2263: alchemy & chemistry Feb 25, 2021
Alchemy is to chemistry as astrology is to astronomy.
For much of history each pair was basically considered the same, as both had mystical and occult elements associated with them, and indeed even the more so-to-speak scientific aspects of these disciplines were in service of the spiritual ones until fairly recently. This is actually where the sense of chemistry relating to romantic attraction comes in. The connection between 'astrology' and 'astronomy' is fairly obvious, but the etymological connection between 'alchemy' and 'chemistry' is obscured somewhat by Arabic, with the al- just being the Arabic definite article i.e. 'the'. Otherwise the words have the same roots—even though the exact root is the cause of some disagreement—and really just means 'science'. Indeed, in the 17th century both words had a reduction in meaning, having both related to the occult, natural philosophical, as well as what might be thought as chemistry today or even metallurgy. Now, 'alchemy' only kept the sense of the pursuit of transforming base metals into gold and similar processes.
2262: alchemy Feb 24, 2021
No one knows the precise origin of the word 'alchemy', but that doesn't mean we can't learn a lot from it. For one thing, although there is a principle in more modern words for Arabic loan words, this is a case wherein the Arabic (al-) meaning 'the' does not turn into 'au-' in French, even though it was borrowed into English from Old French from an earlier Arabic اَلْكِيمِيَاء (al-kīmiyā). Beyond that, it is not quite certain. An even earlier in Greek χημεία (khēmeía) refers to a liquid mixture extracted from gold, not creating it, from a root meaning 'to pour', but many think it it originally Egyptian. At that, people aren't sure which word it would be, but the leading candidate seems to be Χημία (Khēmía), a name for Egypt itself literally meaning, 'black earth'. Indeed, as happens in many cases, the answer is likely influence from both sources, especially considering that there was a lot of cross-cultural contact in the Ancient world.
2242: halva Feb 3, 2021
The sesame dessert, halva, is spelled in hebrew as חלווה—featuring a somewhat unusual digraph וו—but also חלוה and even חלבה can be found. The latter form is considered a misspelling, but it's not totally random; the Hebrew word for milk is חלב (kholov), though halva contains no milk. Indeed, the two have nothing to do with each other, with the dessert named from the Arabic حلوى (khalwa) meaning 'sweet; candy'.
2237: Maltese Jan 29, 2021
The Maltese language is a perhaps more exceptional at first glance than it looks. There are a few things about it that shine through even on the surface, such as how it is the only Semitic language with Latin alphabet (though with extra letters like Ħ ħ), the only Semitic language of the EU, and that it has considerable Italian and English influence, despite being descended from Sicilian Arabic. Indeed, not only does a sizable portion of the vocabulary take from Italian, but also certain aspects of its grammar, partly because of its lack of connection to Arabic through Islam. It is also more closely recognizable to a speaker of Tunisian Arabic than would be the case the other way around, but this sort of asymmetry is not really so rare around the world.
2187: Hebrew and Arabic Dual Dec 10, 2020
The dual—a distinct plural for 2 of something—is common around many languages of the world, but there are differences in how its used. In Hebrew and Arabic, especially in the older forms of those languages, use of the dual seems compulsory, but this is not universally so. In Arabic it is simpler that any word, regardless of gender, will simply take ان (-ān) or the more modern ين (-ain) but this is being lost in some dialects. In Hebrew this is more complicated, with several different factors like gender and semantics factoring in. Often this is distinguished between the masculine plural ־ים (-im) and the dual ־יים (ayim), such as
יום / יומיים / ימים
(yōm / yomạyim / yāmīm) for 'day', ‘two days', and 'days' but often there is no written distinction, especially for masculine nouns, as with עין / עיניים (ayin / ʿēnạyim) for 'eye(s)'. Indeed, in Modern Hebrew, there is no productive use of the dual, but words for time and body parts often still retain it. Notably, in Hebrew, only nouns can have dual, so adjectives, verbs, etc. that need to correspond with a dual will usually use the standard plural.
2180: medina Dec 3, 2020
The city of Medina is known in Arabic as المدينة المنورة (al-Madinat al-Munawwarah) meaning 'the enlightened city' making 'Medina' on its own just mean 'city'. Likewise the Aramaic מדינתא (medinta) and probably Hebrew מדינה (medina) also refer to territory, but have the broader meaning of 'state; region'. This itself comes from the root semitic root דין (din) meaning 'judgement', making it that all of these meanings refer to a place where judgement (kings; legal courts etc) would take place.
2055: Words for Wine across Linguistic Boundaries Jul 31, 2020
Wine is something that has been shared around the Mediterranean and beyond, both literally and also linguistically. Old, basic concepts tend to have lots of related cognated across related languages, but in the case of 'wine' it is actually shared across unrelated languages as well. 'Wine' in English comes from a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root '*uoin-a-', and there are plenty of other PIE-descended words too, like the Latin 'vinum'. Likewise, there are many related non-PIE words like the Georgian ღვინო (gvino), the Armenian գինի (gini), the Hebrew יין (yáyin), the Amharic ወይን (wäyn), and the Swahili 'mvinyo'. Of course, many of these words, including those of Africa and Northern Europe especially will be borrowed, but there is no consensus as to whether this original root is from a Semitic, Indo-European, or even Kartvelian language; some theories will be more convincing than others though.
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2044: dinar Jul 20, 2020
Lots of Arab countries use the Lira as currency because of Italian use in trade, and this is mostly true of the dinar. In Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait and Bahrain, as well as Serbia and North Macedonia the dinar is used, but in the case of all former Yugoslav states динар and the rest this comes from Arabic دِينَار. 'Dinar' itself though stems back further to the Latin 'dēnārius' meaning 'ten each' once used in the Roman Empire. Other Muslim-majority states have used over the years as well.
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1167: Writing Systems: An Overview Feb 18, 2018
There are many different writing systems from all over the world, used with varying frequency, but not all of these are alphabets. The most obvious example of this may be with pictographic and logographic writing systems (symbols that represent words but aren't images thereof), which aren't alphabets because little to no attempt needs to be made to convey the way that the word sounds. This is why Cantonese and Mandarin (are not mutually intelligible when spoken always, but are written in much the same way. However the list goes on, for instance with abjads, such as for Arabic, Hebrew, and also Tifinagh, Syriac, and ancient Phoenician for which consonants are represented, but not necessarily vowels; Greek and by extension Latin and Cyrillic alphabets are essentially Phoenician but written left-to-right and with the addition of vowels. There are also syllabaries—where a syllable is represented but not the individual sounds—such as for Cherokee or Katakana Japanese. Finally, there are abugidas, which represent consonant-vowel segments; this gives the vowel more prevalence than in an abjad, but not equal status to consonants, such as in an alphabet. Of course, some languages are more suited for certain writing-systems than others, which is why Inuit words look so long written in the Latin script, and but why the Cree abugida (used for some Inuit-Yupik languages) could not be used for Georgian, with its long consonant-clusters.
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