown Jolly, and Aubergine — Siblings Separated by Centuries

Shuba in Sammamish, Washington, grew up in India, where she heard speakers of Indian English refer to an eggplant as a brinjal. She assumed that this was a British English term, but later realized that in Britain, this vegetable is called an aubergine. The CRC Dictionary of Medicinal and Poisonous Plants (Bookshop|Amazon), by Umberto Quattrocchi, lists 116 different words used in India to denote an “eggplant,” many of them similar to brinjal. Actually, brinja l and aubergine and even the Italian name for this vegetable, melanzana, are etymologically related, going back ultimately to Sanskrit. In the Caribbean, eggplant often goes by the name brown jolly, which is yet another adaptation of this earlier form. This is part of a complete episode.