Cicada Mania

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September 26, 2015

What is the root of the word Cicada?

Filed under: FAQs — Dan @ 11:58 pm

The Latin root of the word cicada, is cicada!

Looking back a bit farther, the Sanskrit word for cicada is चिश्चिर, which is pronounced cizcira. Not too big a leap from cizcira to cicada.

There are other similar Sanskrit and Latin words, for instance, 17 in Sanskrit is saptadaz, while 17 in Latin is septendecim. Sapta/septen, daz/decim — you can see the similarities.

2 Comments »

  1. mark buckley says:

    Thai for cicada is ???????? or chak-a-chan or jak-a-jan in northern Thai. About 50% of Thai is Sanskrit in origin so I’d agree with its Sandkrit origins. The Thais eat these.

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