#43055
09/25/2001 6:54 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
The news of late is filled with many contries of the mid east-- Afganistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and cities such as Jalalabad, or Islamabad or Ashgabat and i am wondering about these endings.. Sahib is from the Urdu Saab, and I wondering if the these ending have a meaning (land of? City of?) and if they have come into english.. a surprizing number of english words do trace back something similar to the urdu.. and/or if there are other more common words that use these roots. (of course i can't think of any!)
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#43056
09/25/2001 7:09 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 13,803 |
AHD traces sahib through the Hindi* from the Arabic; -istan, from an Iranian root meaning to stand, does mean country. It doesn't say anything about -abad, but city sounds good, all things considered.
*Hindi and Urdu are closely related.
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#43057
09/25/2001 8:05 PM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409 |
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#43058
09/26/2001 2:49 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
Hindi, Urdu and Farsi (Persian) are all Indo-European languages, hence distant cousins of English. This comes as a surprise to many people who assume that Iranians and Pakistanis, along with Arabs, all speak Arabic or some language related to Arabic, which is, of course, a Semitic language unrelated to the Indo-European languages. The language of Afghanistan is called Pushtan, or something like that? Avy, Max, Shanks or any of you familiar with the languages of that area -- can you enlighten us on the Afghan language(s)?
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#43059
09/26/2001 2:55 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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The main language of Afghanistan is Pashtu* which is an Iranian language. Other languages spoke are Persian (presumably Farsi, also Iranian) and some Turkic languages which are not Indo-European.
Pashto* and Farsi are Indo-European.
And that's all I know.
*Spelled differently with intent.
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#43060
09/28/2001 5:21 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Weighing in from left field.
I seem to remember reading something about the first or second time the English invaded Afghanistan from the Raj involving language.
My memory - fallible, very fallible - runs a bit like this: The English army was using someone from the border region around the Khyber Pass as an interpreter, "sold" to them on the basis of his rank/caste and his ability to speak the languages of the area. Turns out that this chappie only spoke Pashto the way I speak French. Very slowly and with lots of gaps. The rest is history ...
Lightweight CapK
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#43061
09/28/2001 6:42 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 866
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 866 |
And, in the same vein, I believe "desh" or "adesh" means "land of" or something similar. The one that tickles me is Bangladesh - "the land of bang"
Bang = marijuana
stales
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#43062
10/02/2001 5:32 AM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Another titbit from my new dictionary is that the desh in Bangladesh is related to Indonesian desa meaning village or rural, both coming from the Sanskrit word for place or country, deca (the c has a cedilla), which is ultimately related to our words decimal and digit.
Sanskrit is one of the sources for Indonesian high-falutin' terms, like Latin or Greek in English. The Sanskrit-derived combining forms for numbers (like bi, quin, etc. in English) from 1-8 are:
asta, catur, dwi, heksa, panca, sapta, tri, tunggal.
I've put them in alphabetical order. Your (not very difficult) challenge is to put them into numerical order.
Bingley
Bingley
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#43063
10/02/2001 5:57 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 866
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 866 |
tunggal
dwi
tri
catur
panca
heksa
sapta
asta
wow - who would've guessed at the similarities!!
As you suggested, it fell out. Only had a problem with tunggal and panca, but managed to guess them (working on the idea that the "anc" in five/panca sounded a bit like the "inque" for 5 in Latin languages).
As for tunggal - well only got there by default. Is it related to anything I'd recognise in Latin languages?
stales
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#43064
10/02/2001 6:35 AM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Hmmm, if I'd said c is pronounced like English ch (as in church), it might have made it a bit more difficult. Another clue for panca is Greek penta, as in pentagon. Don't know of any relationships for tunggal. It means one, sole, or in grammar, singular.
Bingley
Bingley
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#43065
10/02/2001 1:48 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Interesting. My problem was with punggal and *asta. Panca (and I think I *was pronouncing it <pancha>) seemed like a gimme. Is catur also prounounced with a ch sound? I thought of the Russian chitera.
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#43066
10/02/2001 3:39 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
Yes, the c in catur is pronounced ch.
Bingley
Bingley
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#43067
10/03/2001 12:02 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 866
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 866 |
re: asta
My logic for this (which, looking back, defies logic!) was "aster" - ie star shaped, from which I somehow convinced myself about 8 pointed stars!!
Don't ask.....
stales
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#43068
10/03/2001 2:01 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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stales's logic for this was "aster"
I thought it was probably (and this would have been Monday morning etymologizing) a sample of the diffenernce between centum languages and satem languages.
So tell us, Bingley, what is the word for 100? Does it look anything like satem?
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