Also the Armenian word for cheese is 'paneer'.
People across the world can share a lot in common if they want :)
The cross-pollination of words between the members of the family always amuses me.
Apparently "cheese"/"Käse"/etc is from a word something like "kwat", meaning "to turn sour". I would guess that Russian "kvass" is from the same root, BICBW.
Russian and other Slavonic languages have "syr", from a Proto-Indo-European word cognate with "sour". I have no idea what the difference between syr-sour and kwat-sour is.
The romance "fromage"/"formaggio" is from a root meaning "formed", because southern European cheeses are made in moulds or something (except in Spain and Portugal!). I always assumed this was connected with the fact that southern European cheeses are more likely to be soft than in northern Europe, but that's conjecture. If so, the etymology tells you that soft, formed cheeses came after hard cheeses, and largely displaced them.
Anyway there's more here:
https://www.languagesoftheworld.info/etymology/say-cheese.ht...
payasya पयस्य mfn. (-स्यः-स्या-स्यं) 1 Made from milk, (curds, butter, cheese, &c.)
itself derived from the word "payas" which means "water or milk". It's a possible connection to the "pa" part of the Persian word "paneer", at least.
https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/WILScan/2014...
IE languages do share a unique inherited relationship also, based on their common origin, but the use of the word "paneer" in India isn't due to inheritance, but rather borrowing. The inheritance is most visible in today in words like kinship terms and pronouns.