English

Root

pisa

to burn, to bake, to make hot

Pizza descends from Shona pisa, to bake, to make hot

Confidence
44/100
Root language
Shona
Descent begins
pizzaEnglish

The consensus position

Mainstream etymology takes English pizza from Italian pizza, attested in a Gaeta charter of 997 CE, with the pre-Italian origin unresolved between Late Latin pinsere "to pound", Greek pitta or pikte, and Langobardic bizzo "bite, morsel". No connection to Shona or any Bantu language is proposed.

The working behind this.

The full descent — 8 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.

Elsewhere in the corpus