Bibliotheca Polyglotta

A loan-word, ultimately from Skr śṛṅgavēr ‘horn-shaped’. Jeffery1938 suggests a borrowing via Pali singivēra > mPers singaβēr > Aram/Syr zang^əbīlā > Ar.
The Skr word is also the origin of the European words for ginger. Opinion however differs as to whether or not Ar has been involved in the transfer of the (word for the) spice to Europe.

hist

lC6 / ▪ eC7 al-ʔAʕšā ka-ʔanna ǧaniyyan min al-zanǧabīli ḫālaṭa fā-hā ‘wie wenn frischgepflückter Ingwer sich ihrem Munde beigemischt hätte’ (Geyer, Zwei Gedichte, I, 57: E 64^a).
▪ eC7 Q 76:17 wa-yusqawna fī-hā kaʔsan kāna mizāǧu-hā zanǧabīlan ‘There are they watered with a cup whereof the mixture is of Zanjabil’, Paret: ‘Sie bekommen darin (d.h. im Paradies) einen Becher (Wein) zu trinken, dessen Mischwasser (mit) Ingwer (gewürzt) ist’.

cogn

▪ DRS 8 (1999)#ZNGBL: Syr zangᵊbīl, Amh zənǧi/əbəl, Te ǧänǧäbil, Tña ǧənǧəbäl ‘ginger’.

disc

▪ Jeffery1938: In the Qurʔān, the word »occurs ‎only in a passage descriptive of the delights of Paradise, where the exegetes differ as to whether ‎Zanǧabīl is the name of the well from which the drink of the Redeemed comes, or means the spice ‎by which the drink is flavoured (vide Ṭab., Zam., and Baiḍ. on the passage and LA, xiii, 332). – ‎There was fairly general agreement among the early authorities that it was a Pers word. al-Ṯaʕālibī, ‎‎Fiqh, 318, and al-Ǧawālīqī, Muʕarrab, 78, give it in their lists of Persian loan-words, and their ‎authority is accepted by as-Suyūṭī, Itq, 321; Mutaw, 47; and al-Khafāǧī, 99. – The modPers ‎word for ginger is šankalīl (Vullers, Lex, ii, 472; cf. also ii, 148) from Phlv singaβēr,¹ which is the source of ‎the Arm sngrowēγ,² and the Syr zangᵊbīlā; ‎Aram ‎זנגבילא‎.³ ‎The ultimate source seems to have been the Skr śṛṅgaber,⁴ / ⁵ Pali singivēra, from which comes the Grk ζιγγίβερις.⁶ There can be little doubt that the word passed into Ar from Syr ‎and was thence borrowed back into Persian in Islamic times.⁷ It occurs in the early ‎poetry⁸ and so was ‎evidently an early borrowing«.

1. So ‎Vullers, Lex, ii, 148, and cf. Pahlavi Texts, ed. Jamasp Asana, p. 31. 2. Hübschmann, Arm. Gramm, i, 238. 3. From which was then derived the form gînḇərâ ‎, Levy, Wörterbuch, i, 345. 4. [Corrected from Jeffery’s śūṅ…‑. The transliteration is to be read /ɕɻŋ…/ or /ʃɻŋ…/. – guthst]. 5. Yule (vide Yule and Burnell, Hobson Jobson, ed. Cooke, 1903, p. 374) thought that the Skt śṛṅgaver was a made-up word, ‎and that as the home of the plant is in the Malabar district, we should look for the origin of the ‎word in the Malayalam iñchi, meaning ‘root’ (cf. Tamil iñci / iñǧi; Sinhalese inguru), but there is the ‎equal probability that these are all derived from the Skt śṛṅga ‘a horn’. See, however, Laufer, Sino-Iranica, 545, 583. 6. This then ‎became γιγγίβερις gingíberis and through the Lat gingiber became the Middle English gingevir ‎and our ginger. From γιγγίβερις came the Syr zangūfar and other forms (Low, Aramäische ‎Pfanzennamen, p. 138). 7. Fraenkel, Vocab, 11; Pautz, ‎‎Offenbarung, 213; Horovitz, Paradies, 11; Addai Sher, 80. 8. See Geyer, Zwei Gedichte, i, 57; ii, 83; Jacob, Beduinenleben, 258.

west

▪ While Osman2002 favours an ‘Arab connection’ (Skr śṛngavêra > Pers/Ar zanǧabīl‑ > Grk-Lat zingiberi > brought to Italy via Arabs and Venetians > C9 in Germany > mHGe gingebër, gingebëre, c1200 gingebëro > late mHGe inhwēr, C14 ingebër), others do not see Arabs involved in the Eur words’ history. For modEngl ginger, e.g., Jeffery1938 gives Skr śṛṅgaber‑ > Pali singivēra‑ > Grk zingíberis, later gingíberis > Lat gingiber‑ > mEngl gingevir‑ > modEngl ginger, and for modGe Kluge2002 describes the development thus: oInd śṛṅga-vera > mInd (Pāli) siṅgiveran > Grk ziggíberis‑ > Lat zingiber, gingiber > oFr gimgibre‑ > oHGe gingibero‑ > mHGe ingeber, ingwer.
▪ Forms in other Eur langs (accord. to Lokotsch1927#1930): Lat zingiber > It zenzevero, zenzero, gengiovo, oProv gingebre, Fr gingembre, Cat gingebre, Span gengibre, agengibre, Port gengibre, gengivre, Rum ghimber, zingifil, zinzifil; Du gember, Engl ginger, Ge Ingwer; Ru imbir’, inbir, Ukr imbir’, Pol imbier, jembier, Cz zázvor, Serb džendžefil, dumbir (via Hung győmbér).

deriv

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