# مات and Spanish matar



## C. E. Whitehead

، مات ملك، مات شاه --  checkmate can be said in Arabic apparently: maat-a maalik -- 'the king died' --  is the Arabic word 'die' here -- مات -- by any chance related to the Spanish verb matar ('kill')? Does anyone know?


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## hjr.lm7mudia.hntati

I found this information (in bold) online:
*"From Old Portuguese matar, most likely from Latin mactāre, present active infinitive of mactō (through a Vulgar Latin root *mattāre). Alternatively, possibly from Vulgar Latin *mattare, from Latin mattus. The unusual development of -ct- has led some to believe that this word is not from Latin, but an early Wanderwort from Arabic مَاتَ ‎(māta, “to die”)."*


Since you've probably already seen this, the only thing I know about this is that the "r" in the end of "matar" makes it sound more like the arabic word for rain, مطر .

Actually, I'd like to point out that مَاتَ more accurately means "*died*" in the *past* tense,
and not "to die" (as mentioned in the passage I quoted above.)

"To die" is closer in meaning to  " يموت "  = dying/dies.

"maata aby" = My father died.
"Aby yamuut" = My father is (currently) dying.

IF there is any relationship, I would strongly presume that the Spanish word has roots originating from the Arabic word and not vice versa. The reason I say this is because the 3 letter Semitic base for this verb is (m-w-t) which is also found in other Semitic languages:

Akkadian = "mutu"=death
Ugaritic = "mt"=death
Aramaic= "mwt"=death
Hebrew="mawet"=death



_*_ I have no idea what -ct- is in "*The unusual development of -ct-*"
_
* _A slight correction regarding what you wrote; I believe you meant "maat *AL* malik" meaning *"The*_ king died_" and not "maat-a maalik" which means "_A king died_."
_
* _As for the example you gave of مات شاه "mat a shah"

_شاه هي كلمة وعبارة فارسية معناها باللغة العربية ملك_
"Shah" is actually a Persian word which means king. (To avoid any confusion)
_
_

I'm sure any other input would be much more useful.


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## analeeh

It seems unlikely since _matar_ has cognates in other Romance languages and _maat_ has cognates in other Semitic languages. The 'unusual development' of ct > t refers to the fact that the Latin cluster [ct] in the middle normally produces other results (_noctum_ for example produced _noches_) but this doesn't really seem like an adequate explanation to me.

Incidentally, the normal term for checkmate is كش مات. Supposedly this is a mangling (like checkmate) of شاهك مات _shaahak maat_ 'your king has died'. مات ملك _maata malik_ would not be a grammatical sentence.


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## Cenzontle

Corominas says the following about "matar":


> ...que en la Edad Media significó también 'herir'....  Prob[ablemen]te de un verbo lat. vg. *MATTARE 'golpear, abatir', deriv. de *MATTUS 'estúpido, embrutecido', que ya se lee en textos latinos de la época imperial y que a su vez es *de origen incierto* (quizá antigua voz itálica tomada del griego vulgar).


No mention of Arabic.  No mention of what "vulgar" Greek word is alluded to.  
I don't know why MATTUS is starred as hypothetical if "ya *se lee* en textos latinos de la época imperial".
My pocket Latin dictionary translates "mactare" as 





> to magnify, glorify, honor; to sacrifice; to slaughter, put to death; to destroy, ruin, overthrow; to trouble, afflict.


If regular, Latin "mactare" would have given "mechar" and "meitar" in Spanish and Portuguese.
One would like to attribute the double T to a transmission through Italian, but I don't find any *_mattare_ in that language.


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## apmoy70

Cenzontle said:


> ...No mention of what "vulgar" Greek word is alluded to...


Perhaps it's the Classical Gr. v. *«μάσσω» mắssō* --> _to knead (dough), press a workable material in a form_ = Attic *«μάττω» mắttō* which in colloquial language meant also _to strike, wipe off_ (from a possible PIE root *menk-/*meh₂ǵ- _to knead_ cf Skt. मचते (macate), _to pound_, Proto-Germanic *makōną > Ger. machen, Eng. make; Proto-Slavic *mazati, _to smear, salve_ > Rus. мазать, BCS мазати/mazati; Lith. minkyti, _to knead_, Ltv. mīcīt, _to knead_).


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## C. E. Whitehead

Cenzontle said:


> Corominas says the following about "matar":
> 
> No mention of Arabic.  No mention of what "vulgar" Greek word is alluded to.
> I don't know why MATTUS is starred as hypothetical if "ya *se lee* en textos latinos de la época imperial".
> My pocket Latin dictionary translates "mactare" as
> If regular, Latin "mactare" would have given "mechar" and "meitar" in Spanish and Portuguese.
> One would like to attribute the double T to a transmission through Italian, but I don't find any *_mattare_ in that language.


The Italian word is apparently ammazzare; and it's related to the Spanish. "Diachronic Applications in Hispanic Linguistics"(google books) proposes it's from early colonists from Italy on the Iberian Peninsula; Arabs were also on the Peninsula. (The Arabic has an alternation with the glide waw, mawt; demise, death -- which is also interesting because of the Spanish word 'muerto' though the latter has an /r/.)


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## bearded

C. E. Whitehead said:


> The Italian word is apparently ammazzare; and it's related to the Spanish


According to Italian etymological dictionaries, _ammazzare _originally means ''to kill by means of a 'mazza' (sort of big stick)''.  Whether Spanish 'matar' is a real cognate, is open to speculation since there is an old Spanish 'mazar, maçar..'.
Etimologia : mazza;
In any case,  the Italian verb seemingly has no connection to the Arab verb.


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## PersoLatin

As far as I know the Arabic word (Semitic m-w-t) means 'to die' and not 'to kill' unlike the Latin one (matar, mactāre, mactō), so even statistical coincidence doesn't come into it, the Latin mortem may have been a better candidate, anyone agree?


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## momai

PersoLatin said:


> As far as I know the Arabic word (Semitic m-w-t) means 'to die' and not 'to kill' unlike the Latin one (matar, mactāre, mactō)


That's not wrong but it's not completely correct either. Arabic has مات maata "to die" and أمات 'maata "to cause to die, to kill".


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## Sardokan1.0

bearded said:


> According to Italian etymological dictionaries, _ammazzare _originally means ''to kill by means of a 'mazza' (sort of big stick)''.  Whether Spanish 'matar' is a real cognate, is open to speculation since there is an old Spanish 'mazar, maçar..'.
> Etimologia : mazza;
> In any case,  the Italian verb seemingly has no connection to the Arab verb.



In Sardinian there is a middleway between Spanish and Italian : 

_Mazare _(to slaughter, to butcher, to beat badly) can be translated in Italian as "macellare, massacrare, pestare a sangue, picchiare malamente"

But it's separated from the verb "to kill" that in Sardinian (centre-north) is : _Occhire, Occhidere_ (Lat. Occidere)


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## fdb

momai said:


> That's not wrong but it's not completely correct either. Arabic has مات maata "to die" and أمات '*a*maata "to cause to die, to kill".



For the benefit of those who do not know Arabic: 'amaata is a regular causative/resultative formation.


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## C. E. Whitehead

PersoLatin said:


> As far as I know the Arabic word (Semitic m-w-t) means 'to die' and not 'to kill' unlike the Latin one (matar, mactāre, mactō), so even statistical coincidence doesn't come into it, the Latin mortem may have been a better candidate, anyone agree?


I like this idea, and note that "morire" has  both the roots [mwo] and [mor] -- according to an article by Martina Da Tos
("The Boundaries of Pure Morphology: Diachronic and Synchronic Perspectives"; google books again).
The problem though is the /r/ in most roots for 'die' --
sometimes the /w/ glide follows and sometimes precedes the /r/  in the roots, according to information at verbix on Proto-IndoEuropean roots

As for matar/mactare, there are alternations in sounds in Italian (for example sh and sk or skj alternate); perhaps such  an alternation can explain the change from mactare to matar or ammazzare.

However could not the Saracen invasion as well -- in the 9th century -- have inspired the change to from mactare to matar (by an analogy with maat-a)?
You may be right and there may be no connection but coincidence; but I like to think that these roots all connected, both matar and morire are connected to the Arabic, but am not sure when the /w/ glide entered the Indo-European root --
it's in most roots it seems and in the English word "murder" (I note here that causative and non-causative forms often switch off in language evolution; as do singular and plural forms; as do words for humans and cattle --
if one guy from one tribe and language group dies it's possible a guy from another tribe killed him I gather)


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## jmx

Lots of information about "matar" in this page (in Spanish).


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## Cossue

Lots of info also here (Dicionario de Dicionarios do Galego Medieval, s.v. _matar_), although mostly dealing with its use in Medieval Galician literature.


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## Penyafort

I consider the link with Arabic to be highly unlikely because:

- most of the Arabic adstrate in Iberia is made of nouns and adjectives, not verbs
- the word also exists in Catalan, which has a far lesser number of Arabisms, and is already attested in the Book of the Deeds (first of the Catalan Chronicles, 13th century), even if in strong competition with the older _ociure/auciure_ (Old Catalan cognate to Italian _uccidere_, Romanian _ucide_, Old French _ocire_, etc)​In my view, the likeliest origin is the Latin adjective _ma(t)tus _'intoxicated, stunned', from which a vulgar verb *_ma(t)tare_ 'to stun, to knock out' could have perfectly worked as an early euphemism for 'to hurt, to kill'. Notice how this verb naturally creates a variety of euphemisms in all languages. The use of _tuer _in French also springs from a euphemisms, _tutare _"extinguish, put out, quench".


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## CyrusSH

"mat" in checkmate certainly doesn't mean "died" or "killed" but it means "be astonished", chess is just a friendly game, not a war.


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## elroy

Penyafort said:


> - the word also exists in Catalan, which has a far lesser number of Arabisms


On the other hand, the fact that it _does_ exist in Catalan and Portuguese (fellow Iberian languages) but not, to my knowledge, in any non-Iberian Romance languages (assuming "ammazzare" is unrelated) could actually be evidence for an Arabic origin. 



Penyafort said:


> and is already attested in the Book of the Deeds (first of the Catalan Chronicles, 13th century)


But the Moors had already been in Iberia since the eighth century, so that doesn't rule out an Arabic origin, does it?


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## S.V.

For ex. a century after that







(Quora)
the_ Glosas silenses_ use _matare_ to clarify the meaning of _interficere_ (Add. 30853, f. 313v, top; _matare_). You would claim the ancestors of_ aucir_ and _tuar_ suddenly gave way to a third verb, when crossing the Pyrenees, without any influence from the ancestor of _mttār_ (_brgy nw qrš yāllah mttār_: _Jarchas romances_).

It may also be a question for cognitive linguistics, as other languages also take in words of death and violence, from the source they associate to them. Cf._ knife, slaughter, skull, hit, rotten, ill_, from Old Norse. Core verbs can change through such shocks. This one shares a history with _*m*uer*t*e_, _*m*uer*t*o_, but etymology rarely does 'this puppy is double mixed."  I see no issue against _Likely influenced by Arabic_...


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## Penyafort

elroy said:


> On the other hand, the fact that it _does_ exist in Catalan and Portuguese (fellow Iberian languages) but not, to my knowledge, in any non-Iberian Romance languages (assuming "ammazzare" is unrelated) could actually be evidence for an Arabic origin.



Well, that depends on what you mean by 'Iberian'. Remember Catalan isn't an Ibero-Romance language, it belongs in a cluster with Occitan, in which you can also find _matar_.



elroy said:


> But the Moors had already been in Iberia since the eighth century, so that doesn't rule out an Arabic origin, does it?



It doesn't but it makes it unlikelier. Bear in mind that 'Old Catalonia' was in Moorish hands for less than a century (madínat Djarunda, some 70 years; madínat Barshilúna, about 80). Most Arabic adstrate in Catalan is a consequence of the southern expansion, in lands that had effectively been part of the Sharq al-Andalus for more than four centuries, and where many Arabic speakers remained after the _reconquest_, which is why there are far more Arabisms in Valencian than in any other varieties of the language.


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## S.V.

The 'Latin' preserved in those mountains was not that far from St. Isidore's (560 - 636), in regards to core verbs and nouns.

_Abel occidit in campo; in furore suo occiderunt prophetas; Nino rege occiditur; Et occidetur Christus; occiderunt hominem; et occidet eos; qui furatur et occidit; quomodo eum occidam; qui fratrem occiderat; gigantem occiderit; unde Chimaeram dicitur occidisse; occidere natos suos;  per ignorantiam dicitur occidisse; deinde captus occiditur; frater meus, quem occiderat; nec fratrem occidisset innocentem; occiditur Abel; occiso Christo; qui occiderit Cain; eos invenit, et non occidit; masculos Pharao occidi; qui occidit Eglon regem; inimicum non occidit; David Saulem occidere noluit... occidere maluit... et non occidit... Ne occideris eos... non occidisse_ (_Quaest. in Vet. Test._ 17.6).​
It can resemble Old Latin more, but you want something better than 'an early euphemism' to explain the severed line in Iberia, which buries the descendants of *_occidir_, and _Non occides, Non furaberis, Non falsum testimonium dices_... One of the glosses is_ uiba occidantur _[_uiba las decolaren_]. It likely waned long before, or you would expect different adapted forms, for such a basic verb.


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## elroy

@Penyafort, I meant “Iberian” in a geographic sense, i.e. I meant languages of the Iberian Peninsula, which is where the Moors were.  Since we find “matar” in Romance languages of the Iberian Peninsula but not in other Romance languages, it’s not unreasonable to suspect that the Catalan verb came from Arabic, either directly or via Spanish.  And northern regions could have borrowed the term from southern regions.


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## S.V.

And I doubt we can find an example in Old Occitan that also suggests it as the _main_ verb for the action. So next to the map, it becomes 'in that Eastern corner, and across the border, you can also find _matar_ centuries later, therefore Arabic could not have an influence.'


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## Penyafort

elroy said:


> @PenyafortSince we find “matar” in Romance languages of the Iberian Peninsula but not in other Romance languages, it’s not unreasonable to suspect that the Catalan verb came from Arabic, either directly or via Spanish.



It is not impossible. But I wouldn't say it's that reasonable either. 

As I've said, first, Arabisms are usually nouns and adjectives, not verbs. It probably has to do with the nature of it. For this to come from Arabic, we'd have to accept that a past tense was taken as a root (since, correct if I'm wrong, the vowel wouldn't be a 'long a' in the present tense), and also accept that 'to die' changed its meaning into 'to kill'. There's also a common connection between 'to kill' and 'to turn off, put out' in _matar_ (matar el llum, matar el fuego...) that can also be seen with those coming from _tutare_ (_tuer le feu/la chandelle_ in regional French, _tudar la flama_ in Old Catalan, _atudar/tuar lo fuòc_ in Occitan), so that a parallel can be set which I'm not sure if it exists in Arabic.

Secondly, massive contact between Catalan and Arabic (or between Catalan and Spanish) was rather posterior to the first attestations of the word. A much higher number of forms of it in Western Catalan might have hinted into an Arabic origin, but as far as I know it doesn't seem to be the case.

Thirdly, the word can be found at least in Occitan. We could also speculate whether other terms, like those derived from _mat(t)us_ in French and Italian, are also related. And a Latin *_mattare_, either from _mactare_ or from _mattus_, is a perfectly plausible origin.

I never rule out any possibility, etymology can be crazy sometimes, but I tend to adopt the most logical among the several proposals given, aside from developing a certain feeling about what may be more sensible through the years. In some cases  the very fact of having two options concurring actually reinforced the existence of a word.


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## elroy

Penyafort said:


> we'd have to accept that a past tense was taken as a root (since, correct if I'm wrong, the vowel wouldn't be a 'long a' in the present tense)


That’s right:
مات /m*a:*t(a)/ ‘he died’
يموت /jam*u:*t(u)/ ‘he dies’



Penyafort said:


> and also accept that 'to die' changed its meaning into 'to kill'.


The theory I’ve heard is that it comes from أمات /*a*ma:ta/ ‘*caused to* die’ and that the /a/ was later dropped.


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## berndf

Penyafort said:


> we'd have to accept that a past tense was taken as a root


Which wouldn't be surprising. In Semitic grammar, the past tense is usually taken as the base form of a verb. Like in Greek or Latin the the first singular present was taken as the base form of a verb, it usually is the third masculine past in Semitic languages.


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## Penyafort

berndf said:


> Which wouldn't be surprising. In Semitic grammar, the past tense is usually taken as the base form of a verb. Like in Greek or Latin the the first singular present was taken as the base form of a verb, it usually is the third masculine past in Semitic languages.



But that's a linguistic convention. Latin and Greek do have infinitives, regardless of whether they're seen or not as the basal form in dictionaries. Arabic doesn't. And while your average medieval guy probably wasn't thinking about whether it was an infinitive or not, he surely could tell a past form from a present one.

I've been searching for the verbs in Spanish which come from Arabic (and seem not derived from the noun). I've found _acicalar_, _halagar_, _recamar_ and maybe _engarzar_. Even fewer than I expected, as it's under 0,1%.


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## berndf

Penyafort said:


> And while your average medieval guy probably wasn't thinking about whether it was an infinitive or not, he surely could tell a past form from a present one.


Sure, but you seem to think that present is in a sense more "basic" than past and that it would be surprising that a verb would be loaned from past forms. This might be so in European language but in Semitic languages there is not much of a basis for such a view. Semantically, they are on the same level and morphologically, past is certainly more basic in the sense that it reveals the root more clearly.


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## Dymn

Penyafort said:


> I've been searching for the verbs in Spanish which come from Arabic (and seem not derived from the noun). I've found _acicalar_, _halagar_, _recamar_ and maybe _engarzar_. Even fewer than I expected, as it's under 0,1%.


And these verbs come from Arabic nouns, apparently. I've checked the conjugation of مات and it seems difficult to adapt, with the root constantly changing...


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## S.V.

Also in the Silos Glosses _quo__usque __reconciliet_ [_ata__ ke pacifiket_], _usque in finem_ [_ata que mueran_], _usque dum mazerentur_ [_ata ke se monden_]; 'until he makes peace', 'until they die', 'until they are cleaned'. Also traditionally controversial to link it to Arabic _ḥattā_ 'until'.

_156. De homiziero. Nuill ombre que mate uno a otro, si eill mismo nompna "Fulan me mato", aqueill es el omiziero_ (c 1150).

The journey of_ Fulan_ (ár._ fulān_) to Navarre was likely more fortunate, if _matar _is to be related to any century of_ Die! Die! _screams. Another glosse was _Si autem strages_ [_occisiones matatas_] _fecerint cristianorum_. A *_matada_ 'matanza', like _entrada_.


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