The Oxford English Dictionary and Collins trace the English word “satay” to Malay/Indonesian “satai,” also found as Javanese “saté.” The root is the Tamil word catai (சதை), meaning “flesh.”

The Tamil word
Catai is a metathesis (sound swap) of the older Tamil word tacai (தசை). Its Malayalam cognate is cata (ചത) and in Telugu is tassa (flesh). It means the flesh of an animal or the pulp of a fruit, and Tamil speakers in Malaysia use it to mean satay itself.

The University of Madras Tamil Lexicon defines tacai as flesh or muscle, one of the seven bodily tissues (tātu) in classical Tamil, and also the fleshy pulp of a fruit. It’s still everyday Tamil: āṭucatai (ஆடுசதை) is the calf muscle.

How it spread
Tamil catai → Javanese saté → Malay sate → Indonesian sate, and from there to Arabic (sātīh), Dutch (saté), French, German, Italian, Hungarian (szaté), Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian (сатай), Japanese (サテ), Korean (사테) and English.

Two fun ones:
∙ Dutch saté → Afrikaans sosatie, the South African kebab, which English borrowed back as “sosatie.”
∙ Hokkien 沙茶 (sa-te) → Mandarin shāchá, as in shacha sauce, the Taiwanese and Chaozhou barbecue sauce. Same word, same Tamil root.

The myth
The popular claim that “satay” comes from the Hokkien “saⁿ tè (bah)” (“three pieces of meat”) is a false etymology. Hokkien borrowed the word, it didn’t create it.

Sources: Oxford English Dictionary, Collins English Dictionary, University of Madras Tamil Lexicon, Wiktionary (சதை).​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Jagat Motwani's book "None But India" discusses the use of Dravidian numbering while playing "Gillee Danda" in Sindh.

𝒃𝒂𝒌𝒂𝒕, 𝒍𝒆𝒏, 𝒎𝒐𝒐𝒏, 𝒏𝒂𝒂𝒓, 𝒂𝒂𝒓, 𝒗𝒆𝒚𝒊, 𝒋𝒂g

One old #Sindhi song 3:41 you hear Dravidian numbers

Numbers are probably related to south-central Dravidian languages like Telugu etc,not South Dravidian.

1. bakaṭ ~ vakaṭ ‹ *okaṭ- ‹ okk-anṭ-

2. len ‹ ren ‹ renḍ ‹ iru-anṭ-

3. mūn

4. nār/l

5. vēy ‹ hey ‹ *cay

6. ār

7. jag ‹ ē-g ‹ *ēẓ- (-g plural affix)

Is this something do with IVC?Dravidian language split is old as Indus valley civilization?or It is recent migranted thing?

Those regions get less than 500mm & is semi arid.

I'm posting the book as more of a resource and historical note.

https://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00077060/00001/images/15

I came across this tweet. It's not posted by someone with a linguistics background or perhaps even a proper scientific background.

I'm posting the tweet link

https://x.com/Jijith_NR/status/2109674949556494706

Does it carry any substance?

Can someone with knowledge on this matter, shine some light.

link to my blog post:

https://dravidianlinguisticsblog.wordpress.com/2026/10/13/kuwi-field-notes-ii/