BARBARIC MLECHCHHA

9/6/2018

When I first got the word Mlechchha in my etymology requests folder, I honestly thought I was being spammed or something. That doesn't look like a word! The double ch just looks absurd to me as an English speaker, but turns out that it is a legitimate name for a dynasty in the Kamarupa region of India that ruled from 650 to 900 CE. More commonly spelled Mleccha and occasionally also taking the form of Maleccha, the middle sound is just kind of a guttural k. Now, etymologizing this word is very tricky. No Vedic texts give any hint as to its origin, and the earliest citation we have of it is in a context pointing out what a weird word it is. In any form, however, it seems pretty clear that Mleccha comes from Sanskrit, meaning "barbarian" for a while, and some think it's so hard to find because it's regionally rooted. Another theory is that the apellation comes from Sanskrit mili, meaning "speech", and that would be from the (non-IE) Dravidian family. Just some possibilities. Interesting word; my thanks to whoever suggested it!

2 Comments

AUTHOR

Adam Aleksic is a 220-month-old, 2800-ounce high school senior with disturbing interests in etymology, vexillology, geography, board games, limericks, and law. Adam will be studying linguistics at Harvard University in the fall.

The Etymology Nerd

Wilo

9/8/2018 00:11:12

There are lots of ways to spell this word, depending on how you romanize the Sanskrit (in the native devānāgari script, it looks like this म्लेच्छः), but none of them are "mlechchha". In IAST (widely used by scholars) it would be "mlecchaḥ" -- in ISO15919 it needs a macron over the 'e', "mlēcchaḥ" (note this is the nominitive singular form commonly found in Sanskrit dictionaries).

The sound in the middle ("cch") is an aspirated palatal stop. It is pronounced as a geminated 'ch' sound -- i.e., more-or-less a lengthened version of the same 'ch' sound in English.

It's a cool word, and has many derivatives and cognates (derived from √mlech) which are cool, too :)

Adam Aleksic link

9/8/2018 00:25:28

"Mlechchha" does appear to be correct. Thank you for the clarifications on pronunciation and spelling, however. I avoid writing in IAST and IPA (see my Clarifications page) to make the writing easier to understand for laymen. I will fix the pronunciation.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/mlechchha

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mlechchha_dynasty

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mlechchha

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BARBARIC MLECHCHHA