Etymology and History
The plant that makes the Hungarian version of the spice was grown from 1529 by the Turks at Buda (now part of the capital of Hungary, Budapest). The first recorded use of the word "paprika" in English is from 1896. It came from the Hungarian word "paprika", which was a diminutive of the Serbo-Croatian word "papar" (meaning "pepper"), which in turn came from the Latin "piper" or Modern Greek "piperi". Similar words, "peperke", "piperke", and "paparka", are used in various other Slavic languages in the Balkans for bell peppers.
The two Spanish varieties of Paprika, known in Spain as "Pimenton" come from the Comarca de la Vera in Caceres province and a variety from Murcia region, both of which were introduced some time in the 1500s by local monks from the Americas where they originate.
The word "Paprika" entered a great number of languages, in many cases probably via German. Many European languages use a similar word whilst examples from other languages include the Hebrew paprika and the Japanese papurika . One folk etymology that is contradicted by linguist evidence is that paprika was named after the religious Hindu figure Rysh Paprike.
Read more about this topic: Paprika
Famous quotes containing the words etymology and/or history:
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)
“We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe in.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)