# pen / pencil / pencil case



## elroy

Arabic does not have separate single words for "pen" and "pencil."  The word قلم can refer to either, and if you need to specify you say قلم رصاص ("lead قلم") or قلم حبر ("ink قلم").  A pencil case is a مقلمة (something like "قلم holder").  It's interesting that English uses "pencil case" even though of course it can hold pens too.  Since English doesn't have a generic term, it had to "pick one."

What about other languages?

- Are there two separate single words for "pen" and "pencil"?
- Is there a generic word that covers both?
- If so, are there ways to specify which one you mean?
- Is the word or phrase for "pencil case" derived from a word for "pen" or "pencil"?


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## סייבר־שד

• Mexican Spanish:

- Yes, there are: *lápiz *(pencil) and *pluma / bolígrafo *(pen).
- No.
- 
- Well, there's the word *lapicero *, which derives from *lápiz*, but you could also say *estuche (para lápices)*, which is certainly not related. 
N.B. *Lapicero *can also mean a "mechanical / propelling pencil" over here.

• French:

- Yes: *crayon *(pencil) and *stylo *(pen).
- Not really, but I should point out I've seen both *stylo à bille *and *crayon à bille*, as well as *stylo feutre *and *crayon feutre *to refer to the same thing, namely a "ball-point pen" and a "felt-tip pen", respectively.
-
- No, for that you would say *trousse (à crayons)*.

• Hebrew:

- Once more, yes: *עיפרון *[ʕipaˈron] (pencil) and *עט *[ʕet] (pen).
- As far as I'm aware, no.
- 
- The Hebrew word for that is *קלמר *[kalˈmaʁ], which is not related to either *עיפרון *or *עט *, but _is _related, as I'm sure you already figured out , to Arabic *قلم *, and of course, ultimately to Greek *κάλαμος*.


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## apmoy70

Greek:

Pen: *«Στυλό»* [s̠t̠iˈlo̞] (neut.) & *«στυλός»* [s̠t̠iˈlo̞s̠] (masc.) < Fr. stylo. It's the name for the _ballpoint pen _in the vernacular, although lately the name *«μπικ»* [ˈbik] (neut. indecl.) ɡains ɡround, the metonymy for _pen_ after the well known disposable ballpoint pen, _Bic Cristal_.

Pencil: *«Mολύβι/μολίβι»* (both spellings are equally used) [mo̞ˈlivi] < ByzGr neut. diminutive *«μολύβι(o)ν/μολίβι(ο)ν» molýʋi(o)n/molíʋi(o)n* --> _pencil, pencil lead_ (either because of mediaeval misconception that graphite was a form of lead (black lead), or because of actual usage of lead for making pencils) < Classical noun *«μόλυβδος/μόλιβος» mólubdŏs* (masc.) and (var.) *mólibŏs* (masc.) --> _Pb_ _lead_ (probably an early anatolian loan, possibly from Lydian marivda- (murky) > Mycenaean syllabary mo-ri-wo-do).

Pencil case: *«Κασετίνα»* [kas̠eˈt̠ina] (fem.) < It. cassettina, _small case, crate_; we employ the Italian name just for the pencil case, it's used nowhere else.


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## Zareza

*Romanian*

- *creion* (pencil) *<*  Fr. *crayon *  //    *stilou *(pen) *< *Fr.* stylo  *
- No.
-
- *penar* (pencil case)* < *Germ. *Pennal** < *Lat. *penna *(feather)


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## elroy

German:



elroy said:


> - Are there two separate single words for "pen" and "pencil"?


Yes:
pen = *Kugelschreiber* or *Kuli*
pencil = *Bleistift* 



elroy said:


> - Is there a generic word that covers both?


Yes: *Stift* 



elroy said:


> - If so, are there ways to specify which one you mean?


See above. 



elroy said:


> - Is the word or phrase for "pencil case" derived from a word for "pen" or "pencil"?


There are many terms for this, depending on physical form and region!   None of the ones listed on that site use any forms of "Kugelschreiber," "Kuli," Bleistift," or "Stift."  Many of them use "Feder," "feather," which is related.


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## Demiurg

elroy said:


> Many of them use "Feder," "feather," which is related.


Very strange.  I only know Mäppchen and (Schreib-)Etui. I'm from South-West Germany (the cyan region in the right map) and never heard  "Schlamper" or "Schlampermäppchen".


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## Olaszinhok

*Italian:*
pen - *penna*
pencil - *matita*
pencil case* - astuccio*


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## Frank78

elroy said:


> German:
> 
> 
> Yes:
> pen = *Kugelschreiber* or *Kuli*
> pencil = *Bleistift*
> 
> 
> Yes: *Stift*



Not quite. "Kugelschreiber" is ballpoint pen/biro whereas the English pen includes any device which uses a liquid (ink or similar) to write, also felt-tip pens (Filzstift) and fountain pens (Füllfederhalter).

"Stift" > "pen" > "Kugelschreiber"/"ballpoint pen"


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## elroy

Isn't "Kugelschreiber/Kuli" used generically for "pen" _in practice_?

If you asked me for a "Kuli" and I handed you a felt-tip pin, would you retort "Ich habe doch nach 'nem Kuli gefragt!"?


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## Frank78

elroy said:


> Isn't "Kugelschreiber/Kuli" used generically for "pen" _in practice_?





elroy said:


> If you asked me for a "Kuli" and I handed you a felt-tip pin, would you retort "Ich habe doch nach 'nem Kuli gefragt!"?



I'd at least raise an eyebrow.

It's the other way round. Most people would give you as ballpoint pen if you asked for a "Stift". Just because it's the most common writing device.


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## elroy

Hm, so does German not have a word or phrase that unambiguously means a pen of any type, but not a pencil, and won't raise eyebrows?  What about "Füller"?  I've heard that before in a context where it didn't seem to matter what kind of pen it was, but to me it _sounds_ like it's a specific type of pen (a fountain pen or something like that).

BTW, "Kugelschriber/Kuli" was literally one of the very first German words I was taught, and I was taught that it just meant "pen."  I'm probably not the only L2 learner who's taught this!


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## raamez

elroy said:


> Hm, so does German not have a word or phrase that unambiguously means a pen of any type, but not a pencil, and won't raise eyebrows?  What about "Füller"?  I've heard that before in a context where it didn't seem to matter what kind of pen it was, but to me it _sounds_ like it's a specific type of pen (a fountain pen or something like that).
> 
> BTW, "Kugelschriber/Kuli" was literally one of the very first German words I was taught, and I was taught that it just meant "pen."  I'm probably not the only L2 learner who's taught this!


The generic word for pen in German is Stift or at least so I was taught back then. Kugelschreiber is قلم ناشف in Arabic and Füller is قلم سائل or قلم ريشة.


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## Frank78

elroy said:


> BTW, "Kugelschriber/Kuli" was literally one of the very first German words I was taught, and I was taught that it just meant "pen."  I'm probably not the only L2 learner who's taught this!



That may be due to the fact that "ballpoint pen" and "biro" are less common in English, compared to "pen".

I don't know any common word which covers the meaning of pen.


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## elroy

raamez said:


> The generic word for pen in German is Stift or at least so I was taught back then.


It looks like both of us were taught something wrong! 

"Stift" is like قلم, because it covers both pens and pencils.  Note that "pencil" = Blei*stift*.



Frank78 said:


> That may be due to the fact that "ballpoint pen" and "biro" are less common in English, compared to "pen".


"ballpoint pen" is fairly common in American English, but it's not used much because it's almost never necessary to be that specific!


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## Demiurg

elroy said:


> What about "Füller"? I've heard that before in a context where it didn't seem to matter what kind of pen it was, but to me it _sounds_ like it's a specific type of pen (a fountain pen or something like that).



"Füller" is short for "Füllfederhalter", a fountain pen that can be (re-)filled with ink.


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## Shengmen

Chinese:
There is indeed a generic character for all kinds of writing instrument (pencil, pen, ballpoint pen, chalk, writing brush, marker, crayon, charcoal, etc.). It is 笔 (bǐ). The way to specify the kind is to add qualifiers, as in the following examples:
pencil=铅笔=lead 笔
pen=钢笔=steel 笔
ballpoint pen=圆珠笔=ballpoint 笔
chalk=粉笔=powder 笔
writing brush=毛笔=hair 笔
marker=记号笔 or 签字笔=marker 笔 or signing 笔（another name: 马克笔 (mǎkè bǐ ), which is a transliteration of "marker" plus 笔）
crayon=蜡笔=wax 笔
charcoal=炭笔=charcoal 笔

This is the common way to form words in Chinese. For example, there is some controversy regarding how to translate Chinese zodiac (the twelve animals) into English, since many words are generic names for various kinds of animals, which has no counterpart in English. E.g., 羊 can refer to goat, sheep, argali, antelope, and many others belonging to _Caprilae_. This difference of nomenclature between languages is interesting: Chinese find it funny that some westerners do not know that wine is made from grapes, since in Chinese wine=葡萄酒=grape+generic name for alcohol; on the other hand, westerners may think it ridiculous that in China people have to learn that an octopus is not a fish: in Chinese, octupus=章鱼=fish with patterns.

By the way, "pencil case" is called 笔盒 (笔 case) or more commonly, 文具盒 (stationery case).


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## Trisia

Zareza said:


> *Romanian*
> 
> - *creion* (pencil) *<*  Fr. *crayon *  //    *stilou *(pen) *< *Fr.* stylo  *
> - No.
> -
> - *penar* (pencil case)* < *Germ. *Pennal** < *Lat. *penna *(feather)


Yep.

I'm going to add "pix" for ballpoint pen (apparently from the English "pick" though I'm not sure how and why).

To be honest, if there was a generic word, that'd be it, because
1. it can actually mean mechanical pencil, though I've yet to find anyone use it with this meaning
2. it's become almost synonymous to "writing utensil". As in, everyone knows that a "pix" is a "biro", but if you ask for a "pix" to jot down some notes, people might hand you any sort of instrument they have on hand: ballpoint, rollerball, pencil, etc. In some cases, when they might suspect you need an actual ballpoint pen and not an ink liner or a pencil (say you're signing documents) they'll probably ask "I've only got a ____, will it do?"


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## Penyafort

Catalan:

· fountain pen = *ploma estilogràfica* [lit., 'stylographic feather'], most usually shortened to either *estilogràfica *or *ploma*.
· ball-point pen = *bolígraf *[calque from the Spanish _bolígrafo_, from _bola _'ball'_ + -graf _'Greek suffix for writing', coined by the Catalan businessman Amadeu Árboles in the 1940s], often shortened to _*boli*_.
· pencil = *llapis *[from Latin _lapis _'stone']
· pencil case = *estoig */əstóʧ/ [from the verb _estotjar _'to keep something preserved inside a case or something else', from Vulgar Latin _*studiare _'pay attention in the preservation of'; here it's the Spanish _estuche _which is a loanword from the Catalan/Occitan]



elroy said:


> - Are there two separate single words for "pen" and "pencil"?
> - Is there a generic word that covers both?


- Yes
- No, unless we use generic terms such as _estris per escriure_ (writing tools). The Catalan word cognate to the Arabic _qalam _is *càlam*, used for ancient or medieval canes shaped for writing with ink before the use of bird feathers. It isn't an Arabic loanword, though. It just came from Latin _calamus_, itself a loanword from Greek _kálamos_.


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## Awwal12

Russian:


elroy said:


> Are there two separate single words for "pen" and "pencil"?


Yes.
pen - ручка (rúchka, lit. "little arm/hand")
pencil - карандаш (karandásh, a loan from Turkic "qara daš" - "black stone")


elroy said:


> Is there a generic word that covers both?


No, I'm afraid there's none.


elroy said:


> Is the word or phrase for "pencil case" derived from a word for "pen" or "pencil"?


No. "Pencil case" is пенал (penál, from Germ. Pennal (id.), ultimately from Latin).


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## AndrasBP

elroy said:


> Are there two separate single words for "pen" and "pencil"?


In Hungarian there are:

"pen" = *toll *(the same word as 'feather', of Finno-Ugric origin)
"pencil" = *ceruza *(from Latin 'cerussa' = 'white lead')



elroy said:


> Is there a generic word that covers both?


There's a formal word 'írószer', lit. 'writing tool', mostly used in the term 'papír-írószer' = stationery.



elroy said:


> Is the word or phrase for "pencil case" derived from a word for "pen" or "pencil"?


The word for 'pencil case' is '*tolltartó*', lit. "pen holder", even if you have pencils in it.


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## elroy

Penyafort said:


> The Catalan word cognate to the Arabic _qalam _is *càlam*, used for ancient or medieval canes shaped for writing with ink before the use of bird feathers. It isn't an Arabic loanword, though. It just came from Latin _calamus_, itself a loanword from Greek _kálamos_.


So does قلم itself come from Greek too?


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## Penyafort

elroy said:


> So does قلم itself come from Greek too?


I'd say so. I think reed pens were used in Ancient Egypt earlier than in Greece, but the word for it in Egyptian was something rather similar to _ár_, while Greek _kálamos _has an Indo-European origin, with related cognates such as English _haulm_.


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## סייבר־שד

elroy said:


> So does قلم itself come from Greek too?


Here's what the Wiktionary has to say about that:

_"From Ancient Greek κάλαμος (kálamos, “reed”). Nöldeke and Jeffery are convinced that it comes thence via Ge'ez ቀለም (ḳäläm, “reed”), while Leslau notes that ቀለም (ḳäläm, “reed”) could come from Arabic. But the meaning “reed” – referring to a plant – is not actually attested for the Arabic word, and given the peculiar semantics in Ge'ez where the word ቀለም (ḳäläm) is mixed into the root of ቀለመ (ḳälämä, “to color, to stain, to write”) and as well means “color”, “ink”, “inkstand”, as Leslau separates himself, a Ge'ez origin can explain why in Arabic the meaning is restricted to “pen” in the beginning compared with the Ancient Greek κάλαμος (kálamos) meaning “reed cane” in general."_


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## ThomasK

elroy said:


> German:
> 
> 
> Yes:
> pen = *Kugelschreiber* or *Kuli*
> pencil = *Bleistift*
> 
> 
> Yes: *Stift*


Pencil - *potlood *(// Blei-stift, lead)
pen - *pen, balpen *_(colloquially_* bic *_in Flanders)_
*pennenzak *(if some kind of bag), pennendoos (if a box)


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## Penyafort

סייבר־שד said:


> _"From Ancient Greek κάλαμος (kálamos, “reed”). Nöldeke and Jeffery are convinced that it comes thence via Ge'ez ቀለም (ḳäläm, “reed”), while Leslau notes that ቀለም (ḳäläm, “reed”) could come from Arabic. But the meaning “reed” – referring to a plant – is not actually attested for the Arabic word, and given the peculiar semantics in Ge'ez where the word ቀለም (ḳäläm) is mixed into the root of ቀለመ (ḳälämä, “to color, to stain, to write”) and as well means “color”, “ink”, “inkstand”, as Leslau separates himself, a Ge'ez origin can explain why in Arabic the meaning is restricted to “pen” in the beginning compared with the Ancient Greek κάλαμος (kálamos) meaning “reed cane” in general."_


Interesting theory. But some personal thoughts...

-I don't know much about how many words has Arabic borrowed from Ge'ez, but I'd say it was more common for Arabic to borrow from Greek. 
-Greek was the official language in Egypt at the coming of the Arabs. And, in general, the lingua franca of much of the Eastern Mediterranean then.
-Languages as far away as Sanskrit seem to have borrowed the word from Greek too (कलम). I guess this might mean that the borrowing of the word must then go back to as far as the times of Alexander.
-For Arabic to have borrowed it via Ge'ez, I can only imagine one possibility: use of it in the Kingdom of Axum, a bridge between Greece, Arabia and India. If so, one might wonder if Sanskrit really took it from Greek, or rather somewhat later from Ge'ez or Arabic. Knowledge of the attestation of the word in corpuses would easily tell us so.


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## apmoy70

Penyafort said:


> Interesting theory. But some personal thoughts...
> 
> -I don't know much about how many words has Arabic borrowed from Ge'ez, but I'd say it was more common for Arabic to borrow from Greek.
> -Greek was the official language in Egypt at the coming of the Arabs. And, in general, the lingua franca of much of the Eastern Mediterranean then.
> -Languages as far away as Sanskrit seem to have borrowed the word from Greek too (कलम). I guess this might mean that the borrowing of the word must then go back to as far as the times of Alexander.
> -For Arabic to have borrowed it via Ge'ez, I can only imagine one possibility: use of it in the Kingdom of Axum, a bridge between Greece, Arabia and India. If so, one might wonder if Sanskrit really took it from Greek, or rather somewhat later from Ge'ez or Arabic. Knowledge of the attestation of the word in corpuses would easily tell us so.


Sanskrit borrowed κάλαμος directly from Greek according to Beekes, infact he gives three languages as direct borrowers: Latin (calamus), Sanskrit कलम (kalama,_writing reed_) and Arabic قلم (qalam). He makes no mention of Ge'ez; in fact all the other languages took the word from one of these three "mediators" (e.g. Ottoman Turkish took قلم (kalem) from Arabic); personally I'd put my money on Beekes since he is the youngest of the three (Nöldeke, Jeffery, Beekes)


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## Dymn

Penyafort said:


> here it's the Spanish _estuche _which is a loanword from the Catalan/Occitan]


We can talk about a boomerang loanword here because in my childhood we all said "estutx" (or "estuig"), a Catalanization of Spanish "estuche", rather than "estoig".


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## elroy

What do you say now?


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## Dymn

I guess I use both depending on the context.


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## elroy

How does context impact your choice?  Can you elaborate?


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## AndrasBP

Frank78 said:


> "biro" are less common in English


Did you know that "biro" comes from the name of its Hungarian inventor, László Bíró /'bi:ro:/?
The name itself means "judge".


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