Trade, money & lettersFrom names to words

china

The country's western name probably goes back to the Qin state that unified China, through Sanskrit Cīna and Persian Chīn to Portuguese China; English then named the fine porcelain from there 'China ware', soon just 'china'. Along the way 'Chinese' came to mean a tray in Arabic and white sugar in Hindi, while Turkish, Malay and Japanese kept their own forms of the name.

Weakest linkPossible

The road to English

From Sanskrit to Middle Chinese, Japanese

From Sanskrit to Malay

From Middle Persian to Arabic, Arabic

From Persian to Hindi

From Persian to Ottoman Turkish, Turkish

From Portuguese to Spanish

770 BCEOld Chinese

Hops are evenly spaced; labels show the year each form is first attested.