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

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Shuba in Sammamish, , grew up in India, where she heard speakers of Indian English refer to an eggplant as a brinjal. She assumed that this was a term, but later realized that in Britain, this vegetable is called an aubergine. The CRC Dictionary of Medicinal and Poisonous (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 name for this vegetable, melanzana, are etymologically related, going back ultimately to . 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.

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