Word Family - Cauliflower

Introduction

There's a very cool fact: cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, collard greens, kohlrabi, and others are all the species of plant, namely Brassica oleracea, selectively bred for different parts of the plant. (https://www.google.com/search?q=brassica+oleracea+selection)

I had known that for many years before I noticed that many of the English words are related to each other too!

Teaser

cole slaw, kale, kohlrabi, cauliflower

Full Text

  • Proto-Indo-European *keh₂ulós tube? cylinder? bone?
    • Balto-Slavic *káuˀlas
      • Lithuanian káulas bone
    • Hellenic
      • Ancient Greek καυλός kaulós stem, stalk, shaft
        • Greek καυλί kavlí penis (vulgar)
        • Latin caulis stalk, stem, especially cabbage stem, penis
    • Indo-Iranian
      • Indo-Aryan
        • Sanskrit कुल्या kulyā creek, canal
    • Italic
      • Latin caulis stalk, stem, especially cabbage stem, penis
        • Western Romance
          • French chou cabbage
            • French chou-chou
          • Italian cavolo cabbage [1]
          • Spanish col cabbage
        • Old English cawel
          • Middle English col
            • English cole
              • English cole slaw
            • Middle English colwort
              • English colewort
              • English collard (greens)
            • Irish cál
              • Irish cál ceannann
                • English colcannon
            • Middle English cale
              • English kale
                • Japanese ケール kēru
          • Old Norse kál
            • Danish kål cabbage, kale
            • Icelandic kál any Brassica plant
            • Finnish kaali
        • Old High German kōlo
          • German Kohl
            • German Kohlrabi
              • English kohlrabi
        • Vulgar Latin *cauli-flōre cabbage flower
          • Western Romance
            • French chou-fleur cauliflower
              • Wolof sufëlëer cauliflower
            • Italian cavolfiore cauliflower
              • German Karfiol cauliflower
                • Hungarian karfiol cauliflower
                • Serbo-Croatian карфиол karfiol cauliflower
              • Polish kalafior cauliflower
            • Spanish coliflor cauliflower
              • Tagalog kóliplór cauliflower
          • English cauliflower

Visual

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Collected English words

cole, cole slaw, colewort, collard (greens), colcannon, kale, kohlrabi, cauliflower

But note, conspicously not

  • broccoli, despite the 'col' in the middle. broccoli is a plural dimunitive of brocco, just cannoli is a plural dimunitive of canna: "tube, cane" (see wff-cane). brocco is probably means "pointy", related to "brooch" and "brocade".
  • kailan/gailan (or "Chinese kale") which, despite the 'kail' sequence, is really kai (or gai) + lan, and ultimately from Old Chinese *kreːds + *ɡ·raːn
  • cabbage, of unknown origin, which is not explainable as some weird French version of caulis. Though it may be a weird French versions of caput: "head".
  • Brussels sprouts, which of course is named after the city of Brussels. But the words for "Brussels sprouts" in most European languages other than English are in this family: in Romance languages, they are generally called "cabbage of Brussels", and uses the Romance "cabbage' words in this family (e.g., chou de Bruxelles, cavolino di Bruxelles, col de Bruselas); and in many Germanic languages they are called "rose-cabbage", and likewise uses the version of this word, e.g. rosenkål, Rosenkohl, etc.