October theme: Ancient Borrowings 𒅴

Introduction

tulips and lilies from Egyptian

Teaser

Full Text

• Afro-Asiatic *ḥrr

  • Egyptian 𓁷:𓂋-𓂋:𓏏-𓆰 ḥrrt flower, blossom

    • Egyptian 𓁹-𓁷:𓂋-𓂋:𓏏-𓆰 jrj-ḥrrt to blossom lit. "make-flower" or "do-flower"
    • Demotic Egyptian ḥrrj flower

      • Coptic ϩⲣⲏⲣⲉ hrēre flower
      • Fayyumic Coptic ϩⲗⲏⲣⲓ hlēri flower

        • Classical Greek λείριον leírion lily

          • Serbo-Croatian лије̑р lijȇr lily
          • Latin līlium lily plural lilia

            • Translingual Lilium
            • Western Romance

              • Italian giglio lily, fleur-de-lis
              • French lis lily

                • English fleur-de-lis
              • Spanish lirio iris, lily

                • Tagalog liryo iris, lily
            • Old English lilie

              • English lily
            • Old High German lilia

              • German Lilie lily, fleur-de-lis
              • Yiddish ליליע lilye lily
            • Old Norse lilja

              • Icelandic lilja lily, fleur-de-lis
              • Swedish lilja lily, fleur-de-lis
              • Finnish lilja lily, fleur-de-lis
            • Russian ли́лия lílija lily
            • Serbo-Croatian љѝљан ljìljan lily
        • ?

          • Persian لاله lâle tulip

            • Arabic لَعْلَع laʿlaʿ tulip
            • Hindi लाला lālā tulip
            • Ottoman Turkish لاله lâle tulip

              • Turkish lale tulip
              • Albanian lale tulip
              • Serbo-Croatian лала lala tulip
          • Albanian lule flower

            • Greek λουλούδι louloúdi flower

              • Greek αγριολούλουδο agrioloúloudo wildflower
              • Romani luludí flower
    • ?

      • Sanskrit 𑀳𑀮𑀻 halī lily

        • Sanskrit 𑀳𑀮𑀺𑀦𑀻 halinī lily
  • Tamazight

    • Northern Tamazight

      • Atlas Tamazight

        • Central Atlas Tamazight ⴰⵊⴷⴷⵉⴳ ajddig flower
  • Semitic *ḥ-r-r ^[1]

    • Central Semitic

      • Arabic ح ر ر ḥ-r-r noble, fine quality, high, extreme

        • Arabic حَرِير ḥarīr silk
      • Northwest Semitic

        • Aramaic 𐡇𐡓𐡓 ḥrr to free, to liberate

Visual

Collected English words

Lilium, fleur-de-lis, lily

Footnotes

1. ^

   Afro-Asiatic ḥ and r are both generally preserved unchanged in Ancient Egyptian and Classical Arabic, so the Semitic *ḥ-r-r is formally equivalent to Egyptian ḥrr-t. The semantic connections are plausible but require some storytelling. Noble and free are often related concepts, noble and fine quality and silk all make sense together, silk and flower make sense together, but the whole thing is a little shaky.

   The Tamazight word connection is the inverse: it is semantically equivalent, but the sound correspondences are more complicated. /a/ - /ḥ/ and /d/ - /r/ looks plausible to me, but I can't find any more information, and I'm not qualified to evaluate it.