3 ms·
This as a fascinating article. It mentions Tyrian purple, in fact the word purple is derived from the ancient greek word, πορφύρα (porphura), for the Tyrian dye
by Jun8 8y ago
This as a fascinating article. It mentions Tyrian purple, in fact the word purple is derived from the ancient greek word, πορφύρα (porphura), for the Tyrian dye (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple#Etymology_and_definitions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple#Etymology_and_definitio...) which was adopted into Latin and from there many European languages (https://www.omniglot.com/language/colours/multilingual.htm https://www.omniglot.com/language/colours/multilingual.htm). It's interesting that the modern Greek word for purple is μωβ (mov), which comes from μόρον (moron), the blackberry (https://lsj.gr/wiki/%CE%BC%CF%8C%CF%81%CE%BF%CE%BD https://lsj.gr/wiki/%CE%BC%CF%8C%CF%81%CE%BF%CE%BD) and is also adopted into Turkish as mor. Since it's estimated that the sound denoted by β changed from classical Greek /b/ to modern Greek /v/ in the first century AD one might venture a guess that the switch from porphura to mov may be from that time (caution: armchair historical linguistics hunch that I just made up, may be totally off).
Another interesting fact I just found out: According to Wikipedia the Chinese glyph for purple, 紫, is from Old Japanese むらさき (murasaki), the word for red-root gromwell, the roots of which were used for the purple dye and medicine. This, of course, is the pen name of the Japanese author, whose actual name has been lost, and has been named "Murasaki Shikibu" (Lady Murasaki), after the heroine she invented.
Down the rabbit whole with one word!
- derriz 8y agoEtymology is fascinating. When I read your Greek "mov" for purple, I immediately thought of the French word for light purple, "mauve". (I don't speak French but my toddler son is bilingual and has started using this word recently so I had to find out what it means.) Sadly it seems there is no link as it comes from the Latin name of a flower, "malva", which has a different ancient Greek cognate "malakhē" according to wikipedia. I also learned that "mauve" is an English word. It's somewhat embarrassing that a 2.5 year old is helping improve my mother tongue vocabulary.
- therein 8y agoMov to Mor makes sense. Murasaki and Mor was fascinating. Turkish and Japanese has a lot of unexpected similarities. When it comes to conjugation even. As a native Turkish speaker, watching Japanese with subtitles leads to me picking up conjugation rules and they map identically. Another strange etymological association that was unexpected to me is the phrase "my stomach is hungry". It is present in both Turkish and Japanese.
- lovemenot 8y agoonaka ga suiteimasu I'd translate the Japanese to English as my "stomach is empty". Same word for example as an empty room.
- therein 8y agoI was basing that example off of this answer on Quora: https://www.quora.com/I-speak-Japanese-and-am-learning-Turkish-These-languages-have-a-lot-of-similar-words-but-different-grammar-any-explanation-for-this/answer/Can-Deniz-5 https://www.quora.com/I-speak-Japanese-and-am-learning-Turki...
- lovemenot 8y agoYes. I see now where you got it from. Nevertheless, I stick to my previous translation. Of course, I have no Turkish, so I cannot comment on the similarity.
- contingencies 8y agoThe Chinese glyph for purple (along with so much else commonly misattributed to Japan such as Ramen, various mushrooms, etc.) is most certainly not from Japanese, a language whose written form only dates from ~800AD. Reviewing the Wiktionary page should clarify https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%B4%AB https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%B4%AB ... but failing that, https://ctext.org/pre-qin-and-han?searchu=%E7%B4%AB https://ctext.org/pre-qin-and-han?searchu=%E7%B4%AB is a list of pre Qin (221BCE–206BCE) and Han (202BCE-220CE) texts using the character in China, which had writing for more than a thousand years before Japan.