My wife and I are reading Paul Scott’s Raj Quartet (see this post), and at one point a character refers to having “a long cool drink of nimbo.” Naturally I wanted to know what this “nimbo” might be; after some frustration, I realized it was a variant of nimbu: “There may be no better drink for beating the heat than a nimbu soda, a lime-and-soda drink that’s ubiquitous in India.” But what’s nimbu? Well, Hindi नींबू (nīmbū) ‘lemon/lime (fruit or tree)’ (Urdu نیمبو) is from Sanskrit निम्बू (nimbū), which is “Of Austroasiatic origin; compare Mundari लेम्बु (lembu). Compare also Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *limaw (‘lime, citrus’), whence Malay limau (‘citrus’).” And this is where it gets interesting, because the long list of descendants of the Hindi/Urdu word includes Classical Persian لیمو (lēmū, līmū), from which is derived Arabic لَيْمُون (laymūn), borrowed into Old French as lymon, which is the source of English lemon. Furthermore, lime (the fruit) is:
[French, from Spanish lima, from Arabic līma, from Persian līmū, lemon, any of various citrus fruits; akin to Hindi nimbū and Gujarati lību, lime, of Austroasiatic origin; akin to Mundari (Munda language of Jharkhand, India) lembu.]
So lemon and lime are doublets; I probably knew that at some point, but I certainly didn’t know all the details, which are a lot of fun (note that Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *limaw gets turned around in Fijian and Polynesian and becomes moli). And now I want a long cool drink of nimbo.
I hadn’t realized, but now I do, that a species of citrus (the pomelo) had reached as far as Tonga in pre-European times. It was recorded by David Samwell, physician on Cook’s last voyage, as “moree, Shaddocks”. Another species,Citrus macroptera, reached as far as Samoa.
(Something about Welsh physicians messing around with languages.)
Li’em is the Kusaal name for this fruit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ximenia_americana#/media/File%3AHog_Plum_(Ximenia_americana)_(5963679978).jpg
Sadly, this must be sheer coincidence (also, although these things do taste vaguely lemony, they’re only the size of large plums, and are plum-like in consistency too.)
They seem to be called “tallow plums” in America. “Sea lemon” is apparently a name for them, too, though.
[Be careful not to confuse li’eŋ “Ximenia americana tree” with lieŋ “axe.” No refunds will be given. Vowel glottalisation matters, people!]
Preparing a nimby soda is so disgusting that people prefer doing it over the fence – crossing the limes into their neigbours garden.
I thought nimbu was the word for the fruit, and the name of the usual drink made with it was nimbu pani. Nimbu soda sounds like a neologism for the carbonated version languagehat linked to.
(I assumed, from the first time I encountered lime as a child, that it was a double ot lemon.)