We so often use the words ‘Market’, ‘Marketing’ and rarely stop to think if this word is really from the English language. It’s very likely that ‘Market’ is borrowed from a South Indian language, Kannada during the British rule in India.
Maaruva + Kaţţe = Maarukaţţe
‘Maaruva’ stands for selling
‘Kaţţe’ stands for a platform
‘Maarukaţţe’ – a place for buying and selling
In Kannada, if people were to say I’m going to the market, they would call Market as ‘Maarukaţţe’. But in the recent past, we much rather hear people saying ‘Maarkeţţige’ (to the market) rather than ‘Maarukaţţege’. It’s like, the Kannada word gets added as a Loan word in English; and then again Kannada speakers use the English form of their word back in their language.
BTW, if you have been wondering how to pronounce ‘ţ’ that I’ve been using for ‘Kaţţe’
Curl your tongue backwards to touch the soft palette and say T as in ‘eighT’.
That’s called a ‘Retroflex’ sound.
Curl your tongue backwards to touch the soft palette and say T as in ‘eighT’.
That’s called a ‘Retroflex’ sound.
Now, getting back to Market – the reason why I said it’s very likely that market is borrowed from Kannada is because Market could have also been derived from the Latin root ‘Mercātus’, meaning trade, fair or a gathering for the purpose of commerce.
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