# Etymology: tarih



## sotos

Hello everybody.
What can you say about the etymology of the w. "tarih" (history)? Is it related to other turkic words? When is first attested?
Thanks.


----------



## themadprogramer

Most definitely Arabic, as for it's when it was first attested I have no clue.


----------



## esra0789

It comes from Arabic (تأريخ).


----------



## Arabus

The original Arabic pronunciation is /taʔˈriːx/, but this is often simplified to /taːˈriːx/. Basically it is the same as the Turkish pronunciation but the last sound is not  but rather [x] (this is the sound of German ch in the word Bach).

The linguistic root of the word is a Proto-Semitic root that means "moon." The Arabs used a lunar calender, and hence the word was coined.


----------



## sotos

Thank you.


----------



## ancalimon

"tarih" is clearly an Arabic loan in Turkish as pointed out by others here.. But if we were to look for a Proto-Turkic origin for the Arabic word, there are some words that could be candidates like:

*duj- (perceive, notice)
*dǖr- (fold, roll together)
*dēr- (collect, gather (information))
*dē- (say)
*tar- (to be divided into pieces)

And a Turkish word "doğru" meaning "truth ~what really happened". (from toğru which is related with "Doğu" meaning "East" which is related with time and direction itself so it's a good candidate)


----------



## fdb

The original meaning of taʼrīx is “date, dating, era”, then “chronical, history”. As Arabus has explained, it belongs to the Semitic root w-r-x “month”, attested in Akkadian, Aramaic, Hebrew etc., but this root is not otherwise present in Arabic. For this reason it is likely that it is actually a borrowing from South Arabian, first as the plural tawārīx, from which the singular taʼrīx (tārīx), and the denominal verb ʼarraxa are back- formations.


----------



## mataripis

Hi! This word exist in Tagalog as Tare'.this is hardened part of male chicken at the back of legs and has shape of moon crescent.it is used for defense.the symbol of moon crescent is tare' with meaning we will fight.the tagalog for let's go is tarah!


----------



## Arabus

Hi mataripis,

This is probably a coincidence. Such coincidences happen all the time. If you compare any two languages, you are bound to find some similar words. The superficial similarity does not always mean that the words stem from a common origin.

The word _tarih _means "history." The ancient root of the word meant _moon > month_. Like fdb said, this root is not attested in Arabic, but it is attested in Akkadian as _warxum_ and in Hebrew as _yaarea7_ etc. Most of these ancient Semitic languages went extinct more than 1500 years ago.


----------

