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.
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