5 ms·

The word Algorithm comes from a mathematician named al-Khwarizmi. Many words that begin with Al (Arabic definite article) are of Arabic origin. Alcohol is anoth

The word Algorithm comes from a mathematician named al-Khwarizmi. Many words that begin with Al (Arabic definite article) are of Arabic origin. Alcohol is another one :)

kragen 7y ago
He was Kazakh, not Arab, wasn't he?
- kragen 7y ago
  Geographically Uzbek, ethnically Persian apparently.
yters 7y ago
I've also heard that Allah is a variant of Elohim, and was used by Christians in the region before being conquered by the Muslims.
- csomar 7y ago
  Muslims people believe in the Christian/Hebrew single God indeed. They just think that the right way to do it is through Mohammed (The muslim prophet) teaching. The argument is that Mohammed is the last prophet that god sent and thus should be the one to follow.
  - dragandj 7y ago
    They seem to be wrong about that “last” prophet thing, since everybody knows about Joseph Smith, who came after Monammed.
    - yters 7y ago
      Hey, what about Sun Moon? And there is a new Dalai Llama each generation!
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  Arabic and Hebrew are both Semitic languages. Elohim is the Hebrew word for "gods", the plural form of el, "god", as seen most commonly today in Hebrew names like Michael, Samuel, Raphael, Emmanuel, Elijah, Eliezer, etc. etc. etc. Allah is just the Arabic cognate, plus the definiteness marker. So yes, anyone speaking Arabic will use that word to refer to any god, and anyone speaking Arabic in the past would have used that word to refer to any god. Similarly, a German today wouldn't hesitate to apply the word "Gott" ("god") to Thor, because Thor is a god. Whether the hypothetical German is Christian isn't really relevant, and neither is the fact that the Christian god is nameless, being usually referred to by a title such as "God", "Lord", "Father", etc.
  - acqq 7y ago
    > the Christian god is nameles Inherited from what developed as a norm in Judaism, where the name existed but then stopped being read (the most famous "one who must not be named"), but the original name of the deity is preserved in the given names used around the world: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophoric_name#Yahweh https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophoric_name#Yahweh
    - thaumasiotes 7y ago
      For the theophoric names, I have a question you probably can't answer. I've read that the form "Jehovah" results from reading YHWH as if it had the vowel points of the word adonai, "lord". But I can't help noticing that the prefix form of YHWH in names, for which the vowels are known, is yeho-. That really adds some credibility to "Jehovah", except that "Jehovah" supposedly comes from a completely unrelated convention. How much do we know about the original vowels? How true is the adonai story?
      - acqq 7y ago
        "How true" of course depends on the faith of the one who discusses it -- the faiths are exactly made based on the different "stories" about the same topics, which the believers have to believe. It appears to me that the relevant research behind "1906 Jewish Encyclopedia": http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11305-names-of-god#anchor2 http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11305-names-of-go... is good and that it gives the sources to its claims. I'm not aware that the later scholars refuted the relevant points for this topic: "At least as early as the third century B.C. the name seems to have been regarded by the Jews as a "nomen ineffabile," on the basis of a somewhat extreme interpretation of Ex. xx. 7 and Lev. xxiv. 11 (see Philo, "De Vita Mosis," iii. 519, 529). Written only in consonants, the true pronunciation was forgotten by them. The Septuagint, and after it the New Testament, invariably render δκύριος ("the Lord")." Note: the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew bible to Greek is effectively what was since the development of Christianity called by the Christians "the Old Testament" and the Christian bible textual analysis proves that the authors of the New Testament almost exclusively used only the Greek translation and also wrote the New Testament as Greek native speakers in Greek, having even misunderstandings from interpreting the Greek words differently than the original Hebrew, even if Hebrew could also be misinterpreted during reading, but not in the same way. Anyway, that's how other languages got the "Lord" and equivalents in their translations from what was originally written: from the Septuagint and https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BA%CF%8D%CF%81%CE%B9%CE%BF%CF%82 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BA%CF%8D%CF%81%CE%B9%CE%B... (note the difference from the 1906 Jewish quote). Anyway, there is also the article about Jehovah, "mispronunciation (introduced by Christian theologians, but almost entirely disregarded by the Jews) of the Hebrew "Yhwh"": http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/8568-jehovah http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/8568-jehovah And this is where the faith of these involved in the discussion can influence their interpretation even more. Still I believe this statement is true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragrammaton#Yahweh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragrammaton#Yahweh "Gesenius's proposal to read YHWH as יַהְוֶה is accepted as the best scholarly reconstructed vocalised Hebrew spelling of the Tetragrammaton" (i.e. transliterated into English as Yahweh)"
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
Rattled 7y ago
I was told of Algebra coming from Al-Jabr meaning "number games". I was surprised I didn't see this mentioned in the article, until I found the book mentioned in Al-Khwarizmi's biography [1]. The book's title is "Hisab al-jabr w'al-muqabala" but no translation is given and Google's translation "Al Jaber account and interview" is not helpful. Can anyone confirm or deny the explanation I was given? [1] http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Al-Khwarizmi.html http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Al-Kh...
- throwaway542134 7y ago
  iirc the title translates to something like "the Study|Art|Practice of balancing and restoring." I recall "al jabr" means "of/relating to balancing" This source[1] states it as >the science of restoring what is missing and equating like with like [1] https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/algebra https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/algebra
- ComputerGuru 7y ago
  جبر, in transliteration, jabr, is the root of the word and the closest meaning is to bring (with a possible connotation of doing so against the entities natural inclination or state) back together parts (in healing). To my mind, mathematically it would be closest to the literal concept of integration, but that is calculus and not what is generally considered to be algebra.
  - agumonkey 7y ago
    I associated al-jabr as classification. The 'back'ness felt more like bring back order by arranging same kinds on same sides.
- ned7 7y ago
  The translation you're looking for is: "Calculation by Completion and Balancing" The book's name in English is: "The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing" So Al-jabr meaning is very close to "calculation by Completion" in that context.
marzell 7y ago
Alhambra is another example. This is also the origin of some definite articles in romance languages - el in Spanish and l' in French. So Alhambra in Spain might have been called Al Hambra or similar instead. Interestingly, in Persian (which uses Arabic script and shares some loanwords) which is a totally different language, the definite article is assumed, and it instead has an explicit indefinite article (-i or -yi) added to a noun/adjective.
codesushi42 7y ago
Chemistry is derived from alchemy, which is also Arabic in origin. Yes, Arab alchemists preceded European alchemists.
- kragen 7y ago
  Pseudo-Geber was a European alchemist who pretended to be an earlier Arabic-speaking alchemist, perhaps in order to give his works more reputation.
ggambetta 7y ago
There's a ton of them in Spanish, due to the fact that Spain was partially occupied for centuries (which also has left some amazing architecture like the Alhambra in Granada, or the Alcazar in Seville). Alcohol as in English, but also almohada (pillow), alcalde (mayor), algodón (cotton),... and many more that don't start with "al".

The word Algorithm comes from a mathematician named al-Khwarizmi. Many words that begin with Al (Arabic definite article) are of Arabic origin. Alcohol is another one :)

kragen 7y ago

He was Kazakh, not Arab, wasn't he?

kragen 7y ago
Geographically Uzbek, ethnically Persian apparently.

yters 7y ago

I've also heard that Allah is a variant of Elohim, and was used by Christians in the region before being conquered by the Muslims.

csomar 7y ago
Muslims people believe in the Christian/Hebrew single God indeed. They just think that the right way to do it is through Mohammed (The muslim prophet) teaching. The argument is that Mohammed is the last prophet that god sent and thus should be the one to follow.
- dragandj 7y ago
  They seem to be wrong about that “last” prophet thing, since everybody knows about Joseph Smith, who came after Monammed.
  - yters 7y ago
    Hey, what about Sun Moon? And there is a new Dalai Llama each generation!
thaumasiotes 7y ago
Arabic and Hebrew are both Semitic languages. Elohim is the Hebrew word for "gods", the plural form of el, "god", as seen most commonly today in Hebrew names like Michael, Samuel, Raphael, Emmanuel, Elijah, Eliezer, etc. etc. etc. Allah is just the Arabic cognate, plus the definiteness marker. So yes, anyone speaking Arabic will use that word to refer to any god, and anyone speaking Arabic in the past would have used that word to refer to any god. Similarly, a German today wouldn't hesitate to apply the word "Gott" ("god") to Thor, because Thor is a god. Whether the hypothetical German is Christian isn't really relevant, and neither is the fact that the Christian god is nameless, being usually referred to by a title such as "God", "Lord", "Father", etc.
- acqq 7y ago
  > the Christian god is nameles Inherited from what developed as a norm in Judaism, where the name existed but then stopped being read (the most famous "one who must not be named"), but the original name of the deity is preserved in the given names used around the world: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophoric_name#Yahweh https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophoric_name#Yahweh
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    For the theophoric names, I have a question you probably can't answer. I've read that the form "Jehovah" results from reading YHWH as if it had the vowel points of the word adonai, "lord". But I can't help noticing that the prefix form of YHWH in names, for which the vowels are known, is yeho-. That really adds some credibility to "Jehovah", except that "Jehovah" supposedly comes from a completely unrelated convention. How much do we know about the original vowels? How true is the adonai story?
    - acqq 7y ago
      "How true" of course depends on the faith of the one who discusses it -- the faiths are exactly made based on the different "stories" about the same topics, which the believers have to believe. It appears to me that the relevant research behind "1906 Jewish Encyclopedia": http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11305-names-of-god#anchor2 http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11305-names-of-go... is good and that it gives the sources to its claims. I'm not aware that the later scholars refuted the relevant points for this topic: "At least as early as the third century B.C. the name seems to have been regarded by the Jews as a "nomen ineffabile," on the basis of a somewhat extreme interpretation of Ex. xx. 7 and Lev. xxiv. 11 (see Philo, "De Vita Mosis," iii. 519, 529). Written only in consonants, the true pronunciation was forgotten by them. The Septuagint, and after it the New Testament, invariably render δκύριος ("the Lord")." Note: the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew bible to Greek is effectively what was since the development of Christianity called by the Christians "the Old Testament" and the Christian bible textual analysis proves that the authors of the New Testament almost exclusively used only the Greek translation and also wrote the New Testament as Greek native speakers in Greek, having even misunderstandings from interpreting the Greek words differently than the original Hebrew, even if Hebrew could also be misinterpreted during reading, but not in the same way. Anyway, that's how other languages got the "Lord" and equivalents in their translations from what was originally written: from the Septuagint and https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BA%CF%8D%CF%81%CE%B9%CE%BF%CF%82 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BA%CF%8D%CF%81%CE%B9%CE%B... (note the difference from the 1906 Jewish quote). Anyway, there is also the article about Jehovah, "mispronunciation (introduced by Christian theologians, but almost entirely disregarded by the Jews) of the Hebrew "Yhwh"": http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/8568-jehovah http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/8568-jehovah And this is where the faith of these involved in the discussion can influence their interpretation even more. Still I believe this statement is true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragrammaton#Yahweh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragrammaton#Yahweh "Gesenius's proposal to read YHWH as יַהְוֶה is accepted as the best scholarly reconstructed vocalised Hebrew spelling of the Tetragrammaton" (i.e. transliterated into English as Yahweh)"
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

Rattled 7y ago

I was told of Algebra coming from Al-Jabr meaning "number games". I was surprised I didn't see this mentioned in the article, until I found the book mentioned in Al-Khwarizmi's biography [1]. The book's title is "Hisab al-jabr w'al-muqabala" but no translation is given and Google's translation "Al Jaber account and interview" is not helpful. Can anyone confirm or deny the explanation I was given? [1] http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Al-Khwarizmi.html http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Al-Kh...

throwaway542134 7y ago
iirc the title translates to something like "the Study|Art|Practice of balancing and restoring." I recall "al jabr" means "of/relating to balancing" This source[1] states it as >the science of restoring what is missing and equating like with like [1] https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/algebra https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/algebra
ComputerGuru 7y ago
جبر, in transliteration, jabr, is the root of the word and the closest meaning is to bring (with a possible connotation of doing so against the entities natural inclination or state) back together parts (in healing). To my mind, mathematically it would be closest to the literal concept of integration, but that is calculus and not what is generally considered to be algebra.
- agumonkey 7y ago
  I associated al-jabr as classification. The 'back'ness felt more like bring back order by arranging same kinds on same sides.
ned7 7y ago
The translation you're looking for is: "Calculation by Completion and Balancing" The book's name in English is: "The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing" So Al-jabr meaning is very close to "calculation by Completion" in that context.

marzell 7y ago

Alhambra is another example. This is also the origin of some definite articles in romance languages - el in Spanish and l' in French. So Alhambra in Spain might have been called Al Hambra or similar instead. Interestingly, in Persian (which uses Arabic script and shares some loanwords) which is a totally different language, the definite article is assumed, and it instead has an explicit indefinite article (-i or -yi) added to a noun/adjective.

codesushi42 7y ago

Chemistry is derived from alchemy, which is also Arabic in origin. Yes, Arab alchemists preceded European alchemists.

kragen 7y ago
Pseudo-Geber was a European alchemist who pretended to be an earlier Arabic-speaking alchemist, perhaps in order to give his works more reputation.

ggambetta 7y ago

There's a ton of them in Spanish, due to the fact that Spain was partially occupied for centuries (which also has left some amazing architecture like the Alhambra in Granada, or the Alcazar in Seville). Alcohol as in English, but also almohada (pillow), alcalde (mayor), algodón (cotton),... and many more that don't start with "al".