How did Portuguese contribute words to Hindi and other Indo-Aryan languages?

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The Portuguese influence on Indo-Aryan languages occurred as a result of early European contact and colonial activity in India, which began in the late 15th century with the arrival of Vasco da Gama and the subsequent establishment of Portuguese settlements, such as Goa.123

While the impact of Portuguese on the vocabulary of New Indo-Aryan languages is of much lesser magnitude compared to the influence of Persian or English, it introduced several specific loanwords into Hindi. These borrowings often reflect the cultural and material exchanges that took place during the period of Portuguese presence in India. Examples of such Hindi words include:

  • ənnənas (pineapple)
  • paũ (Western-style bread)
  • kəmiz (Western-style shirt)
  • kəmra (room)
  • girja (Christian church)1

These terms remain as tangible linguistic traces of the historical interactions between the Portuguese and the local populations along the western coast of India.2