Trade, money & letters

cumin

Cumin's name is Semitic (Akkadian kamūnu, Hebrew kammōn, Arabic kammūn), and Mycenaean scribes were already writing it as ku-mi-no around 1300 BCE. Latin spread it across Europe — in German, Swedish and Finnish the name slid to caraway — Spain carried comino to the Philippines, and Arabic passed kammūn to Turkish.

Weakest linkProbable

The road to English

From Ancient Greek to Modern Greek

From Latin to Old High German, German

From Latin to Middle Low German, Swedish, Finnish

From Latin to Old French, French

From Latin to Italian

From Latin to Portuguese

From Latin to Spanish, Tagalog

From Akkadian to Syriac, Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, Turkish

3000 BCEProto-Semitic

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