# English Sheriff, Arabic Sharif and Greek Satrap



## CyrusSH

It is interesting to look at this tombstone: http://www.allempires.com/Uploads/BushehrTomb2.jpg About two centuries ago someone was born at Dorsetshire and died at *Bushire*! This is from a British Cemetery in *Bushehr* in Iran.

The Old Persian word _xšathra_ was changed to _satr_ in Greek and _shahr_ in Middle Persian, it means "county" and as a word, prefix and suffix is almost the same as English _shire_.


----------



## PersoLatin

Did you mean to include Sheriff and Sharif in your thread topic?


----------



## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> The Old Persian word _xšathra_ was changed to _satr_ in Greek and _shahr_ in Middle Persian, it means "county" and as a word, prefix and suffix is almost the same as English _shire_.


And why should that matter that two completely different words develop into roughly similar decedents? Etymology works the other way round: You look for similar origins not similar decedents.


----------



## CyrusSH

Of course I meant those ones, I think we know about etymology of Satrap and there is nothing to discuss about it.


----------



## berndf

And what is your question now?


----------



## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> And why should that matter that two completely different words develop into roughly similar decedents? Etymology works the other way round: You look for similar origins not similar decedents.



I certainly look for similar origin,  the first important point is about the development of Proto-IE "g" to "sh" in some Irano-Germanic words, like the Persian word _shenaxtan_ which was mentioned in another thread.


----------



## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> I certainly look for similar origin


But then I don't understand your question at all. Where is Old English _scirgerefa_ similar to Arabic _شريف_?


CyrusSH said:


> Proto-IE "g" to "sh"


There is no Germanic "sh" sound. Modern Germanic languages that have is developed it out of /s/ or out of /sk/ and, to my knowledge, neither of them has anything to do with PIE /g/.


CyrusSH said:


> Irano-Germanic


What is that? I have never heard that term.


----------



## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> But then I don't understand your question at all. Where is Old English _scirgerefa_ similar to Arabic _شريف_?



I believe Arabic _sharif_ is a loanword from Persian, like _shara_ (road) which is from the well-known Persian word _shahrah_ (royal road).

"gerefa" can be related to Persian gerupa (modern Persian گروهبان), which means "guardian of a group" (a Persian official of high rank), the word "group" probably relates to this word too.



> There is no Germanic "sh" sound. Modern Germanic languages that have is developed it out of /s/ or out of /sk/ and, to my knowledge, neither of them has anything to do with PIE /g/.



You should research about the origins of "care" & "shire" or "quake" & "shake", ...



> What is that? I have never heard that term.



Ok, it is not too late!


----------



## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> I believe Arabic _sharif_ is a loanword from Persian


_Sharif _is an ordinary Arabic word with a quite obvious native etymology (_the noble one_).


CyrusSH said:


> "gerefa" can be related to Persian gerupa (modern Persian گروهبان), which means "guardian of a group"


Now you are poking fun at me, right?


CyrusSH said:


> You should research about the origins of "care" & "shire" or "quake" & "shake", ...


No, _care _and _share _are not related and nor are _quake_ and _shake_.
Germanic /k/ as in _caru_ (_care_) is, in line with Grimm's law, decedent from PIE /g/ but this is not true for Germanic /sk/ as in _scearu _(_share_). These clusters work differently than free standing initial consonants.


----------



## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> _Sharif _is an ordinary Arabic word with a quite obvious native etymology (_the noble one_).



You probably know nothing about loanwords and their derivations in Arabic, "sharif" (sh-r-f) doesn't have a Semitic origin to be considered as an Arabic word. 



> Now you are poking fun at me, right?



You should say this word has this etymology, you probably don't believe Old Persian "grab-" means "to grab", "gird-" means "to gird", ...  



> No, _care _and _share _are not related and nor are _quake_ and _shake_.
> Germanic /k/ as in _caru_ (_care_) is, in line with Grimm's law, decedent from PIE /g/ but this is not true for Germanic /sk/ as in _scearu _(_share_). These clusters work differently than free standing initial consonants.



I didn't say "share" but "shire", the word which relates to the first one is "score", it is from proto-IE "sk", not "g".

Proto-Germanic *sker (share, shear, score, ...) relates to Persian škar (شکار) which means "make an incision, cut, prey"

Another example:

Proto-Germanic *skiftan (English shift, Dutch schiften, Old Frisian skifta, ...) relates to Persian škaftan (شکافتن) which means "divide, separate".


----------



## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> it is from proto-IE "sk", not "g".


Exactly, "g" and the English "care" have nothing to do here. There is no


CyrusSH said:


> development of Proto-IE "g" to "sh"


as you had claimed.


CyrusSH said:


> Proto-Germanic *sker (share, shear, score, ...) relates to Persian škar (شکار) which means "make an incision, cut, prey"
> 
> Another example:
> 
> Proto-Germanic *skiftan (English shift, Dutch schiften, Old Frisian skifta, ...) relates to Persian škaftan (شکافتن) which means "divide, separate".


Listen, nobody doubts that Iranian and Germanic languages are related. But both are descendents of a common older language. It is just not the right way to explore it to take an English word, not caring about its history within Germanic and just taking any vaguely similarly sounding Persian word and declaring it the "etymon" without any further research as you did with your "explanation" of OE "gerefa".


CyrusSH said:


> You probably know nothing loanwords and their derivations in Arabic, "sharif" (sh-r-f) doesn't have a Semitic origin to be considered as an Arabic word.


How do you explain the adjective meaning "noble"? I don't deny the possibility of a loan as there is no oblivious cognate Hebrew or Aramaic (the phonetically obvious candidate sin-resh-pe  means "burn" and not "be noble") but I resent your jumping to conclusions here.


----------



## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> Exactly, "g" and the English "care" have nothing to do here. There is no
> development of Proto-IE "g" to "sh"
> as you had claimed.



I don't know why you don't talk about the main topic which is about "shire" and "sheriff", according to my dictionary "shire" means "stewardship" and relates to the word "care" from proto-IE *gar-.

Another example can be from Proto-IE **wog-*, there are Greek _hügro_ (watery), Avestan _vaxš_ (spray water) -> Persian _vash_ (افشاندن، پاشیدن) and English _wash_.



> Listen, nobody doubts that Iranian and Germanic languages are related. But both are descendents of a common older language. It is just not the right way to explore it to take an English word, not caring about its history within Germanic and just taking any vaguely similarly sounding Persian word and declaring it the "etymon" without any further research as you did with your "explanation" of OE "gerefa".



Would you please explain the etymology of "gerefa" to me?



> How do you explain the adjective meaning "noble"? I don't deny the possibility of a loan as there is no oblivious cognate Hebrew or Aramaic (the phonetically obvious candidate sin-resh-pe  means "burn" and not "be noble") but I resent your jumping to conclusions here.



https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sharif : A traditional Arab tribal title given to those who serve as the protector of the tribe and all tribal assets.

It is just Arabicized version of Middle Persian _shahrap_, the Persian title given to provincial governors in the Sassanid empire, after Islam sharif was also used for descendants of Hasan ibn Ali, a grandchild of Muhammad, so it could mean "of noble lineage of Muhammad" too.


----------



## Ihsiin

I'm afraid you're looking at the wrong entry, this is what you should have been looking at: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/شريف#Arabic

Moreover, why would _shahrap _become شريف rather than شهراف in Arabic?

And how would either of these relate to 'sheriff', the origin of which as 'shire-reeve' being fairly transparent?


----------



## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> I don't know why you don't talk about the main topic which is about "shire" and "sheriff", according to my dictionary "shire" means "stewardship" and relates to the word "care" from proto-IE *gar-.


What dictionary is that? _Scira _could mean _care _but it is not etymologically related to it.


CyrusSH said:


> Would you please explain the etymology of "gerefa" to me?


It is the etymon of _reeve_, i.e. the whole word means _shire (=county) reeve_. Most scholars agree that _ge-_ is the usual Germanic prefix that fell of in Middle English. I.e. the /g/ is not part of the root. The German _Graf _(=_count_) is probably unrelated.


CyrusSH said:


> It is just Arabicized version of Middle Persian _shahrap_, the Persian title given to provincial governors in the Sassanid empire, after Islam sharif was also used for descendants of Hasan ibn Ali, a grandchild of Muhammad, so it could mean "of noble lineage of Muhammad" too.


Does that mean you think the adjective is derived from the noun and not the other way round, as the link you cited explicitly states?


----------



## fdb

“Satrap” is actually Old Persian _xšaçapāvan_ which develops perfectly regularly to Middle Persian _šasab_. This does not look even remotely like Arabic _šarīf_.


----------



## Wolverine9

berndf said:


> What is that? I have never heard that term.



CyrusSH wants to defy conventional linguistics and argue in favor of an Irano-Germanic subroup of IE languages on the basis of dubious speculation and fanciful connection between words.


----------



## CyrusSH

Ihsiin said:


> I'm afraid you're looking at the wrong entry, this is what you should have been looking at: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/شريف#Arabic
> 
> Moreover, why would _shahrap _become شريف rather than شهراف in Arabic?
> 
> And how would either of these relate to 'sheriff', the origin of which as 'shire-reeve' being fairly transparent?



It can't be شهراف because, like another Arabic loanword word that I mentioned above, three letters root can't be extracted from it, another example which has also mentioned by several Muslim scholars such as al-Biruni, al-Sakhawi, Hamzah al-Isfahani, ..., is مؤرخ (dated) which is from Persian _mahroč_ (month-day, date), the most important point is that these words have usually no cognates in other Semitic languages.

The same thing can be said about English words, when a word doesn't have any cognate in other Germanic languages, the most possible thing is that it is a loanword,  the suffix "eef", "reev", "gerefa", ... with an obscure meaning and also no cognate in other Germanic languages, can't prove anything.


----------



## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> The same thing can be said about English words, when a word doesn't have any cognate in other Germanic languages, the most possible thing is that it is a loanword, the suffix "eef", "reev", "gerefa", ... with an obscure meaning and also no cognate in other Germanic languages, can't prove anything.


Indeed! Looking for an supposed Iranian cognate is therefore absurd. Why not Tibetan, Eskimo or Japanese? If the word doesn't even leave a trace within the Germanic group, Iranian languages are as unlikely as the said other languages as loan-givers.


----------



## momai

CyrusSH said:


> another example which has also mentioned by several Muslim scholars such as al-Biruni, al-Sakhawi, Hamzah al-Isfahani, ..., is مؤرخ (dated) which is from Persian _mahroč_ (month-day, date), the most important point is that these words have usually no cognates in other Semitic languages.


مؤرخ (historically written)is from أرخ (to write history) which is in turn related to the word for moon in other Semitic languages .


----------



## berndf

momai said:


> مؤرخ (historically written)is from أرخ (to write history) which is in turn related to the word for moon in other Semitic languages .


And there is indeed nothing strange about a Semitic derivation of the word. -م is a typical prefix for verbal nouns and adjectives in Semitic in general and not only in Arabic.


----------



## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> Indeed! Looking for an supposed Iranian cognate is therefore absurd. Why not Tibetan, Eskimo or Japanese? If the word doesn't even leave a trace within the Germanic group, Iranian languages are as unlikely as the said other languages as loan-givers.



Because you don't know the history!

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=path&allowed_in_frame=0
*path (n.)*
Old English paþ, pæþ "path, track," from West Germanic *patha- (cognates: Old Frisian path, Middle Dutch pat, Dutch pad, Old High German pfad, German Pfad "path") .. *An obvious loan from Iranian* .. borrowed (? via Scythian) from Iranian *path-," from PIE root *pent- "to tread, go, pass".

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=hemp&allowed_in_frame=0
*hemp*
Old English hænep "hemp, cannabis sativa," from Proto-Germanic *hanapiz (cognates: Old Saxon hanap, Old Norse hampr, Old High German hanaf, German Hanf), probably *a very early Germanic borrowing* of the same Scythian word that became Greek kannabis.


----------



## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> Because you don't know the history!


No, because you twist your arguments any way you want just to suit your idiosyncratic theories. The word you quote now *do *precisely have cognates in other Germanic languages. Must I quote your own argument I replied to?


CyrusSH said:


> The same thing can be said about English words, when a word doesn't have any cognate in other Germanic languages, the most possible thing is that it is a loanword, the suffix "eef", "reev", "gerefa", ... with an obscure meaning and also no cognate in other Germanic languages, can't prove anything


----------



## Ihsiin

CyrusSH said:


> It can't be شهراف because, like another Arabic loanword word that I mentioned above, three letters root can't be extracted from it, another example which has also mentioned by several Muslim scholars such as al-Biruni, al-Sakhawi, Hamzah al-Isfahani, ..., is مؤرخ (dated) which is from Persian _mahroč_ (month-day, date), the most important point is that these words have usually no cognates in other Semitic languages.
> 
> The same thing can be said about English words, when a word doesn't have any cognate in other Germanic languages, the most possible thing is that it is a loanword,  the suffix "eef", "reev", "gerefa", ... with an obscure meaning and also no cognate in other Germanic languages, can't prove anything.



Which loanwords in Arabic are you referring to? فردوس or بطروس or عنكبوت or what? The word مؤرخ is a regular participle of the verb أرّخ, which finds it's cognate in the likes of Hebrew ירח. But regardless, Arabic has by far the most extensive extant vocabulary of any Semitic language, so it's completely expected that we'll find native roots in Arabic that have no attested cognates in other Semitic languages.

The thing is, when there is some uncertainty or some lack of knowledge, you can't just shoehorn your own pet theories into the void. There is need for some evidence.


----------



## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> No, because you twist your arguments any way you want just to suit your idiosyncratic theories. The word you quote now *do *precisely have cognates in other Germanic languages. Must I quote your own argument I replied to?



You are actually twisting my argument, when I say if X happens then Y will be the result, it doesn't mean all Ys relate to X.


----------



## CyrusSH

Ihsiin said:


> Which loanwords in Arabic are you referring to? فردوس or بطروس or عنكبوت or what? The word مؤرخ is a regular participle of the verb أرّخ, which finds it's cognate in the likes of Hebrew ירח. But regardless, Arabic has by far the most extensive extant vocabulary of any Semitic language, so it's completely expected that we'll find native roots in Arabic that have no attested cognates in other Semitic languages.
> 
> The thing is, when there is some uncertainty or some lack of knowledge, you can't just shoehorn your own pet theories into the void. There is need for some evidence.



I don't think that there is any Hebrew word which exactly means "history", about the Persian origin of the word "tarikh/mowarrakh", I think no evidence can be better than Arabic sources which clearly mention it.

"The Life of Mohammed", by Abu-'l-Fidā Ismāʻīl Ibn-ʻAlī, (translated by William Murray) page 85: https://books.google.com/books?id=Q...ItoWyyoflyAIVxgYsCh15rQST#v=onepage&q&f=false


----------



## Ihsiin

So you think that a spurious reference given in a book constitutes good linguistic evidence because it's written in Arabic? Concerning the word مؤرخ (that's _mu'arrakh_, by the way, not _muwarrakh_), consider the following:

1.  It is a passive participle, derived from the verb أرخ _'arrakh_. The _mu_ is merely a prefix and not part of the root.
2. The word _wrḫ _(or variations thereof) occurs in a number of Semitic languages with the meaning of "moon" or "month". The relation to Arabic أرخ is clear and uncomplicated.
3. The word _mahroč _(being unfamiliar with Iranian languages I can't be much of a judge of this word) bears only a passing resemblance to the Arabic مؤرخ. You have failed to explain how the one phonically changes into the other.

With regards to شريف, you have still failed to explain how this can be derived from _shahrap_. Your claim that words imported into Arabic need to fit into a trilateral root is clearly bunk. I have already provided you with three import words (from Persian, Greek and Aramaic) which don't.


----------



## fdb

Those of you who have a university internet account might find this helpful: http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/tarikh-COM_1184#d851397868e33


----------



## CyrusSH

Ihsiin said:


> So you think that a spurious reference given in a book constitutes good linguistic evidence because it's written in Arabic? Concerning the word مؤرخ (that's _mu'arrakh_, by the way, not _muwarrakh_), consider the following:
> 
> 1.  It is a passive participle, derived from the verb أرخ _'arrakh_. The _mu_ is merely a prefix and not part of the root.
> 2. The word _wrḫ _(or variations thereof) occurs in a number of Semitic languages with the meaning of "moon" or "month". The relation to Arabic أرخ is clear and uncomplicated.
> 3. The word _mahroč _(being unfamiliar with Iranian languages I can't be much of a judge of this word) bears only a passing resemblance to the Arabic مؤرخ. You have failed to explain how the one phonically changes into the other.
> 
> With regards to شريف, you have still failed to explain how this can be derived from _shahrap_. Your claim that words imported into Arabic need to fit into a trilateral root is clearly bunk. I have already provided you with three import words (from Persian, Greek and Aramaic) which don't.



First you should tell me which words can be loanwords in Arabic and which ones can't be, for example what do you think about this verb:  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/رزق (to provide with the means of subsistence)


----------



## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> it doesn't mean all Ys relate to X.


Exactly. X=_is a Iranian loan_ and Y is _is a non-PIE-inherited Germanic word_. Just because you show two likely Iranian loans in Germanic, that tells us nothing about the origin of _reeve_. It *certainly *does *not *tell us anything about an alleged Iranian source of the word.

And precisely because _reeve _has no known cognates in old Germanic languages, your examples of probable Scythian loans are completely irrelevant as the most likely path of import (via Gothic) is blocked, if a root is isolated withing the Germanic group. And linking _reeve _to Iranian is as far fetched as linking it to Eskimo, Tibetan or Japanese. _Path _end _hemp _are no counter-examples to that.


----------



## berndf

Ihsiin said:


> With regards to شريف, you have still failed to explain how this can be derived from _shahrap_.


Another obstacle to the theory of a Persian loan is the initial consonant. For loans that entered Arabic in classical or pre-classical times, the expected representation of _š_ would be س and not ش as the numerous Aramaic loans from that time demonstrate.


----------



## Ihsiin

CyrusSH said:


> First you should tell me which words can be loanwords in Arabic and which ones can't be, for example what do you think about this verb:  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/رزق (to provide with the means of subsistence)



That's not how it works, we don't just decide which words can be loans and which words can't. Admittedly, some words may seem more likely to be loans because they don't fit into common patterns (such as _čaqlumba _for example, the origin of which, incidentally, I don't know), but that doesn't mean you can just say "These types of words are loans and these aren't." Every words deserves its own research. As for the word رزق, I don't know, I'm sure there are others on this forum more knowledgable than me who can give you a satisfactory answer. Were I to investigate this word (which I'm not going to, by the way) my first port of call would be to check other Semitic languages for cognates. Not finding them, of course, would not preclude the idea that the word is native. If we could find no Semitic cognates and no plausible foreign origin of the word, the most sensible thing is to assume a native origin which just happens not to be attested in other Semitic languages.



berndf said:


> Another obstacle to the theory of a Persian loan is the initial consonant. For loans that entered Arabic in classical or pre-classical times, the expected representation of _š_ would be س and not ش as the numerous Aramaic loans from that time demonstrate.



Indeed, I'd forgotten that.


----------



## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> Exactly. X=_is a Iranian loan_ and Y is _is a non-PIE-inherited Germanic word_. Just because you show two likely Iranian loans in Germanic, that tells us nothing about the origin of _reeve_. It *certainly *does *not *tell us anything about an alleged Iranian source of the word.
> 
> And precisely because _reeve _has no known cognates in old Germanic languages, your examples of probable Scythian loans are completely irrelevant as the most likely path of import (via Gothic) is blocked, if a root is isolated withing the Germanic group. And linking _reeve _to Iranian is as far fetched as linking it to Eskimo, Tibetan or Japanese. _Path _end _hemp _are no counter-examples to that.



When I talk about Irano-Germanic languages, I think it is clear I don't mean two words, or two hundreds words or even two thousands words, I see this similarity between most of Iranian and Germanic words, so in fact we can't call them loanwords, for example about the Persian word xeng (horse) that I mentioned in another thread, do you think it is a loanword from Germanic, or vice versa? Or about the word "group" that I mentioned above?


----------



## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> Another obstacle to the theory of a Persian loan is the initial consonant. For loans that entered Arabic in classical or pre-classical times, the expected representation of _š_ would be س and not ش as the numerous Aramaic loans from that time demonstrate.



Like this one: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/شاهين ?!!


----------



## fdb

Iranian /š/ is س in older loanwords, but ش in more recent borrowings. I think from the Abbasid period onwards the latter is more common.


----------



## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> When I talk about Irano-Germanic languages, I think it is clear I don't mean two words, or two hundreds words or even two thousands words, I see this similarity between most of Iranian and Germanic words, so in fact we can't call them loanwords, for example about the Persian word xeng (horse) that I mentioned in another thread, do you think it is a loanword from Germanic, or vice versa? Or about the word "group" that I mentioned above?


Even within a genetic group there are loans. You have to distinguish between inherited words that exist in different languages of a group because they were inherited from a common ancestor and loans that were imported from one language into another and then possibly inherited by decedent languages. Between Iranian and Germanic language, you have both types, they are both sub-branches of the PIE group and therefore share many roots. But there are also loans in both directions, sometime indirect loans, e.g. via Greek ans/or Latin. As Ihsiin explained, it really depends on the precise history of each individual word.

Moreover, the precise form in which a loan word appears hugely depends on the path and the timing of loan, as fdb explained about Persian /š/ becoming س or ش depending on time of loan. The modern English word _wine _starts with a <w> because it was borrowed before the shift in pronunciation of Latin <v> from [w] to [v]. Had the loan taken place in early Anglo-Saxon time it might have arrived as _fine_ or _fin_ and it it had taken place after the Norman invasion then probably _vine_ or _vin_. The German word _Kicherebse = chickpea_ (both from Latin _cicer_) has been imported after the first but before the second Germanic sound shift, because otherwise it would be _Hichererbse _(if before the 1st) or _Kickererbse_ (if after the 2nd) and also before the Anglo-Frisian platalisation because otherwise of would be _kickpea_ and not _chickpea_ in English.

The similarity between شريف and _sheriff _is incidental, no examples of general links between Arabic and Germanic through Persian or any other language can argue that away.


----------



## CyrusSH

fdb said:


> Iranian /š/ is س in older loanwords, but ش in more recent borrowings. I think from the Abbasid period onwards the latter is more common.



As you read here: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/arabic-ii in most cases Iranian š remains š in Arabic, it is interesting that some Arabic loanwords with this sound from Middle Persian, like  dāšen, plur. dawāšen, from Old Persian *dāšna, don't exist in modern Persian.


----------



## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> As you read here: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/arabic-ii in most cases Iranian š remains š in Arabic, it is interesting that some Arabic loanwords with this sound from Middle Persian, like dāšen, plur. dawāšen, from Old Persian *dāšna, don't exist in modern Persian.


That depends on the time of the import. In pre- or early classical time Arabic had no _š_ sound. The ش of those days sounded considerably different, about like the modern Welsh <ll>. Most Aramaic imports were from that time and _š _was therefore represented as س. A big chunk of the Persian imports in Arabic are from Abbasid era when the pronunciation of ش had already changed in Arabic. And that's why you find many _š _=ش correspondences. But شريف is too old in Arabic to be from that period, *if *it were a loan. And that is why it doesn't matter if most of Persian loans show _š _=ش correspondences. What matters are only old loans (pre-Abassid, preferably even pre-Umayyad).


----------



## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> That depends on the time of the import. In pre- or early classical time Arabic had no _š_ sound. The ش of those days sounded considerably different, about like the modern Welsh <ll>. Most Aramaic imports were from that time and _š _was therefore represented as س. A big chunk of the Persian imports in Arabic are from Abbasid era when the pronunciation of ش had already changed in Arabic. And that's why you find many _š _=ش correspondences. But شريف is too old in Arabic to be from that period, *if *it were a loan. And that is why it doesn't matter if most of Persian loans show _š _=ش correspondences. What matters are only old loans (pre-Abassid, preferably even pre-Umayyad).



How شريف is too old in Arabic when in pre- or early classical time Arabic had no _š_ sound? It doesn't seem to be too old, it doesn't exist in Quran.


----------



## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> How شريف is too old in Arabic when in pre- or early classical time Arabic had no _š_ sound? It doesn't seem to be too old, it doesn't exist in Quran.



If it were a Persian loan it would be too old for _š _=ش. You would expect _š _=س.


----------



## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> If it were a Persian loan it would be too old for _š _=ش. You would expect _š _=س.



I think you mean the lack of dots in early Arabic script which caused the variant readings of the words, especially about rarely used loanwords, yes?


----------



## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> I think you mean the lack of dots in early Arabic script which caused the variant readings of the words, especially about rarely used loanwords, yes?


No, this is a phonetic and not an orthographic issue. See the top part of #37.


----------

