# Etymology: Persian: dād - داد - justice



## bragpipes

What is the etymology of this word?  I know that it existed as dāta "law" in Old Persian, but does anyone know the origin of that word?

Can anyone help?


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## origumi

From Middle Persian _dʾt'_ ‎(dād, “law, justice”), from earlier _dāt_, from Old Persian  ‎(dāta, “law”). Compare Manichaean Middle Persian _dʾd_ ‎(dād), and the Iranian borrowings Classical Syriac _ܕܬܐ_ ‎(dāṯāʾ), Old Armenian _դատ_ ‎(dat), Hebrew _דָּת_ ‎(dāṯ).

From Proto-Iranian _*dāta-_, from the root _*√dā_ ‎(“to give, put”), from Proto-Indo-European _*deh₃-_.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/داد#Persian
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/𐎭𐎠𐎫#Old_Persian


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## bragpipes

Thanks for your quick response.

I had a feeling it came from "give" but I did not know for certain.


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## sotos

origumi said:


> from the root _*√dā_ ‎(“to give, put”), from Proto-Indo-European _*deh₃-_.


So, some IE words for "give" and "put" have the same origin? This explains why the Greek goddess of Law is Thet-is, from θέτ-ω (to put, place). This word goes hand-in-hand with "law" in Greek, as in νομο-θετ-ώ (to legislate) and Δια-θή-κη (Testament) < δια-θέτ-ω (to grant, give, offer). Thanks.


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## PersoLatin

Some Persian examples:
dâd va setad *داد و ستد *- commerce, literally give & take (exchange)
xodâdâd *خداداد*- Given by God, God-given
mehrdâd *مهرداد* - Given by Mithras (Mithradates)

dâdgâh *دادگاه - *place of/for justice*, c*ourt

in Persian dâd also means scream & protest, and that sense of it has most probably developed because of 'injustices'. There's a term in Persian dâd va bidâd *داد و بيداد*, which is commonly interpreted as screaming & shouting but it means 'justice and injustice'


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## ahvalj

sotos said:


> So, some IE words for "give" and "put" have the same origin? This explains why the Greek goddess of Law is Thet-is, from θέτ-ω (to put, place). This word goes hand-in-hand with "law" in Greek, as in νομο-θετ-ώ (to legislate) and Δια-θή-κη (Testament) < δια-θέτ-ω (to grant, give, offer). Thanks.


There were two separate PIE roots, *_dehₒ_- "to give" (>_δίδωμι_) and *_dʰehₑ_- "to put, to do, to establish" (>_τίθημι_), that both produced the Iranic _dā_-, so it is actually impossible to decide whether the above word _dāta- _(Avestan and Old Persian) comes from one of them (and thus originally meant "something given" or "something established") or was created already from that contaminated root.


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## CyrusSH

origumi said:


> From Middle Persian _dʾt'_ ‎(dād, “law, justice”), from earlier _dāt_, from Old Persian  ‎(dāta, “law”). Compare Manichaean Middle Persian _dʾd_ ‎(dād), and the Iranian borrowings Classical Syriac _ܕܬܐ_ ‎(dāṯāʾ), Old Armenian _դատ_ ‎(dat), Hebrew _דָּת_ ‎(dāṯ).
> 
> From Proto-Iranian _*dāta-_, from the root _*√dā_ ‎(“to give, put”), from Proto-Indo-European _*deh₃-_.
> 
> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/داد#Persian
> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/𐎭𐎠𐎫#Old_Persian



Please don't talk about loanwords from Indo-European into Semitic languages, or vice versa, here, this thread can be deleted.


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## PersoLatin

ahvalj said:


> There were two separate PIE roots, *_dehₒ_- "to give" (>_δίδωμι_) and *_dʰehₑ_- "to put, to do, to establish" (>_τίθημι_),


I don't know if this helps but deh is another stem (as well as dâd) for dâdan which is to give, e.g. the imperative form is be*deh* 'give'


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## ahvalj

PersoLatin said:


> I don't know if this helps but deh is another stem (as well as dâd) for dâdan which is to give, e.g. the imperative form is be*deh* 'give'


This form comes from _didāmi_ (< PIE _*didehₒmi_ + _dʰidʰehₑmi,_ cp. both Greek words above): the Present stem in these and many other roots was formed by reduplication. So, the Old Iranic _didāmi _(Present) :_ dātas _(Past Passive Participle) became Classical Persian _dih- : dād _and modern _deh- : dåd_.


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## fdb

ahvalj said:


> _dātas _(Past Passive Participle)



_dāta-_

The present stem is dadā- > daδ- > daϑ- > dah- > dih-. The devoicing of δ > ϑ is irregular.


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## ahvalj

fdb said:


> _dāta-_
> 
> The present stem is dadā- > daδ- > daϑ- > dah-. The devoicing of δ > ϑ is irregular.


I know that the Avestan and Old Persian had _a_ in the reduplication syllable, but where does _i_ come from then? Since that _a_ was irregular (the Present stems normally had _i_, unlike the Perfect ones), it seems plausible that later Iranic preserves the original state of affairs with _didāmi_. Or?


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## fdb

In Indo-Iranian the vowel in the reduplicated prefix of the present is normally the short counterpart of the root vowel. Thus, Sanskrit also has dadhā-, juhu- etc. (not *didhā-)

In Western Middle Iranian some sort of dialect mixture takes place. Parthian has *daϑ- > dah-, but Manichaean Middle Persian has *daδ- > day. New Persian -ih- has secondary palatalization of the stem vowel.


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## ahvalj

Yet we find the Avestan _didanh-, jigrz-, hišc-, iyar-,_ Sanskrit _tiṣṭhāti, piparti, bibharti, jigāti, mimāti, śiśāti, _so couldn't it be that some dialects had parallel forms *_didāti_? This is not less plausible than the secondary palatalization.

P. S. I should have put asterisks to *_didāmi_ and *_dātas_.


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## origumi

CyrusSH said:


> Please don't talk about loanwords from Indo-European into Semitic languages, or vice versa, here, this thread can be deleted.


Well, that's what Wiktionary says.

In regard to the Hebrew borrowing דת _dat_ (originally "law" and later "religion") - I always suspected it's a merger with, or at least influenced by, Hebrew-Semitic root "dyn" ("law") with "t" as feminine suffix for abstract noun.


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## ahvalj

ahvalj said:


> Since that _a_ was irregular (the Present stems normally had _i_, unlike the Perfect ones), it seems plausible that later Iranic preserves the original state of affairs with _didāmi_. Or?


I was probably wrong when qualifying this as "the original state of affairs" since Balto-Slavic, too, doesn't use _i_ in these two roots: we find _*ded-_ and _*dōd-_ (from *_dod-,_ lengthened after Winter's law), cp. Lithuanian thematicized _dedu_ & _duodu _and Old Lithuanian_ demi & duomi _(<*_dʰedʰhₑmi_ & *_dodhₒmi_). So, these _i_-reduplicated *_didāmi_, if they existed, may have been rather regularized forms, like in Greek.

*P. S.* Celtiberian has _zizonti_ "they give" which may represent _d*i*dōnti, _like in Greek.

*P. P. S.* Also Venetic has _d*i*dor_ "he gave" (don't know if the interpretation as the Preterite is correct).


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## fdb

ahvalj said:


> Yet we find the Avestan _didanh-,_




didaŋh- is from a different verb (daŋh- “to teach”). But yes, there are forms of dā- with prefix di-, e.g. ā-diδāiti). But I do not see evidence for this surviving after the Old Iranian stage.




ahvalj said:


> P. S. I should have put asterisks to *_didāmi_ and *_dātas_.



*_dātas_ is wrong, with or without asterisk.


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## ahvalj

fdb said:


> *_dātas_ is wrong, with or without asterisk.


Doesn't the Participle _dāta_- come from *_dātas_?


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## fdb

The stem form of the p.p.p. is dā-ta- (IE *-to-). The nom. sing. masc. would be Indo-Iranian *dā-ta-s, but it is normal practice to use the stem as the citation form. *_dātas  _is not exactly "wrong", but let us not quibble.


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## CyrusSH

PersoLatin said:


> in Persian dâd also means scream & protest, and that sense of it has most probably developed because of 'injustices'. There's a term in Persian dâd va bidâd *داد و بيداد*, which is commonly interpreted as screaming & shouting but it means 'justice and injustice'



I think that is the actual meaning of _dâd_ and it doesn't relate to verb _dâdan_ (to give), the Persian verb داد زدن has nothing to with justice or injustice.


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## PersoLatin

In fact, I said  "*and that sense of it has most probably developed because of 'injustices*'" and at the time I was postulating, but now I'm sure please see here.

Here's the reference, for those who can't read Persian, below is the possible meanings of *dâd va bidâd*, the 2nd part in bold, says: screaming, making noise, shouting etc, the first part (from left) are the references to justice and injustice.
داد و بیداد کردن . [ دُ ک َ دَ ] (مص مرکب ) عدل کردن و ستم روا داشتن . انصاف ورزیدن و جور بکار بردن . || *فریاد کردن ، هیاهو کردن . جار و جنجال بپا کردن . داد و بیداد راه انداختن* .


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## CyrusSH

داد is synonym to فریاد, both of them mean "shout" but can be related to "justice" too, like دادرسی and فریادرسی, in the Persian culture when someone shouts loudly or cries, it means he/she seeks justice, but بیداد means "outcry" and it is against justice and shouldn't happen, so it also means "injustice".


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## PersoLatin

Cyrus, I created this thread to further discuss دادرسی and فریادرسی
http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/persian-دادرسی-فریادرسی.3103297/


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