A fair number of IE languages use som variation of the Greek "
karkinos" (or however it's spelled), or other words for "crab" as in German "Krebs" or Russian "rak." What are the words for "cancer" in other unrelated languages, though, and what do they mean? (Although, I can assume that some non-IE languages might use some form of "karkinos" or "crab" by assimilation).