Typically such vegetation is sufficiently dense to hinder movement by humans, requiring that travellers cut their way through. One of the most common meanings of jungle is land overgrown with tangled vegetation at ground level, especially in the tropics. Vine thicket, a typical tangled jungle, Australia
Varying usage As dense and tangled vegetation Wildlife īecause jungles occur on all inhabited landmasses and may incorporate numerous vegetation and land types in different climatic zones, the wildlife of jungles cannot be straightforwardly defined. The term is prevalent in many languages of the Indian subcontinent, and the Iranian Plateau, where it is commonly used to refer to the plant growth replacing primeval forest or to the unkempt tropical vegetation that takes over abandoned areas. Īlthough the Sanskrit word refers to dry land, it has been suggested that an Anglo-Indian interpretation led to its connotation as a dense "tangled thicket" while others have argued that a cognate word in Urdu derived from Persian جنگل (Jangal), did refer to forests. Jāṅgala has also been variously transcribed in English as jangal, jangla, jungal, and juṅgala. It came into the English language via Hindi in the 18th century. The word jungle originates from the Sanskrit word jaṅgala ( Sanskrit: जङ्गल), meaning rough and arid.