4 ms·

lol I never made that connection — in Turkish, zero is sıfır, which does sound a lot like cipher. Also, password is şifre, which again sounds similar. Looking o

lol I never made that connection — in Turkish, zero is sıfır, which does sound a lot like cipher. Also, password is şifre, which again sounds similar. Looking online, apparently the path is sifr (Arabic, meaning zero) -> cifre (French, first meaning zero, then any numeral, then coded message) -> şifre (Turkish, code/cipher)

ls-a 10mo ago
[flagged]
- drivebyhooting 10mo ago
  This doesn’t sound right. What about Chinese?
  - jjtheblunt 10mo ago
    i'm quite sure the person was joking
  - astrange 10mo ago
    Basque and Pirahā are the good ones.
- rmunn 10mo ago
  > All world languages are a deviation from Arabic Spouse of a linguist here. That is absolutely not true. To summarize a LOT, there are multiple languages that share common roots, which linguists classify into language "families". If you go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_families#Spoken_language_families https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_families#Spok... and sort the list by number of current speakers (which adds up to far more than the population of the world because so many people speak two or more languages), you'll find the top five language families are Indo-European (which includes most European languages, including English), Sino-Tibetan (which includes Chinese), Atlantic-Congo (which includes Bantu and many other languages spoken in Africa, most of which you probably won't have heard of unless you're a linguist or you live in Africa), Afroasiatic (which includes Arabic), and Austronesian (which includes Tagalog, which you might know by the name Filipino). It might be possible to claim that the Afroasiatic languages are all derived from Arabic, but the only influence that the Arabic language has had on Indo-European languages such as English is via loanwords (like algebra, for example). This does not make English a derivative of Arabic any more than Japanese (which has borrowed several English words such as カメラ, "kamera", from camera) is a derivative of English. Borrowing a word, or even a few dozen words, from another language does not make it a derivative. English, while it gleefully borrows loanwords from everywhere, is derived from French and German (or, to be more accurate, from Anglo-Norman and Proto-Germanic).
  - awesome_dude 10mo ago
    Can I also add that "Arabic numbers" - the numbers we use today, are actually of Indian origin, the Arabs translated the Indian logic/math texts into Arabic, and Western society used the Arabic translations (and additions like those of "Algorithm") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu%E2%80%93Arabic_numeral_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu%E2%80%93Arabic_numeral_s...
    - bigstrat2003 10mo ago
      Also as long as we are going down the terminology nerd rabbit hole: it's Arabic numerals, not numbers. Numbers refers to the abstract concept, numerals refers to the method one uses to write them down.
      - awesome_dude 10mo ago
        Yeah - I quoted that to show that it was normal usage rather than technical correctness - I also did the same for the name that I didn't have the correct spelling for as I wrote the comment - not sure if I should update it (with your input) or to leave it and let people work down the thread
      - inopinatus 10mo ago
        it's a cardinal rule
      - ls-a 10mo ago
        If you want to go down the terminology nerd rabbit hole, which I think is the correct thing to do, it's not even called Arabic language, it's called The Un-ambiguous Arabic Tongue (my translation of اللسان العربي المبين). Language (which comes from the word لغة) is a bad word, it means "idle chatter". Tongue is the correct term for someone who knows what they're talking about. Modern Arabic (even what is referred to as Classical Arabic) is a deviation from The Un-ambiguous Arabic Tongue. A lot of ignorant people think that the Quran is poetry when in fact it is in The Un-ambiguous Arabic Tongue, which again many people don't know (or intentionally hide!). The Arabs who spoke that tongue eloquently back then denounced poetry and poets (that's why when they wanted to curse at the prophets they called the prophets "crazy poets". Read the Quran for reference) To them poets are crazy, and the Quran was chosen by Allah to come down in that specific tongue, hence the Quran also denounces poetry.
celaleddin 10mo ago
Nice! Imagine the second meaning going back to Arabic and now it's a full loop! It can even override the original meaning given enough time and popularity (not especially for "zero", but possibly for another full-loop word).
- lupire 10mo ago
  0 is a full loop!
cgio 10mo ago
The Turkish password word may be the same used for signature? I suspect so, because in Greek we have the Greek word for signature but also a Turkish loan word τζίφρα (djifra).
- pinkmuffinere 10mo ago
  Hmm i don’t think that one is related in Turkish — i only know of “imza” as signature, but there could also be other variants.
- esafak 10mo ago
  imza is signature while şifre is password. I imagine the conflation occurred because signatures are used like passwords for authentication...
  - NextHendrix 10mo ago
    Likewise, the monogram of the sitting english monarch (as seen on postboxes and so forth) is the "Royal Cypher". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_cypher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_cypher
elbear 10mo ago
In Romanian: - cifru -> cipher - cifră -> digit
- cryptonector 10mo ago
  In Spanish: - cifrar -> to encipher - cifra -> digit
  - elbear 10mo ago
    I wasn't sure how encipher is in Romanian (it's not common), it's "a cifra". The infinitive in Romanian puts "a" in front of the verb, so it's very close to Spanish.

ls-a 10mo ago

[flagged]

drivebyhooting 10mo ago
This doesn’t sound right. What about Chinese?
- jjtheblunt 10mo ago
  i'm quite sure the person was joking
- astrange 10mo ago
  Basque and Pirahā are the good ones.
rmunn 10mo ago
> All world languages are a deviation from Arabic Spouse of a linguist here. That is absolutely not true. To summarize a LOT, there are multiple languages that share common roots, which linguists classify into language "families". If you go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_families#Spoken_language_families https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_families#Spok... and sort the list by number of current speakers (which adds up to far more than the population of the world because so many people speak two or more languages), you'll find the top five language families are Indo-European (which includes most European languages, including English), Sino-Tibetan (which includes Chinese), Atlantic-Congo (which includes Bantu and many other languages spoken in Africa, most of which you probably won't have heard of unless you're a linguist or you live in Africa), Afroasiatic (which includes Arabic), and Austronesian (which includes Tagalog, which you might know by the name Filipino). It might be possible to claim that the Afroasiatic languages are all derived from Arabic, but the only influence that the Arabic language has had on Indo-European languages such as English is via loanwords (like algebra, for example). This does not make English a derivative of Arabic any more than Japanese (which has borrowed several English words such as カメラ, "kamera", from camera) is a derivative of English. Borrowing a word, or even a few dozen words, from another language does not make it a derivative. English, while it gleefully borrows loanwords from everywhere, is derived from French and German (or, to be more accurate, from Anglo-Norman and Proto-Germanic).
- awesome_dude 10mo ago
  Can I also add that "Arabic numbers" - the numbers we use today, are actually of Indian origin, the Arabs translated the Indian logic/math texts into Arabic, and Western society used the Arabic translations (and additions like those of "Algorithm") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu%E2%80%93Arabic_numeral_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu%E2%80%93Arabic_numeral_s...
  - bigstrat2003 10mo ago
    Also as long as we are going down the terminology nerd rabbit hole: it's Arabic numerals, not numbers. Numbers refers to the abstract concept, numerals refers to the method one uses to write them down.
    - awesome_dude 10mo ago
      Yeah - I quoted that to show that it was normal usage rather than technical correctness - I also did the same for the name that I didn't have the correct spelling for as I wrote the comment - not sure if I should update it (with your input) or to leave it and let people work down the thread
    - inopinatus 10mo ago
      it's a cardinal rule
    - ls-a 10mo ago
      If you want to go down the terminology nerd rabbit hole, which I think is the correct thing to do, it's not even called Arabic language, it's called The Un-ambiguous Arabic Tongue (my translation of اللسان العربي المبين). Language (which comes from the word لغة) is a bad word, it means "idle chatter". Tongue is the correct term for someone who knows what they're talking about. Modern Arabic (even what is referred to as Classical Arabic) is a deviation from The Un-ambiguous Arabic Tongue. A lot of ignorant people think that the Quran is poetry when in fact it is in The Un-ambiguous Arabic Tongue, which again many people don't know (or intentionally hide!). The Arabs who spoke that tongue eloquently back then denounced poetry and poets (that's why when they wanted to curse at the prophets they called the prophets "crazy poets". Read the Quran for reference) To them poets are crazy, and the Quran was chosen by Allah to come down in that specific tongue, hence the Quran also denounces poetry.

celaleddin 10mo ago

Nice! Imagine the second meaning going back to Arabic and now it's a full loop! It can even override the original meaning given enough time and popularity (not especially for "zero", but possibly for another full-loop word).

lupire 10mo ago
0 is a full loop!

cgio 10mo ago

The Turkish password word may be the same used for signature? I suspect so, because in Greek we have the Greek word for signature but also a Turkish loan word τζίφρα (djifra).

pinkmuffinere 10mo ago
Hmm i don’t think that one is related in Turkish — i only know of “imza” as signature, but there could also be other variants.
esafak 10mo ago
imza is signature while şifre is password. I imagine the conflation occurred because signatures are used like passwords for authentication...
- NextHendrix 10mo ago
  Likewise, the monogram of the sitting english monarch (as seen on postboxes and so forth) is the "Royal Cypher". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_cypher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_cypher

elbear 10mo ago

In Romanian: - cifru -> cipher - cifră -> digit

cryptonector 10mo ago
In Spanish: - cifrar -> to encipher - cifra -> digit
- elbear 10mo ago
  I wasn't sure how encipher is in Romanian (it's not common), it's "a cifra". The infinitive in Romanian puts "a" in front of the verb, so it's very close to Spanish.