2622: Alkaline & Basic: Why 2 Words Feb 19, 2022
Something that is an alkaline is described as being basic, but this is a totally different root. The reason that a substance's alkalinity is denoted as basic is because 'basic' is the more generic term; all alkalis are basic but not all bases are alkaline. A base will always neutralize an acid creating a salt and water but only alkalis, alkali metal hydroxide specifically, will dissolve in water. Though 'alkali' is only a specific term, originating from Arabic meaning 'the ashes' some of the meanings of 'base' have overlapped with it.
2573: chutzpa Dec 29, 2021
The English word 'chutzpah' is from Hebrew via Yiddish meant, 'insolence' or 'audacity', but took on meaning more of 'grit' or 'moxie' as time went on. This is not entirely always negative, but does connote a strong sense of arrogance. Meanwhile, the Arabic cognate حصافة (ḥaṣāfah) means really the exact opposite with 'strong judgement'.
2503: satin Oct 19, 2021
China was famous historically for being the starting point of the Silk Road, but along with carrying satin it was a major means of language transfer. Satin is named for the Chinese city of 泉州 (Quanzhou) which literally means “spring prefecture”, but in Arabic this is زَيْتُون (zaytūn) meaning "olive tree", itself a translation of "Tung Tree City", for the many trees planted by its 10th century prince. The Arabic term was taken into French first before its adoption into English.
2471: lemon & citrus Sep 17, 2021
Around Europe, two different basic terms for 'lemon', or alternatively 'citron' are used, both very likely of Semitic origin though this is not certain. Ultimately, 'lemon', also found in Portuguese 'limão' and Spanish 'limón', along with a number of other Semitic and Nilo-Saharan languages comes from Arabic لَيْمُون (laymūn), itself from Persian and likely with a connection to the Sanskrit word for 'lime'. 'Citron' on the other hand, as in the French 'citron', German 'Zitron', or Italian 'cedro' is via the Latin 'citrus' from Greek, likely from a Mediterranean, pre-Greek root akin to the Arabic قَطْرَان (qaṭrān), which may have been used to describe the resins and only later the fruit itself. More on how limes fit into the story tomorrow.
2459: Semitic Definite Article Sep 5, 2021
Two Semitic languages, Hebrew and Arabic, have on the surface two differently sourced definite articles, ה־ (ha-) in Hebrew and ٱلْـ (al-) in Arabic, but some linguistics think otherwise. They surmise that originally there was a form هل۔/הל־ (hal-) used in a proto-Semitic language and as they two diverged, this form did as well, splitting in two separate ways. Not everyone agrees with this, and even those who would agree to the idea principle, they propose different forms. Some of these include in Arabic لا (lā) either through metathesis or as a different particle that eventually took on the meaning of a determiner.
2457: Solomon Sep 3, 2021
The Hebrew given name שלמה (Shlomo) is Solomon in English, and features this extra terminal -N in most other languages except Jewish ones like Yiddish. Even in the fellow Semitic language of Arabic it is →سُلَيْمَان (Suleimān) this is present. This is because of the Greek influence over the other major sources of the name's wider adoption like Latin and Syriac Aramaic, with Greek adding a '-on' suffix which was just retained elsewhere. Between Latin in the Christian world and Arabic in the Muslim world, many languages of totally variant language families have this terminal -N, with a notable exception of Spanish which got its version (Zulema) from Arabic.
2428: Bahrain Aug 14, 2021
There are some countries with names that are meaningful descriptions and take 'the' in their names like 'the Netherlands' (the lowlands) and 'the Ukraine' (the borderland). This is also true of 'Bahrain', which in Arabic is البحرين (al-Baḥrayn) meaning 'the two seas', as it is in the dual. It is not clear, however, which seas this is referring to. Some suggest that the island's east and west bay may be the source, or even just natural water beneath the ground and above the surface, as there are many notably natural bubbling springs. Either way, in antiquity and in the Quran this name simply referred to all of eastern Arabia, and it's not clear when the islands took on this name exclusively.
2423: Is 'Taurus' (Bull) Semitic? Aug 9, 2021
The Latin 'taurus', Greek ταύρος (tauros) and Lithuanian 'tauras' all could come from the Proto-Indo-European PIE *tau-ro- meaning 'bull', but this could actually be Semitic. The Aramaic for 'bull' is תור (tor), in Hebrew שור (shor), and Arabic ثور (thawr) and so on throughout the whole Semitic family. Meanwhile, many Indo-European languages do not have a word descended from this root, such as in many Indo-Iranian languages, or other related languages spoken further the East. Some notably may have exceptions to this, as in Persian or Avestan with a similar word for horses, or Sanskrit sthura- (thick; standing firm) related to the Old English 'steer'. It could be that those missing cases are simply lacking data, or that this is a wanderwort.
2414: Sun- and Moon-Letters Jul 31, 2021
In Arabic and Maltese grammar, there are letters known as 'sun letters' while the rest are 'moon letters'. This is a direct translation of the Arabic حروف شمسية (churūf shamsiyyah) and حروف قمرية (churūf qamariyyah) respectively. The distinction is that sun letters see the [l] of the definite article الْـ (al-) assimilate with the following letter, such as in 'the sun' which is الشمس (al-shams) but assimilates to (ash-shams) with a geminated consonant, while 'the moon' القمر (al-qamar) remains as such, hence the names. There are equal numbers of overall sun and moon letters in Arabic including ﻝ [l] which means [l] gets assimilated by [l], but Maltese there are more moon letters including L [l].
2383: Inflected Prepositions Jun 27, 2021
Mostly, inflection is thought of as relating to nouns or adjectives, but this process can also be applied to prepositions in certain languages such as those in the Celtic or Semitic families. For instance, the Welsh word meaning 'to him' is 'iddo', which broken down from 'i-' (to) with a special ending, whereas saying *i fe (to + him) would be ungrammatical. These types of words wherein a preposition is modified with person and case are found in very few languages but are seen in Hebrew and Arabic as well where a modified form derived of the personal pronoun can be added to a preposition. A handful of exceptional cases are found such as with Portuguese.
2372: South Arabian Languages Jun 16, 2021
South Arabian languages, mainly confined to Oman, Yemen (including Soqotri) along with Kuwait. These were once thought to be descendents of Old South Arabian—a collection of four Yemenite languages—but were later reclassified as West Semitic along with Arabic, Hebrew, and Ethiopian Semitic languages: basically any living Semitic language. Still, these diverged from other Semitic languages early, and are closer related to Ethiopian Semitic languages rather than Arabic, though these are far from mutually intelligible. These languages (Bathari, Harsusi, Hobyót, Mehri–Soqotri, Shehri) are known for having certain archaic features, especially when it comes to phonology, lost in other Semitic languages.
2363: Albatross: Spanish & Arabic Borrowing from Themselves Jun 7, 2021
As seen in the name of 'Alcatraz', the word has been associated with both pelicans and gannets due to related sounding Arabic and Spanish words, but that doesn't end there. The word 'albatross' (in Spanish 'albatros') is 'alcatraz' in Portuguese. Certainly the association of different sea-birds under one name isn't unique and probably from the same Arabic word which led to the archaic Spanish name for a pelican. It also could be from another Arabic word الْقَادُوس (al-qādūs), itself from the Ancient Greek κάδος (kádos) meaning 'jar'. In any case, it's thought to be influenced by the Latin 'albus' (white). As if all this back-and-forth lending wasn't complicated enough, the Modern Arabic for 'albatross' قَطْرَس (qaṭras) is not only not the origin here but may have been borrowed from the Modern Spanish.
2362: Alcatraz: Named after which Bird? Jun 6, 2021
The island of Alcatraz is known for many things including as a prison, the site of a major Native American protest, and a museum, it was also known for its pelicans, sort of. Many people mistakenly believe this is where the name comes from, but the Spanish "La Isla de los Alcatraces" does not mean as many think "The Island of the Pelicans" but instead "The Island of the Gannets". Anyway, the Spanish for 'pelicans' is 'pelícanos' but there is an archaic Spanish word 'alcatraz' (pelican) from the Arabic: غطاس (al-ġaţţās) meaning 'the diver; the submerger'. It is from these gannets that the island took its name in 1775. More on this in a separate post.
2356: piastre May 31, 2021
A number of the names of currencies used around the Middle East originated in Italy, and in particular Venice. Along with 'dinar' and 'lira', it is the 'piastre' which is used for the ultimate subdivision for the currencies of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, both Sudans, Syria, Turkey, and until 2007 Cyprus. All of these have currencies with a local 'pound' except for Jordan (dinar) and Turkey (lira). It was also used as the main currency of French Indochina. The name for this though comes from Italian, literally "thin metal plate" and basically equated to a peso (i.e. 1/8 of a coin). Due to trading with the Venetians and its adoption by the Ottomans, it is now used all over the Levant region. Many of these only nominally use the piastre since the currency itself is so weak, such as Lebanon which rarely even uses its ل.ل.100 coin. Also, all of these are decimalized except for Cyprus which subdivided into 180.
2343: carthage May 18, 2021
Carthage, the capital or the Carthaginian Empire and now the city of Tunis, is known in Arabic as قرطاج (Qarṭāj). The Carthaginians were a Phoenician people who spoke a Semitic language, so it might sound obvious that Arabic would use this, but actually it is a loan word from French replacing an earlier 'Cartagena' which was from Latin. That said, the ancient city was known as qrt-ḥdšt ('new city') in reference to the older 'Tyre'.
2335: Adlam May 10, 2021
While most scripts around the world are quite old, from the Dark Ages if not antiquity, a number from Africa developed in the 20th century are gaining some traction. For instance, the Adlam script was used across the Sahel and in particular the country of Nigeria by around 65 million people had previously been written in both the Latin and Arabic script, but both were insufficient for its expression and thus Adlam was developed by 2 teenagers in the 1980's. Both due to its native phonology that doesn't match the other two previously used writing systems, as well as its diacritics for things like consonant gemination, prenasalized consonants, long vowels and modified consonants, it much more accurately and simply represents the functions of the language. It also has its own numerical system which is written right-to-left, unlike in Arabic where the writing is also right-to-left but the numbers are left-to-right.
2328: Fishing in Arabic (Maghrebi Dialect) May 3, 2021
Although in Arabic retains many similarities to Classical Arabic and and its dialects are usually fairly mutually intelligible, but there are of course certain regional differences. Past the larger phonetic and grammatical variations, as well as effects of various environmental factors, there are some amusing differences in vocabulary. For instance the word for 'to fish' in Arabic is صيد السمك (sayd alsamak) actually meaning 'to hunt fish', while in Maghrebi Arabic the word for fish is حوت (hawt). In Standard Arabic this would mean 'whale' and thus the Maghrebi for 'to fish' صيد الحوت (sayd alhut) or literally 'to hunt whale'.
2324: manna Apr 29, 2021
The Biblical substance known as 'manna' in English is מָן (mon) in Hebrew, and I likewise in Arabic does not have this added [ə] at the end. This was definitely added in by the time of introduction of Greek to the region (which happened long before Arabic even existed) with the Greek μάννα (mánna) using this extra vowel and long [n]. This was probably not from Aramaic nor especially an Aramaic phrase though many early writings have claimed this origin for the word and particularly the added extra syllable from Greek.
2314: Cat=Dog, Lamb, and Goat?—Wanderwort Apr 17, 2021
The word for 'dog' in Latin is 'canis' (hence English's 'canine') but the word for 'puppy' is 'catulus'. This also led to its own derivative word in English: 'cat'. This gets stranger however, with more distant relation to the Russian око́т (okót) meaning 'lamb', and Old Irish 'cadla' for 'goat'. Others go on still to connect this to the Arabic قِطّ (qiṭṭ) (i.e. 'cat) and other Semitic words to classify this root as a wanderwort across Indo-European, Uralic, and Semitic languages without one clear origin. The original idea seems to involve however young, often small animals, or sometimes more generally animal fertility.
2267: How לחם (Lechem) is Related to नान (Naan)
There is a Proto-Semitic reconstructed root *laḥm- which broadly would have meant food, but in many of its descendents like the Hebrew לחם (lechem) and Aramaic לחמא (lachma) it came to mean bread. That said, the Arabic لَحْم (laḥm) also comes from this root, but here it means 'meat'. It is clear it hasn't always though, because a derivative of this Arabic word is the somewhat distant sounding Middle Persian LHMA which becomes نان (nân) in Persian. This did have closer form in other languages like the Old Armenian loanword նկան (nkan); in turn this root lead to the Hindi नान (nān) and Urdu نان (nān): bread which came to English as 'naan'.
