# Arabic: كنيس/كنيسة



## vandaman

Hi everybody, In my dictionaries I found similar words for church and synagogue-are they really similar or it seems to me.Thank you-interested in etymology


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## origumi

Kaniisa and kaniis are both are from root k-n-s(h) = to gather. Shared by many other Semitic languages: Akkadian kanashu, Hebrew kneset (Jewish synagogue) or knesia (Christian church), Syriac kanash, Neo Aramaric kinishta, Phoenician knsh, also Swaili kanisa (from Arabic). Greek synagogos means exactly the same.


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## Frank06

Hi,


origumi said:


> Kaniisa and kaniis are both are from root k-n-s(h) = to gather. Shared by many other Semitic languages: Akkadian kanashu, Hebrew kneset (Jewish synagogue) or knesia (Christian church), Syriac kanash, Neo Aramaric kinishta, Phoenician knsh, also Swaili kanisa (from Arabic). Greek synagogos means exactly the same.


I don't know any Semitic language at all (well, enough to understand your excellent explanation), but what is the difference between kaniis*a* and kaniis. Or otherwise asked -- and I guess it must be an utterly naive question: why the "extra" a in kaniisa?

F


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## berndf

I don't know the historic reasons for the difference. There isn't anything that is obvious to Arabic native speakers (I asked a Syrian friend). One is masculine (the synagogue) and one is feminine (the church).


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## Mahaodeh

I read once (I don't remember where) that the Arabic kaniis and kaniisa are both loanwords from Aramaic.

The loan is probably (the way I see it) sometime between the time of Christ (30 AD or so) and 570 AD (the time of Mohammed) since the word is already used in Arabic by then. The first Christian Arabs that have been attested historically were in the second century AD, so maybe at that time the same name was used for a church and a synagogue and three hundred years later the distinction slowly evolved in Arabic.

That's just my guess.


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## Abu Rashid

Mahaodeh said:
			
		

> I read once (I don't remember where) that the Arabic kaniis and kaniisa  are both loanwords from Aramaic.



Although the usage for a 'place of congregation' might be influenced by the Aramaic usage, the verb exists in Arabic as I'm sure you know, and means to sweep or scavenge together (ie. gather, collect). So to say it's an Aramaic loanword is not quite correct.


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## berndf

Abu Rashid said:


> Although the usage for a 'place of congregation' might be influenced by the Aramaic usage, the verb exists in Arabic as I'm sure you know, and means to sweep or scavenge together (ie. gather, collect). So to say it's an Aramaic loanword is not quite correct.


A word can be a loan even though there is a cognate. This is no contradiction. E.g. in German you have the verb _kapern_ which is a Latin loan and there is a cognate: _haben_.


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## Abu Rashid

Berndf,

Yes, but I doubt this is a case of that.

The German/Latin example you used involves words which are very different in their appearance. Whilst the words in this case are identical.


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## berndf

Abu Rashid said:


> Yes, but I doubt this is a case of that.


Possible, I don't know. I only wanted to stress that the presence of a cognate (whether changed or unchanged) does not mean a word cannot be a loan. You can also find in German examples where the two are much closer than _kapern_ and _haben_, e.g. _Pater_ and _Vater_.


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## Abu Rashid

Ok let me give an example.

In Australian English we do not use the word sidewalk for a pedestrian walkway next to a road, yet the words side and walk both exist in Australian English, and so if I began using the term sidewalk, I wouldn't really consider it a loanword. Perhaps you would? And perhaps linguists would, I don't know. I'd just consider it an influence on the way the words (perfectly good Australian English words that is) are used. The words themselves though are not loans.

Sorry couldn't think of a basic word example, so had to use a compound word.


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## clevermizo

Abu Rashid said:


> Ok let me give an example.
> 
> In Australian English we do not use the word sidewalk for a pedestrian walkway next to a road, yet the words side and walk both exist in Australian English, and so if I began using the term sidewalk, I wouldn't really consider it a loanword. Perhaps you would? And perhaps linguists would, I don't know. I'd just consider it an influence on the way the words (perfectly good Australian English words that is) are used. The words themselves though are not loans.



I would consider it a loan from another variety of English that uses "sidewalk", unless you spontaneously formed "side+walk" in Australian English without knowing that other English speakers used any such word. This is possible of course. However, if you used "sidewalk" because you heard an American say it and you decided it was a good word to use - this a definitely a loan, despite the fact that "side" and "walk" are perfectly good English words in any case.


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## berndf

clevermizo said:


> I would consider it a loan from another variety of English that uses "sidewalk", unless you spontaneously formed "side+walk" in Australian English without knowing that other English speakers used any such word. This is possible of course. However, if you used "sidewalk" because you heard an American say it and you decided it was a good word to use - this a definitely a loan, despite the fact that "side" and "walk" are perfectly good English words in any case.


A similar example would be, if the Londoners started to call their underground system "subway". That would definitely be a loan, even though the word "subway" exists in BE but in a different meaning. This is a similar case here: the roots are the same and the meanings related but not identical.


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## Abu Rashid

To me that seems a bit of a technicality.

It also seems to tie into the debate about dialects & languages. If subway is used in NY English, and is then "borrowed" (or I'd say "spreads") to Californian English for instance, is that really a loan? At which point do you stop considering it a loan? From one neighbourhood to the next? At what granularity do you consider it merely spreading between different varieties of a language (or indeed just communities of speakers), and being "loaned" by an external language/dialect?


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## Mahaodeh

To get back the subject, while the root exists in Arabic, the verb كَنَسَ is never used for 'gathering of people', or even for 'gathering' in general; it has the meaning of movement and of hiding. I checked Lisaan Al Arab.

Indecently, the Lisaan also said that kaniis and kaniisa are loanwords; it didn't mention from where and only said that it is originally kunisht with a 'long taa'.


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## origumi

In light of Mahaodeh's comments - I looked again at the Hebrew equivalent. Root k-n-s exists in Biblical Hebrew as "gathering things" but is not the direct ancestor of "kneset" / "knesia" (synagogue / church). Aramaic "knishta" means "congregation" and specifically "people gathering for a religious ceremony". This can even be a translation to Aramaic of Hebrew "asefa" or "kahal" / "kehila" which are Hebrew (people) social and religious habits. "knishta" was borrowed to Hebrew in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah (c. 400 BC). "sh" was changed to "s" because that's how the Hebrew cognate root sounds (this irregular root difference is another good question), the final "a" was removed because it's not part of the word. Thus "kneset". The plural of "kneset" in early times was "knesiot", as if the plural of "knesia", and therefore this other new word appeared. With both "kneset" and "knesia" in existence, the one was specialized to synagogue, the other to church. The sound similarity to Greek "ekklesia" could have also influenced this development.

The story of these words in Arabic can be similar: the concept of kaniis / kaniisa is borrowed from Aramaic, the sound is shifted according to the Arabic root (or according to the regular shifts from Aramaic to Arabic), and later a distinction is made between the Christian and Jewish institutes.


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## berndf

Thank you Origumi. This was very interesting. I am wondering if the influence of Greek "ekklesia" could also be the reason why the feminine form prevailed in Arabic for "church".


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## Faylasoof

berndf said:


> Thank you Origumi. This was very interesting. I am wondering if the influence of Greek "ekklesia" could also be the reason why the feminine form prevailed in Arabic for "church".


I also wondered about this, not least because in Urdu too we use _the same <_کنیسہ_>_ _but more frequently and interestingly, the variant _کلیسا _kaliisaa_ ! This is closer still to the the Greek _ekklesia_!


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## Cynastros

in Greek is..
  Synagogue  Συναγωγή = Συνάθροιση- get together, or , congregate? .   church,ναός-   Εκκλησία .  έκκλησις = κάλεσμα  . 



senate ,
congress
council  - Σύγκλητος – συγκαλώ .
κλητεύω = καλώ.


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## origumi

Faylasoof said:


> in Urdu too we use _the same <_کنیسہ_>_ _but more frequently and interestingly, the variant _کلیسا _kaliisaa_ ! This is closer still to the the Greek _ekklesia_!


Compare it to Persian کِلیسا (kelisā) and Turkish kilise. Looks like two parallel routes:
Arabic -> Urdu
Arabic -> Persian -> Urdu


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## Faylasoof

There are two routes into Urdu for sure - one for each form it appears.

کنیسہ appears to be Arabic ->Urdu

But as for کليسا, it seems to be Greek -> Persian -> Urdu

According to Platts it is via Persian rather than Turkish into Urdu. The contact between Sassanian Persians and Eastern Christians predates that between the Turks and Eastern Christians and the Turkish _kilise_ may itself be via Persian. 

Platts
P کليسا _kalīsā_ = P کليسه _kalīsa_ (Gr. ἐκκλησία), s.m. A Christian church; a synagogue. --- both Steingass and Hayyim give Greek as a direct route for the Persian کلیسا _kalīsā_ and کلیسه _kalīsa. _[P = Persian]


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## Aydintashar

In Greek εκκλησία (church), apparently cognate to the English "ecclesia" (gathering), used in ancient Greece to mean "gathering of the citizens". It seems that the word originated in Aramaic, moved to the Greek language by Phoenicians, and returned into Arabic from the Greek (during the heavy Islamic translation activity).


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## apmoy70

Aydintashar said:


> In Greek εκκλησία (church), apparently cognate to the English "ecclesia" (gathering), used in ancient Greece to mean "gathering of the citizens". It seems that the word originated in Aramaic, moved to the Greek language by Phoenicians, and returned into Arabic from the Greek (during the heavy Islamic translation activity).


Forgive me if I didn't get it, but are you trying to say that the Greek noun «Ἐκκλησία» (from «ἐκ» ek:_ out_ + verb «καλέω/καλῶ» kal'ĕō [uncontracted]/kal'ō [contracted]: _to call, summon_) is an Aramaic derivation and that the English "ecclesia" is cognate and not an English (or Latin) rendering of the Greek word?


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## origumi

Faylasoof said:


> But as for کليسا, it seems to be Greek -> Persian -> Urdu


Makes sense, especially with the references you give.

Yet, when looking at the (outdated) Brill's First Encyclopedia of Islam, p. 717, other opinions are mentioned. The Arabic scholars Khafadji and Al-Bustani think that there's a route of: Greek ekklesia -> Arabic kalisiya -> Arabic kalisa -> Arabic kaniisa. Not sure about the vowels length - the letters in the book's photocopy are too small.

If kalisa existed in Arabic then it can be the origin of Urdu kalisa via Persian or in any other way. But this hypothesis contradicts the assumption that Arabic kaniisa is derived from Aramaic, which is (as far as I understand) the more acceptable notion, thus a questionable hypothesis.

Brill's EI1: http://books.google.co.il/books?id=...&resnum=2&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false


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## Faylasoof

Aydintashar said:


> In Greek εκκλησία (church), apparently cognate to  the English "ecclesia" (gathering), used in ancient Greece to mean  "gathering of the citizens". It seems that the word  originated in Aramaic, moved to the Greek language by Phoenicians,  and returned into Arabic from the Greek (during the heavy Islamic  translation activity).


 I understand that as much as a quarter of Ancient  Greek vocabulary has Semitic etymology. Do you by chance have a reference  for this?




origumi said:


> Makes sense, especially with the references you give.
> 
> Yet, when looking at the (outdated) Brill's First Encyclopedia of Islam, p. 717, other opinions are mentioned. The Arabic scholars Khafadji and Al-Bustani think that there's a route of: Greek ekklesia -> Arabic kalisiya -> Arabic kalisa -> Arabic kaniisa. Not sure about the vowels length - the letters in the book's photocopy are too small.


 I too wonder about the validity of this alternative! The Aramaic -> Arabic -> Urdu for _kaniisah_ makes more sense!
 


origumi said:


> If kalisa existed in Arabic then it can be the origin of Urdu kalisa via Persian or in any other way. But this hypothesis contradicts the assumption that Arabic kaniisa is derived from Aramaic, which is (as far as I understand) the more acceptable notion, thus a questionable hypothesis.
> ....


  Given Aydintashar post, it would appear that even the Greek εκκλησία is of Aramaic origin! Would be good to have a reference this though. So in the end both routes might go back to Aramiac. Well, one for sure it seems.


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