Wednesday, December 7, 2011

How Brazil got its name.

Most of the theories on Brazil's etymology are fairly muddled. Wikipedia says, "Traditionally, the word "Brazil" comes from brazilwood, a timber tree that many sailors traded from Brazilian regions to Europe in the 16th century.[18] In Portuguese brazilwood is called pau-brasil, with the word brasil commonly given the etymology "red like an ember", formed from Latin brasa ("ember") and the suffix -il (from -iculum or -ilium).This theory is taught as official in schools of Brazil and Portugal." Somehow it's deeply unsatisfying. I am of the view that the tree is not distinctive enough to justify naming an entire region after it. Clearly, there's a need for an alternate theory. This is where Sanskrit can help. Bri/Bru, as we now know, means hill. And Shil or Shila means rock. What would you call a place where the terrain is predominantly rocky? Brushil, right? And that's how Brazil was born.

4 comments:

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  2. Guess that rules out my theory of a zillion bras.

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  3. Gene Matlock is of the view that Brazil gets its name from a place called Prasil in India. The ancient name of Brazil was Pindo-Rama. There definately is a Sanskrit-Vedic connect to Brazil and its ancient tribes and their language.

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    1. Neeta, that is also interesting but then the question is, what does Pinto-Rama mean and why was that applied to Brazil? Here is my idea: http://theorioninitiative2.blogspot.com/2016/01/why-was-country-of-brazil-named-brazil.html

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