# Etymology of the word برج



## Arrius

*Mod note:*
*This thread is split from **here**, when the discussion of the word برج and its possible etymology, and/or resemblance with similar words in other languages, extended over 12 posts.*



mansio said:


> al-qaSr the castle comes from Latin castrum.


 
I have often wondered about this connection. Is this borrowing likely to have occurred during the hostile interchanges of the Crusades, when military matters were of prime importance, Latin used as a language of religion and possibly as a lingua franca among the generals of the various European contingents, and the word had the meaning of "castle" rather than the original Roman camp?
The Germanic word "burg" (fortress), which conveys a similar idea, seems also to have wandered in this direction possibly at the same time, and given Arabic "burj" (tower).
However,if these words appear already in the Qur'an, then I am wrong.


----------



## Qcumber

Arrius said:


> The Germanic word "burg" (fortress), which conveys a similar idea, seems also to have wandered in this direction possibly at the same time, and given Arabic "burj" (tower).
> However,if these words appear already in the Qur'an, then I am wrong.


Obviously the term was brought to the East by Germanic legionaires after the Romans had conquered the Greek Empire in -31CE.
By the way 
*برج*
 was pronounced burg in the Arabic of that time.


----------



## Abu Rashid

Arrius,



> The Germanic word "burg" (fortress), which conveys a similar idea, seems also to have wandered in this direction possibly at the same time, and given Arabic "burj" (tower).
> However,if these words appear already in the Qur'an, then I am wrong.



The word Burj certainly appears in the Qur'an (in a plural form anyway, perhaps in singular as well, I'm not sure) in fact there's an entire chapter named Surah al-Buruj (buruj being one of the plural forms of Burj). This is either a co-incidence that both languages have the same word (roughly) with about the same meaning. It's something I've often wondered about, unless both languages borrowed it earlier from a mutually contacted language, or perhaps German actually borrowed it from Arabic? do you know of the earliest citations of this word in German/Germanic?


----------



## Abu Rashid

Qcumber,



> was pronounced burg in the Arabic of that time.



Do you have any evidence of this? The word exists in the Qur'an in plural form (as mentioned in my previous post) and is pronounced Burj not Burg. Also note that this word has several different meanings in Arabic, not just castle/tower.


----------



## Qcumber

Abu Rashid said:


> Do you have any evidence of this? The word exists in the Qur'an in plural form (as mentioned in my previous post) and is pronounced Burj not Burg. Also note that this word has several different meanings in Arabic, not just castle/tower.


The modern pronunciations of Arabic are quite different from that of the Antiquity and the early Middle-Ages. There must be several books on this question.


----------



## Qcumber

Abu Rashid said:


> Do you know of the earliest citations of this word in German/Germanic?


The Indo-European root is *bhergh-.
1) high > hill > mountain
2) high place of safety

Old High German burg "fortress"
Latin burgus "fortified place"


----------



## Arrius

Abu Rashid,
Supplementary to Qcumber's reply to your query about "burg", my Duden Etymologie gives much information, but without dates, the most relevant being:
Gothic baúrgs (tower,fortress,town) [which seems to be the oldest known Germanic form]. In town names like Würzburg, the Latin burgus (castle, watchtower) is also a factor, this Latin form possibly derived via Greek pyrgós also from the Germanic.
I wonder where the Spanish town Burgos got its name from: Romans, Visigoths, or Moors?


----------



## Ander

Arrius said:


> I wonder where the Spanish town Burgos got its name from: Romans, Visigoths, or Moors?



It got its name from the Spaniards themselves. It was founded in 884 as a "burg" against the Moors.


----------



## Spectre scolaire

There is a lot of controversy surrounding this word – especially as to what happened between the German, Latin and Greek versions of it – the Greek word being π*ύ*ργος, by the way (cf. wrong accent in _Arrius_), ultimately a notoriously non-Greek word! The problem is basically that something is “fishy” about the phonetical adaptation in various loan directions – as if there were an [unknown] “mutually contacted language” (as _Abu Rashid_ suggests). 

It seems to me that whatever was the scenario, the word that came into contact with Arabs must have had a final *g* + a front high vowel (like *i*). This would trigger a palatalization in many languages/dialects and result in a *ج* in Arabic – if it was not Arabic itself which simply adapted *-gi* as [j] (which indeed some Persian loanwords in Arabic show).

Incidentally, a _plural form_ in both Latin and Greek would exhibit the final cluster in question, but only Latin would have the vocalic colour  in the first syllable, Greek υ (= ypsilon) having changed from  to _ pretty early and almost certainly before a plural word __πύργοι (the ending -οι being equally ) can have entered Arabic in the shape of [b*u*rj]. This makes Latin the more likely candidate.

Perhaps realizing that the Arabic loanword was in fact a plural, an Arabic singular may have appeared only later, or the whole paradigm was reshaped from pl. to sing., and a new Arab. broken pl. was made.

Please arrest me if there are points in my argumentation which are ... “fishy”._


----------



## Abu Rashid

Thanks for that information Spectre, if possible could you please provide transliterations of the Greek forms you mentioned, as they don't give me any clue as to the sounds.

Also something else I remember reading recently is that the Arabic word Burj derives from the verb برج (barj) whose meaning is "to make manifest", another word derived from this is also used in the Qur'an which is  تبرج (tabarruj) meaning to display one's beauty (eg. the woman displaying her charms). Also the meaning of the word Burj itself has about 3 or 4 different meanings, castle, tower, mansion, constellation.

So it seems strange to me that the basic verb (smallest unit of meaning in Arabic language) would have a fairly distant meaning, whilst the meaning of Castle would seem to be a meaning which had accumulated over time, perhaps due to contact with other languages which had a similar word, I'm not sure. But the Arabic word definitely seems to have been there to begin with.


----------



## Qcumber

Spectre scolaire said:


> It seems to me that whatever was the scenario, the word that came into contact with Arabs must have had a final *g* + a front high vowel (like *i*). This would trigger a palatalization in many languages/dialects and result in a *ج* in Arabic – if it was not Arabic itself which simply adapted *-gi* as [j] (which indeed some Persian loanwords in Arabic show).


You needn't posit /i/ as the vowel to account for [g] > [gj] > [dZ] > [Z] because this is simply the evolution of the Arabic [g] that applies to all words whether native or borrowed.

Besides if the original was */birg/, I just don't see how the /i/ could have palatalized the /g/. All it could have palatalized would have been the /b/. 

No, definitely, the borrowed form was /burg/ and remained /burg/ in early medieval Arabic.


----------



## Spectre scolaire

Qcumber said:
			
		

> Besides if the original was */birg/,


Not at all – I actually _exclude_ Greek! I probably did not forward my message clearly enough.




			
				Abu Rashid said:
			
		

> could you please provide transliterations of the Greek forms


Sing. πύργος: Modern Greek [pirγos] – plur. πύργοι: Classical [pürgoi], Late Hellenistic/Early Medieval [pirgyi]/[piryi], Modern Greek [piryi]. An early dialect form like [pirdj] is not unlikely – it is even found in remote northern dialects of Modern Greek. But unlike Latin , the Greek vowel – the vowel of the first syllable! - is unequivocallly _. Cf. also Persian pin*gia*n to Arab. fin*jaa*n. This palatalization must be Arabic, I suppose.__

All accents are on the first syllable.

To establish the whole “stemma” of various forms would probably require a team of researchers. Nobody is expert in all of these languages...

As a curiosity, there is a famous family in Malta with the surname Borg (with a dot on the g), pronounced [bordj]. No idea of its origin._


----------



## jtgw

Just in case it wasn't clear, Greek πύργος can't be a cognate of Germanic *burgs because Greek /p/ corresponds to Germanic */f/. You would expect Greek *φ for Germanic /b/. The Greek /p/ moreover cannot be accounted for by Grassmann's Law (de-aspiration when preceding an aspirate in the same word), because there is no other aspirated sound in that word. The only explanation could be some kind of later borrowing, but the Greek form is attested in Homer I believe, so that looks like a coincidence. The Arabic correspondence also looks tempting, but that's assuming it doesn't derive from a Semitic root. Remember, there are chance correspondences throughout the world's languages.


----------



## dkarjala

jtgw said:


> Just in case it wasn't clear, Greek πύργος can't be a cognate of Germanic *burgs because Greek /p/ corresponds to Germanic */f/. You would expect Greek *φ for Germanic /b/



I'm curious if it is certain that *burgs traveled through PEI to Germanic directly - if it was a synchronic Latin borrowing, the sound rule needn't apply. I love this topic and am eager for any attestations.

Also, there *are* exceptions to phonological rules, though not usually with such stable phonemes as stops.


----------



## jtgw

According to the wiki etymology, there are two theories for the Greek word. One is that the Greek word is borrowed from Proto-Germanic, perhaps via the Balkans. The second is that the Greek word is borrowed from some other early Indo-European language farther east. The latter seems more plausible in light of place names like Pergamon, which presumably derive from the same root. The corresponding etymology for _burj_ asserts that the Arabic word is borrowed from Syriac, which in turn borrowed from Greek, which seems plausible and which I suppose is not controversial, although one should consult a proper reference. Presumably Syriac or Arabic */p/ had already shifted to /ɸ/ or /f/, since otherwise it's hard to see why Greek /p/ would be borrowed as /b/.

Anyway, it's exciting for me to learn that the Arabic word is related to the Germanic, albeit very remotely.


----------



## dkarjala

jtgw said:


> The corresponding etymology for _burj_ asserts that the Arabic word is borrowed from Syriac, which in turn borrowed from Greek, which seems plausible and which I suppose is not controversial, although one should consult a proper reference. Presumably Syriac or Arabic */p/ had already shifted to /ɸ/ or /f/, since otherwise it's hard to see why Greek /p/ would be borrowed as /b/.



If we say "Syriac" as a language we are assuming that the phoneme /p/ exists as conditioned allophones /p/ and /f/, and /p/ was always available as an initial stop. But of course, we can't know exactly how these sounds were articulated and it could be that the Greek was more lightly aspirated, etc., and that /b/ was a better fit. 

Arabic seems to have gone from /p/ only to /f/ only VERY early, and this can only be deduced from a couple old Persian proper nouns. (both Isbahan and Isfahanare attested for the city name) Basically, Arabic has more or less always had the fricative in all positions, so you can expect a /b/ for any /p/ being borrowed.


----------



## jtgw

That makes a lot of sense, thanks. I don't know about the history of Syriac so it's good to clear that up.


----------



## إسكندراني

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=borough&allowed_in_frame=0


> O.E. burg, burh "a dwelling or dwellings within a fortified enclosure," from P.Gmc. *burgs "hill fort, fortress" (cf. O.Fris. burg "castle," O.N. borg "wall, castle," O.H.G. burg, buruc "fortified place, citadel," Ger. Burg "castle," Goth. baurgs "city"), from PIE *bhrgh "high," with derivatives referring to hills, hill forts, fortified elevations (cf. O.E. beorg "hill," Welsh bera "stack, pyramid," Skt. bhrant-, Avestan brzant- "high," Gk. Pergamos, name of the citadel of Troy).
> 
> In German and Old Norse, chiefly as "fortress, castle;" in Gothic,  "town, civic community." Meaning shifted M.E. from "fortress," to  "fortified town," to simply "town" (especially one possessing municipal  organization or sending representatives to Parliament). In U.S.  (originally Pennsylvania, 1718) often an incorporated town; in Alaska,  however, it is the equivalent of a county. The Scottish form is burgh. The O.E. dative singular byrig is found in many place names as -bury.


No obvious relation with Arabic.


----------



## jtgw

Well the etymology is focusing on the Indo-European cognates. You should check an etymology for the Arabic word itself.


----------



## إسكندراني

jtgw said:


> Well the etymology is focusing on the Indo-European cognates. You should check an etymology for the Arabic word itself.


It would often say if there were a direct borrowing to or from Arabic, though.
As for برج, there seem to be a great many meanings derived from ب ر ج  but interestingly the base is a 'tower' in the corner, or a  fortification, so it seems borrowed but a very long time ago.
Meanings include: lofty building, fortification, starsign
http://www.baheth.info/all.jsp?term=%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%AC


----------



## meyerbeer

There was a good deal of contact between Arabs and Europeans in the middle ages. For instance the Arabic word for square, meidan, is found in Polish place names. برج on the other hand doesn't seem clearly related to a Semitic root, and so I assume it found its way into Arabic from the Roman empire at an early date. The Koran was very much influenced by contact with Greek sophists and neoplatonic thought. Egyptian Arabic to this date pronounces the third Arabic letter as g, and this is presumably the original pronunciation since this letter corresponds to the Hebrew ghimel, a pictogram of a camel.
Meyerbeer.


----------

