I'd speculately wildly that since a clay oven is an old old thang, it's likely that "tanoor" and "tandoor" are cognates from the Ur-language. Linguist Alexis Manaster Ramer calls it Nostratic:
That's the second time in a week that Nosratic has been mentioned!
The cagey NicholasW made reference to it in the "Etruscan" thread, but carefully refrained from expressing his take on the subject. What struck me from reading the link you gave was that the link between "tanoor" and "tandoor" need not be that old anyway. It might be one of those "konpyuutaa" or "Makudonarudo" type of words. The Biblical record mentions Solomon trading with India, so there's at least a chance that one or other party filched the word in question. I hope that your inserting "Nostratic" into the subject line will lure NicholasW into the fray once more.
