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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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In reply to:
the word jungle comes from the Sanskrit word for desert.
So what does 'desert' really mean? In Sanskrit?
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addict
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addict
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the word jungle comes from the Sanskrit word for desert.
This IS interesting! The common word for jungle/forest in Sanskrit is ARANYAM (AH-RUN-YUM). This word doesn't seem to be the root for jungle and I am unaware of any other such word.
It seems more likely that the word derives from Hindi. Now, Hindi has the same word for forest; it's only pronounced more as JUN-GUHL. This seems more likely to be the root.
Also, the Hindi word for a savage, or a crude person, or a person with poor manners is JUN-GLEE.
[aside] Hindi and Sanskrit share a common word for jungle too: VANAM (VUH_NUM) in Sanskrit, VAN (VUN) in Hindi and BAN (BUN) in Bengali.
The word for desert in Sanskrit is MARUH (MUH-ROOH). However, I must add, that it has been some years since I kept up with Sanskrit and it is therefore, quite probable that my knowledge is rusty. Shall pull out my dictionaries over the weekend and post again if I find something.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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The basis of misunderstandings is seldom the denotation, the dictionary meaning of a word which can be looked up, but the connotation, the emotional content. eg which do you prefer, a rich dessert or a heavy one; a voluptious woman or a mildly obese one; a flower that has a scent or one that has a smell?
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..more common to hear "Amazon rain-forest" instead of "Amazon jungle," for example. There may be a slight difference in usage..
http://www.ladatco.com/rf-abt.htm#What is a rainforest?
Edit:
http://www.therainforestsite.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/CTDSites
 First time I did that! Thanks, eta and Faldage. Sorry I sent the thread wide with that link.
[Edit 2]
 A nagging worry that the newly posted link was not quite all right, made me return to try it myself. True to form, it doesn't work! To save myself from further embarassment, I have posted the link to the main page of the site. Phew! 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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The Sanskrit word that is the root of jungle is jangalam.
The on-line AHD4 doesn't have the word history, but my brick and mortar
AHD3 does. It says the word also meant "any kind of wild or uncultivated
area."
Also, maahey, you might want to shorten up that long url through either
www.snurl.com or www.makeashorterlink.com.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Thanks faldage for the etemology of jungle.. any kind of wild or uncultivated area--but local indigious people often exploted the rain forest, even if they didn't cultive them. (and Falible fiend, 'learning' local lore and land marks is just as much a skill as reading a map--and besides, a good percentage of the even literate populations don't understand how to read maps.) Today, the entire crop of Brazil nuts are "uncultivated" --they are harveted from wild trees growing in the rain forest. In reply to:
Brazil Nuts are second only to rubber as an export crop from Brazil. Virtually all commercial nuts are collected from trees that grow wild in the jungle. About 40,000 tons of nuts are collected every year, most exported to the industrial West. In the wild, a tree can produce about 300 pods, each with 10-25 nuts. See
http://www.szgdocent.org/ff/f-bnut.htm for more information.
The trees can not be planted in an orchard--they wouldn't grow.
Just because an area is uncultivated, does not mean it could or should be...
I still hold, that european explorers defined areas a jungles, because they wanted to be able to claim them...and it would have been harder for them to justify their land grabs if they called them forests.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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In reply to:
I still hold, that european explorers defined areas a jungles, because they wanted to be able to claim them...and it would have been harder for them to justify their land grabs if they called them forests.
I don't think I've ever seen any references to the seemingly unending forests of pre-Euro confiscation of North America as jungle. I've never heard it refered to as anything but forests, yet that didn't stop the colonization and confiscation of these lands.
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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I still hold, that european explorers defined areas as jungles because they wanted to be able to claim them
-and-
I've never heard it [pre-Euro North America] referred to as anything but forests, yet that didn't stop the colonization and confiscation of these lands
They called it "Manifest Destiny", didn't they?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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wow. and I thought we just liked to name things so we could move on to the next unknown.
formerly known as etaoin...
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