I had known that the complicated etymology of the word “ginger” took it back to the Indian subcontinent; it’s from Middle English gingivere, borrowed (like Old English gingifer, which may itself be a source of the Middle English word) from Old French gingivre, which is from Medieval Latin gingiber, from Latin zingiberi, from Greek zingiberis, from a Middle Indic form (my Ayto Dictionary of Word Origins says “Prakrit singabera“) akin to Pali singiveram, which has been said to come from Sanskrit s’rngaveram, a compound of s’rngam ‘horn’ + vera- ‘body’ (supposedly applied to ginger because of the shape of the root). But I learn from the American Heritage Dictionary that the Middle Indic form is “from Dravidian : akin to Tamil iñci, ginger (of southeast Asian origin) + Tamil ver, root.” Now, although I Am Not a Dravidianist, I happen to know that the South Dravidian languages, including Tamil, lost Proto-Dravidian *c- (e.g. il ‘not be’ from *cil-, iy- ‘give’ from *ciy-, aRu ‘six’ from *caRu), so I wonder if the protoform was *cinci-, which would account for the initial s- in the Middle Indic form. In any event, I am pleased to see a Dravidian etymology for an English word. Nancy, this one’s for you!
If this isn’t complicated enough already, the OED adds: “Other forms of this widely diffused word are Arab. zanjabil (already in the Koran); MDu. gengber (from Sp. or Pg.) whence Du. gember; also (with loss of the initial consonant as in Ger. enzian from L. gentina) MHG. ingewer (Ger. ingwer), MLG. engewer, Da. ingefær, Sw. ingefära.” And I myself will add that the Russian word, imbir’, is borrowed from German (perhaps via Polish).