خیلی ها ریشه نام برنج در زبان های اروپائی را به زعم خویش به مادر تمدن شان، یونان و لفظ (ὄρυζα (oruza می رسانند و همانجا آسوده می آرمند حال آنکه برنج ریشه در یکی از کهن ترین تمدن های آسیائی دارد:
First used in English in the middle of the 13th century, the word "rice" derives from the Old French ris, which comes from Italian riso, in turn from the Latinoriza, which derives from the Greek ὄρυζα (oruza). The Greek word is the source of all European words (cf. Welsh reis, German Reis, Lithuanian ryžiai, Serbo-Croatian riža, Polish ryż, Dutch rijst, Hungarian rizs, Romanian orez).[8][9][10].
The origin of the Greek word is unclear. It is sometimes held to be from the Tamil word அரிசி (arisi), or rather Old Tamil arici.[11][12] However, Krishnamurti[13]disagrees with the notion that Old Tamil arici is the source of the Greek term, and proposes that it was borrowed from descendants of Proto-Dravidian*wariñci instead. Mayrhofer[14] suggests that the immediate source of the Greek word is to be sought in Old Iranian words of the types *vrīz- or *vrinj-, but these are ultimately traced back to Indo-Aryan (as in Sanskrit vrīhí-) and subsequently to Dravidian by Witzel and others.
