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Comment by yumraj | Hacker News Reader

One things that surprised me in the article is that the author uses the word dhania for cilantro.

dhania is what cilantro is called in Hindi and maybe in other Indian languages. Is that what is called in other languages/countries also, if so am curious which ones..

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There are lots of Hindi and Arabic words in Swahili! I'm more familiar with the Arabic ones, but a few from Hindi off the top of my head are: pesa (money), embe (mango), and of course chapati. :)

The British brought a lot of people from India into their colonies in Africa and elsewhere : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indians_in_Kenya#Kenya_Colony and it's not implausible that this would be an origin for the term.

Prior to the brits, there was trade along the East African coast; past the Middle East, all the way to India. The main language along the coast became a fusion of Arabic, Indian and Bantu languages. Swahili adopts Arabic arithmetic & language structures e.g 15 is said as ten and five, 7 is Saba. A minister is wazir etc.

Many Old Bantu words such as mti for tree are in Swahili. similarly sounding words are used in languages from west Africa to South Africa (muti, miti).

From India, we have Pilau, chapati, dhania...

http://www.rahmahmuslimhomeschool.co.uk/index/wp-content/upl...

http://www.languagesgulper.com/eng/Bantu.html

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Swahili_terms_deri...

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