3 ms·
The Al- most likely got lost in Arabic due to being reanalyzed as a determiner instead of as part of the name.
by yorwba 5y ago
The Al- most likely got lost in Arabic due to being reanalyzed as a determiner instead of as part of the name.
- schoen 5y agoFor the Greeks, it even had an intelligible meaning https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E1%BC%80%CE%BB%CE%AD%CE%BE%CF%89#Ancient_Greek https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E1%BC%80%CE%BB%CE%AD%CE%BE%C... I think the a- in the al- in Alexander is supposed to be the alpha privative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_privative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_privative like our "ward off" or something.
- YeGoblynQueenne 5y agoI don't know if that's right. It could be but it sounds wrong in that I've never heard of "έξω", on its own, without the possible privative, at least not as a verb (there is a modern noun "έξω" meaning "out"). Also, wikipedia says this about alpha privative: >> It is derived from a Proto-Indo-European syllabic nasal n̥-, the zero ablaut grade of the negation ne, i.e. /n/ used as a vowel. But the wiktionary article says this about αλέξω: From Proto-Hellenic aléksō (“to protect”), from Proto-Indo-European h₂lek- (“to defend”) (...) Note the difference between "n̥" and "h₂". I don't even know what those are, but they seem different enough that they may be ... different?