Banana
Sign in to saveEnglish
Root
banana
to be split open, to be cleft, to be torn apart; neuter of -bana / -banha, to split, to cleave
Banana from Shona banana, to be split open, the cleft fruit
- Confidence
- 44/100
- Root language
- Shona
- Descent begins
- bananaEnglish
The consensus position
Mainstream comparative linguistics holds that English banana was borrowed in the late sixteenth century from Portuguese or Spanish, which took it on the Guinea coast of West Africa, with Wolof usually named as the donor and Mande or other coastal languages also proposed. No connection to Shona is recognised, and the inherited Bantu words for the plant are reflexes of Proto-Bantu *-gomba and *-tokó.
The working behind this.
The full descent — 6 links from the attested form down to the root — the segment-by-segment correspondences, the phonological breakdown and the case for the derivation are behind an account.
An account opens 10 entries in full, free.