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#103544 05/19/2003 1:54 PM
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Shawl

NOUN: A square or oblong piece of cloth worn as a covering for the head, neck, and shoulders.
TRANSITIVE VERB: Inflected forms: shawled, shawl·ing, shawls
To cover with or as if with such a piece of cloth.
ETYMOLOGY: Persian sha*l, ultimately from Sanskrit , cloth, sari. the * signifies a character that did not copy.
from:http://www.bartleby.com/61/39/S0323900.html

a similar garment, scarf , comes up later in the week.. no relation to shawl, (and scarf only comes up as third level cousin to an other word i plan to add!)

i am looking to see if there are any other english word that use this persian root word as an english term for cloth.. do you know any?

or my dear Mr Bingley, how about the indonian? do they have a similar word


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I can't, so far at least find any words related to shawl, but in hunting down some ideas I put a few brief facts together that may be of interest, or may just be common knowledge, we'll see.

The warmest and most luxurious shawls come from the ‘undercoat’ of the cashmere or shawl goat, capra hircus. Originally cashmere shawls were woven in Kashmir but the fibre came, then as now, from goats in Tibet and Central Asia. In Nepal the shawls woven from cashmere hair are referred to as Pashmina shawls, "Pashm" being the Persian word for 'wool'. The pure-bred goat will provide 3 to 8 ounces per year of the soft white, grey or buff-coloured down, which is found under the long, coarse outer hair. This down is combed out during the spring. Pashmina fibre is less than 15 microns in thickness (whereas human hair is 75 microns thick).




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Since the word "cape" comes from root meaning "head",
I wonder how "shawl" came into use. I doesn't seem likely that they would be broght my traders, or broght back by travelers. I wonder what was different about them to bring the name into common use.
Znc 'kerchief" has same meaning = head covering.


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your post Dr bill, made me think of cowl- a hood, especialy on a monks robe, or a type of neckline on a womans garment..
cowl, according to Bartleby's, comes from
Middle English coule, from Old English cugele, from Late Latin cuculla, from Latin cucullus, hood. --

you'd think it would come from a word for head!

weird isn't it how cape (which doesn't cover your head) come from the latin root word for head, but cowl, which does cover you head doesn't?


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how about the indonian? do they have a similar word

if you are interested not only in Indonian there is a word "sharf" in Russian. it means "oblong piece of [warm]cloth worn as a covering for the neck, and shoulders (sometimes head but only old women do it).




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i think that sarong, a Malay (kain) word, might be related to the sanskrit root and the word sari..My dear Mr Bingley keep pointing out how many word come from Indian language words.. i wonder if this is another..


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There are at least two Indonesian words for shawl: selendang, and syal.

I came across something interesting: in Indonesian, capai means shattered or knackered. In Maori, kapai means AOK. I wonder how two words that are so similar came to have opposite (nearly) meanings? Do they have the same root?


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covering for the neck, and shoulders (sometimes head but only old women do it)

And those same little old grandmothers give us the word babushka for the head covering.


#103552 05/19/2003 4:35 PM
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The sarong, Helen, is draped around the waist/hips to resemble a skirt. Also sometimes, underneath the arms. And yes, it is a Malay word, and the commonalities with the sari are that they are both unstitched and therefore must be draped.

The Sari as it is worn today, is somewhat altered from what is described in the texts. The Sari is usually nine yards (modern six yards) and is strictly only body drapery. Sub continent/ South Asian women over the last century or so, (not all and not everywhere) wear it with underskirts and blouses that are stitched and these are more current (? mughal/British) influences. (By Indian standards, current or recent, could well be referring to a period, seven or centuries old! )

Other clothing words that come to mind (if that indeed is what was asked, I am uncertain): dungarees, jodhpurs, khaki, muslin, calico, bandana, cashmere...all Indian.. Muslin is from Mosul (yes, the same Mosul that was recently in the news; (sigh))

If this post is at sixes and sevens, please indulge. I intended only to peek, but found this thread too delectable to let go. Helen, why! oh why, didn't we discuss this a couple of weeks ago. I want to write SO much more....

The goats in Tibet are chirus/ the shawls are shahtoosh. DO NOT have anything to do with these shawls; they are banned and the dear goats are endangered. Anyone telling you a shawl is a shatoosh is probably selling you a pashmina or a cashmere.


#103553 05/19/2003 5:14 PM
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my broadly worded question, maahey, was looking for english words that might also share a root with the sanskrit word for cloth(i.e., sari)-- i think sarong (which is really a loan word!) might be the only one.

but thread have lives of their own, and i love the turns this one is taking..

my theme will be based on clothing-- five different clothing words.. but don't worry, in your list of words, all from the indian sub-continent, you didn't include any that i have in mind! and you forgot pajama's (how ever you might spell them)- but that just means plenty of fodder for today.

some of your words were cloth words.. and the near east, (damask, seersucker)india, and china (satin, silk, and shantung-that last one still sound chinese!) give english lots of these words. hopsacking is one of the few words i can think of for cloth that is 'english'!

victor, i think maybe the russian word you added, might be a close cognate of tomorrow's words.. shall we wait and see?


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RE:I came across something interesting: in Indonesian, capai means shattered or knackered. In Maori, kapai means AOK.

there is an italian word, that is used in NY (and other east coast cities with large italian populations.) capicse (not sure of the spelling.. someone will get it right..that mean "do you understand? " (or "have you got that in your head"?)
there is also capute -that means dead-- as in "the car was totalled, it's capute!"
it also comes from the italian, for headless.
capital crimes result in capital punishment, that sometimes means decapitating a person.. all of them have the same latin root word for head!


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Capai vs kapai

Back at my own keyboard for the first time in 3 weeks,(and home 30 minutes after a 40 hour trip) I'm pleased to have an easy one to start with. "Kapai", in Maaori, does indeed mean "AOK", in the sense that "ka" is acting as an intensifier for the root word "pai", which simply means "good". This makes it seem unlikely, at least to me, that the similiarity is anything other than a phoentic coincidence.


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>capisce, from capire. My experience of the last 3 weeks generally saw me using two other forms of that verb - non capisco, or non ho capito - "I don't understand", or, "I didn't understand"
As for kaput, I had always understood the word to be of German origin, but MW says:
"Etymology: German kaputt, from French capot not having made a trick at piquet
Date: 1895"



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Syal (note that sy is pronounced the way we pronounce sh) is an European-type shawl, worn over the shoulders, not usually as a head-covering, though it could be I suppose.

There are two garments called selendang, one is more like a sling than a shawl. It goes round the body and is knotted over one shoulder and used to carry objects like babies or baskets (seehttp://www.seasite.niu.edu/Indonesian/Budaya_Bangsa/batik/selendang.htm.)

The other type of selendang is a long strip of cloth about 10 inches wide which is folded in half lengthways and draped fore and aft over one shoulder. How it actually stays on I'm not sure. It's usually worn as part of women's very formal wear. You can see President Megawati wearing one in the photo on this page: http://www.tempo.co.id/harian/profil/prof-megawatisoekarnop.html

Whether there's any connection between sarong and the Sanskrit words, I don't know.




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Thanks, sjm, and a big WELCOME BACK!!


#103559 05/22/2003 10:31 PM
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Homer: Marge, I was just watching women's volleyball on ESPN.
[Marge murmurs appreciatively]
Come on, there's no need for that Babamabushka.



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"Etymology: German kaputt, from French capot not having made a trick at piquet
Date: 1895"


I'd query the date on this ... capot and being capotted (i.e. not having scored a trick in a picquet hand) have been around for quite a while! I'd love 10(choose your favourite currency unit) for every time it's happened to me. Maybe that's when kaput came into use?


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from a site Faldage posted over in Q & A:

Barry Harridge reports that in Chambers "the eight spellings of CATERCORNER are surpassed by the number of variants for GALLABEA which can also be spelled gallabeah,gallabia, gallabiah, gallabieh, gallabiya, gallabiyah, gallabiyeh, galabea, galabeah, galabia, galabiah, galabieh, galabiya, galabiyah, galabiyeh. "And what does it mean? Why it means a DJELLABA which can also be spelt DJELLABAH or JELLABA or JELAB -- a cloak with a hood and wide sleeves."

the site is:

http://plex.us/archives/word.html





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I like the way Mr. Harridge writes, eta. :-)
==================================================

scored a trick in a picquet hand
What's picquet, please?


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I wonder if it is related to jilbab, headscarf worn by some Muslim women in these parts.

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sounds like a real likelihood.




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#103565 05/26/2003 2:21 PM
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--scored a trick in a picquet hand
--What's picquet, please?


It's a very old card game. See

http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/org/Medieval/www/src/contributed/grm/
games/piquet.html

which can be reached at http://makeashorterlink.com/?X54C243B4

#103566 05/26/2003 7:12 PM
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Yup, them's the rules. It's an easy game to learn, althought the scoring can get, um, a little heated ...


#103567 05/26/2003 7:26 PM
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Speaking of old card games, does anybody here play bezique?


#103568 05/26/2003 8:28 PM
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It's always struck me as a little strange that you can watch the deck devolve. Correct me if I'm, wrong - pinochle uses a double-deck from the nine up; bezique starts with the eight, or sometimes the seven; piquet goes up from the six. Other principles of play are basically similar - sets, runs, tricks, trumps, and variations.

If you're going to have a smaller pack of cards, why cut out the bottom numbers? Why not use one-two plus the face cards, one-two-three plus the face cards, one-two-three-four plus etc.? I'm assuming the face cards came from tarot and are a given. It seems a bit strange to start with a "full" deck and extract cards from it to play.

And of course, is my chronology all mixed up? Even so, isn't it strange to have be added eights, sevens, and sixes, and finally fives and fours and threes and twos, old designations rather than new ones? Why have started at ten to begin with?


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Maybe because people like bigger nos. They think they're getting more of whatever it is. Think of the totally weird numbering system in tennis. Why 15, 30, 40, game, and not just 1, 2, 3, game?

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