Where did the word "paneer" come from?

Question

So it's "paneer" (cheese) in Hindi. But I found out a while ago that in Armenian, it's "baneer", and I just found on Wikipedia that a group of other languages (Turkish, Urdu, Persian, Kurdish...) also have extremely similar names for cheese.

I know it might be impossible to say exactly where it came from, but any ideas? I'm so interested, because it spans a bunch of different languages! I know that there words used in Hindi that are actually based in Urdu, but I don't know much about the connections/relationships between the other languages. This is the Wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paneer

frank · Accepted Answer

It is probably an Indo-European word.
Have you looked up the word mother? It is maadar in Farsi, madre in Spanish, mutter in German and moeder in Dutch.

translator · Answer

Interesting question. A Turkish etymology dictionary gives the origin of the word like this:

Turkish "peynir" is borrowed from the Persian and Middle Persian panīr پنير (means "made from milk") (And it has the same origin with the word "payah-" (milk) in Avesta (Zend) language, and payah- has the same origin with Sanskritic word  páyas पयस् - milk)

Also as an additional note: Modern Hindi panīr, Armenian panir/banir, Bengali ponir etc. are borrowed from Persian.

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Where did the word "paneer" come from?

2 Answers