# Arabic: هرم (pyramid)



## vandaman

hi everybody
I am interested in etymology of the word haram (pyramid) and if there is any connection with temples, because it is very similar to the word "hram" -temple-which is used in Slavic languages 
thank you


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## Josh_

I have often wondered about the word هرم (_haram_) applied to pyramids myself.  The Arabic root ه-ر-م (h-r-m) has to do with very old age.  So perhaps that has something to do with why they are called أهرام _ahraam_ (plural of _haram_).  The ancient Arabs (post-Islam) saw the pyramids as very ancient, even in their time (800/900/1000 years ago).  So, perhaps, due to that they applied the word _haram_ to them. 

As far as I know, that root has nothing to do with temples.  

So, as far as the similarity to the Slavic "hram" I am not sure.  It could be that the term was borrowed from Arabic or it could just be a coincidence of sorts.


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## Abu Rashid

*vandaman,*



> I am interested in etymology of the word haram (pyramid) and if there is  any connection with temples



In Hebrew the word means to be high, tall, lofty.

*Josh,*



> even in their time (800/900/1000 years ago)



Actually it's almost 1400 years ago they arrived in Egypt


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## Ben Jamin

Josh_ said:


> I have often wondered about the word هرم (_haram_) applied to pyramids myself. The Arabic root ه-ر-م (h-r-m) has to do with very old age. So perhaps that has something to do with why they are called أهرام _ahraam_ (plural of _haram_). The ancient Arabs (post-Islam) saw the pyramids as very ancient, even in their time (800/900/1000 years ago). So, perhaps, due to that they applied the word _haram_ to them.
> 
> As far as I know, that root has nothing to do with temples.
> 
> So, as far as the similarity to the Slavic "hram" I am not sure. It could be that the term was borrowed from Arabic or it could just be a coincidence of sorts.


 In Urdu it means "wrong", "sinful", "forbidden", (something like "not kosher" for Jews), as opposed to "halal" right, good. I thought that this Urdu word is "all Islamic" and came from Arabic.


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## origumi

Abu Rashid said:


> In Hebrew the word means to be high, tall, lofty.


Not exactly. "har" = mountain. "ram" = tall. "haram" doesn't exists unless you mean "the tall", but this is improbable.


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## 0m1

Ben Jamin said:


> In Urdu it means "wrong", "sinful", "forbidden", (something like "not kosher" for Jews), as opposed to "halal" right, good. I thought that this Urdu word is "all Islamic" and came from Arabic.



It is, "ḥaraam" means roughly "forbidden" in Arabic also, but notice that in this case it begins with a "Ḥe(th)", and not a "Ha" as "Haram" (pyramid) does.

Bu it is interesting that this should be brought up- I know less about Arabic etymology than I'd like to, but is the word "Ḥaram" (short second vowel this time) in Arabic in reference to the Holy Sanctuary at Mecca then possibly in some way etymologically connected to "Haram", Pyramid? I wonder even if it has any links to Ḥaraam (as in forbidden) also, then...

EDIT: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D8%AD%D8%B1%D9%85

It certainly is... but in Arabic it seems to have come to mean "sacred" by extension of "forbidden", and is also then interestingly the root from which English "Harem" is derived, as in a harem of women, via Arabic "Ḥariim", meaning simply women, or "sacred/forbidden things". Although if this can then be related to "Haram" somehow or not is a different matter, and in fact appears rather more dubious in this light (there seems to be two distinct roots at work, H-R-M, "to become old, decrepit" and Ḥ-R-M "to forbid, prohibit, sanctifiy")

EDIT 2: Ok I've edited this post just about into submssion by now, but interestingly the Slavic "hram" seems to introduce yet another letter, Khe(th), doesn't it? While in Latin it's transliterated to an "h", the Cyrillic seems to be хра̑м, "khram"; and itself seems to be from Proto-Slavic _*xormъ_, and thus a coincidence in resembling "haram" [voiceless glottal fricative /h/], or even "ḥaram" [voiceless pharyngeal fricative /ħ/], being itself a voiceless velar fricative /x/. Surely we can rule any sort of borrowing if Proto-Slavic is involved...


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## cherine

Hi,

I'm afraid I can't help with the etymology of haram هرم (pyramid), but I think we need to make clear that there is a difference between haram هرم (pyramid) and حرم (holy place, sanctuary) and حرام (forbidden, religiously illegal) to avoid any confusions.

So, the Urdu word حرام (haram, the second "a" is long) is indeed taken from Arabic, and it shares the same root as حرم (sanctuary, holy place. No long vowels) but both are totally different from هرم (pyramid). There's a difference in letters between the Arabic هـ and حـ even though we transliterate both with an "h".


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## 0m1

cherine said:


> Hi,
> 
> I'm afraid I can't help with the etymology of haram هرم (pyramid), but I think we need to make clear that there is a difference between haram هرم (pyramid) and حرم (holy place, sanctuary) and حرام (forbidden, religiously illegal) to avoid any confusions.
> 
> So, the Urdu word حرام (haram, the second "a" is long) is indeed taken from Arabic, and it shares the same root as حرم (sanctuary, holy place. No long vowels) but both are totally different from هرم (pyramid). There's a difference in letters between the Arabic هـ and حـ even though we transliterate both with an "h".



Yeah transliteration's exactly the problem here; if I was right in my post above it also seems to also be the root of the confusion betwen hram and haram in the first place, again two distinct sounds. Silly Roman characters and their inability to distinguish between x, ħ and h


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## Josh_

Abu Rashid said:


> *Josh,*
> 
> Actually it's almost 1400 years ago they arrived in Egypt


Yes, I am aware of when the Arabs first arrived in Egypt, but that is not what I was referring to with my approximate time frame.  I was referring to the discussions of the pyramids I have read by ancient Arab authors, namely Ibn Battutah, Ibn Jubayr, and Al-Masudi. The earliest of these authors, Al-Masudi, wrote in the 10th century -- so about a 1000 years ago.  As I have not read earlier accounts of the pyramids I thought I better just go back as far as I've read.

All three of these travelers use the word أهرام (ahraam) in their writings, so we know the term was used at least as far back as 1000 years ago, and probably further back then that.  I would be interested in knowing when the term was first applied to the pyramids, but that may be a fact lost to history.



cherine said:


> Hi,
> 
> I'm afraid I can't help with the etymology of haram هرم (pyramid), but I think we need to make clear that there is a difference between haram هرم (pyramid) and حرم (holy place, sanctuary) and حرام (forbidden, religiously illegal) to avoid any confusions.


Yes, you and Om1 actually touched upon something I had thought about after the fact, but had not gotten around to posting yet -- and that is about the word حرم (holy place, sanctuary).  There is a connection between a holy place/sanctuary and a temple, so it could be that the Slavic "hram" actually comes from the Arabic root حرم and not هرم, assuming it comes from Arabic at all.

It may not be completely unreasonable to suggest an Arabic origin for the Slavic word considering that there seems to have been a fair amount of contact between Arabs and peoples from central and Eastern Europe from the Middle Ages on.  Most notably, the early Arab traveler, Ibn Fadlan, who traveled to Volga  Bulgaria in 922CE, speaks about the peoples (the Volga Vikings) he encountered in his writings.  There are also a few other accounts of early contact between the "Rus" and early Arab travelers.



> There's a difference in letters between the Arabic هـ and حـ even though  we transliterate both with an "h".


Yes, we transliterate both with an 'h', but we differentiate between them by transliterating حـ  with a capital 'H' (and sometimes a '7') and هـ with a lowercase 'h'.


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## Ben Jamin

0m1 said:


> Yeah transliteration's exactly the problem here; if I was right in my post above it also seems to also be the root of the confusion betwen hram and haram in the first place, again two distinct sounds. Silly Roman characters and their inability to distinguish between x, ħ and h


 Yes. Transliterating the word with initial H contributes to confusion. In west Slavic languages the word is spelled with a *ch* pronounced like in Scottish loch. The same is in East Slavic langiages, where the Cyrillic *х* denotes the same phonetic value. The only contacts with the Arabic the Northern Slavs had were a couple Arabic travellers in the Xth century.
So, any loan from Arabic is unlikely.


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## 0m1

Josh_ said:


> It may not be completely unreasonable to suggest an Arabic origin for the Slavic word considering that there seems to have been a fair amount of contact between Arabs and peoples from central and Eastern Europe from the Middle Ages on. Most notably, the early Arab traveler, Ibn Fadlan, who traveled to Volga Bulgaria in 922CE, speaks about the peoples (the Volga Vikings) he encountered in his writings.


 
 Only problem is that Proto-Slavic seems to date "before the 7th century", making contact with Arabic more than highly implausible (unless we're to revise that date, or the the fact that "hram" comes from a Proto-Slavic root)



Ben Jamin said:


> The only contacts with the Arabic the Northern Slavs had were a couple Arabic travellers in the Xth century.
> So, any loan from Arabic is unlikely.


 
 Indeed, and what's more, it doesn't seem reasonable that a handful of travellers would have been so influential upon an entire people; it doesn't seem that the Slavic peoples were *that* impacted by Arabs such as Ibn Fadlan, to me, at least not so far as to start adopting words, especially religious ones.


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## Outsider

0m1 said:


> It is, "ḥaraam" means roughly "forbidden" in Arabic also, but notice that in this case it begins with a "Ḥe(th)", and not a "Ha" as "Haram" (pyramid) does.
> 
> Bu it is interesting that this should be brought up- I know less about Arabic etymology than I'd like to, but is the word "Ḥaram" (short second vowel this time) in Arabic in reference to the Holy Sanctuary at Mecca then possibly in some way etymologically connected to "Haram", Pyramid? I wonder even if it has any links to Ḥaraam (as in forbidden) also, then...
> 
> EDIT: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D8%AD%D8%B1%D9%85
> 
> [...] (there seems to be two distinct roots at work, H-R-M, "to become old, decrepit" and Ḥ-R-M "to forbid, prohibit, sanctifiy")


Perhaps I'm a little lost in the conversation, but if they are two different roots, why should we assume that there's any relation at all between the two derivations?


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## 0m1

Outsider said:


> Perhaps I'm a little lost in the conversation, but if they are two different roots, why should we assume that there's any relation at all between the two derivations?



Yeah no you're right, that post represents my developing train of thought  I first thought that they might be related, but then edited my post ("EDIT") when I found them to be of different derivations, hence changing my mind; I left my earlier musings in there for the heck of it, but I'm no longer assuming there's any visible relation... well, other than perhaps going even further back, with something like *-R-M, but I don't know how plausible this is etymologically speaking...

I do know lots of Arabic roots can be taken back beyond triliteral to biliteral roots, such as Q-T-3 and Q-T-F going back to a Q-T- with a rough meaning of "to cut, separate/join, bisect, emit", but I don't know how applicable that is to the initial letter of the root being different, as in H-R-M and Ḥ-R-M


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## Outsider

Thank you for the clarification.


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## Josh_

0m1 said:


> Only problem is that Proto-Slavic seems to date "before the 7th century", making contact with Arabic more than highly implausible (unless we're to revise that date, or the the fact that "hram" comes from a Proto-Slavic root)


Admittedly, I know nothing of any Slavic languages.  If the Slavic word is attested before the 7th century then of course that invalidates any possible Arabic connection.



0m1 said:


> Ben Jamin said:
> 
> 
> 
> The only contacts with the Arabic the Northern Slavs had were a  couple Arabic travellers in the Xth century.
> So, any loan from Arabic is unlikely.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Indeed, and what's more, it doesn't seem reasonable that a handful of travellers would have been so influential upon an entire people; it doesn't seem that the Slavic peoples were *that* impacted by Arabs such as Ibn Fadlan, to me, at least not so far as to start adopting words, especially religious ones.
Click to expand...

I agree that a few passing travelers would not have had much of an impact, but what makes you guys so sure that the only contacts the Northern Slavs had were a couple, or a handful, of travelers in the 10th century?  Just because there are not many written sources? Perhaps I should have expounded on my previous statement. 

First of all, it is not like the people who wrote these observations of the travels traveled alone.  They traveled in caravans made up of hundreds or even thousands of people.  It also seems to be the case that Ibn Fadlan and his travel companions joined various caravans along their way to the north (Frye, 81).  One such caravan, Ibn Fadlan notes had 5,000 men and 3,000 pack animals, which may be an exaggeration (ibid).  

Ibn Fadlan also talks about running into men from these northern lands who had converted to Islam.  In fact, the first lines of Ibn Fadlan's book is: 

لما وصل كتاب ألمش بن يلطوار ملك الصقالبة إلى أمير المؤمنين المقتدر يسأله  فيه البعثة إليه ممن يفقهه في الدين ويعرفه شرائع الإسلام ويبني له مسجدًا  وينسب له منبرًا ليقيم عليه الدعوة له في بلده وجميع مملكته...

This has been translated by Richard Frye as:

_"The letter of Almish ibn Shilki, the Yiltawar [Elteber], the king of the Saqaliba, reached the Commander of the Faithful, al-Muqtadir; he asked him therein to send someone who would instruct him in religion and make him acquainted with the laws of Islam, [and] who would build for him a mosque and erect for him a pulpit mentioning his name, from which might be carried out the mission of converting his people in his whole country, and in all the districts of his kingdom."_ -- Frye, 25.


In fact, in terms of conversion to Islam, the first few sentences of Frye's introduction are:
_
"In the tenth century, two new religious faiths emerged in present-day Russia.  The inhabitants of Kiev accepted Greek Orthodox Christianity from Byzantine missionaries, while to the east, on the Volga River, the kingdom of the Bulghars turned to Islam.  Both faiths have continued to the present in these locations; today the Tatars of Tataristan in Russia, and their capital of kazan, are the successors of the Bulghars."_ -- Frye, ix.

Frye goes on to say in his introduction that "it is significant to note that Muslim merchants had also traveled to the north and made observations on their travels, which were reported in geographies such as those by Istakhri, Ibn Hauqal, Muqaddasi, and Mas'udi" (Frye 26).

So we have merchants, multiple caravans traveling north, probably made up of several hundreds to perhaps a few thousand each, knowledge of and conversion to Islam by some of these European peoples, and an account of a king of the Saqaliba (perhaps Slavs) engaging in correspondence with the Muslim caliph in Baghdad requesting instruction on Islam. 

All this indicates to me that there must have been much (perhaps not extensive, though) contact between Arabs and peoples from central and eastern Europe -- enough to have had an influence at least, considering many converted to Islam (probably the biggest impact Arabs had on them) -- a fact which has led to the current religious makeup of the area today still.

So again, I say, it may not be unreasonable to suggest an Arabic origin for the Slavic "hram." Now, I am not saying that this word is necessarily from Arabic (chances are it isn't, I certainly can't say one way or the other since I have no knowledge of Slavic languages), just that it is not unreasonable to propose such a connection.

Edited to add: The Wikipedia article on the Saqaliba I linked to above is interesting because it further shows that there appears to have been much contact between these cultures.


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## 0m1

Josh_ said:


> All this indicates to me that there must have been much (perhaps not extensive, though) contact between Arabs and peoples from central and eastern Europe -- enough to have had an influence at least, considering many converted to Islam (probably the biggest impact Arabs had on them) -- a fact which has led to the current religious makeup of the area today still.
> 
> So again, I say, it may not be unreasonable to suggest an Arabic origin for the Slavic "hram." Now, I am not saying that this word is necessarily from Arabic (chances are it isn't, I certainly can't say one way or the other since I have no knowledge of Slavic languages), just that it is not unreasonable to propose such a connection.



Well I stand somewhat corrected, especially as an Arab myself... I had forgotten about the conversions which continue to split the Balkans, but at the same time that also raises the questions of whether the Islamic term would have eventually flowed into the mainstream Serbo-Croatian (non-Muslim, mostly, as far as I know) to mean a general "temple'; it's not impossible, I suppose; as you say, it comes down to what the earliest (Slavic) attestation is. 

My earlier rejection was based on the (admittedly freshly-looked up) information that there was an accepted Proto-Slavic reconstruction and that it dates to before the 7th Century. If the Muslim populations of the area especially use the word "hram" then one might indeed wonder as to a link; and while we're at it, /ħ/ to /x/ seems a common enough sound shift, especially when people who easily pronounce /x/ but cannot in any way manage /ħ/ try to pronounce the latter (see Europeans saying /axmɛd/ and thinking they've got "Ahmad" spot-on, or Hebrew speakers trying to pronounce any Arabic words with /ħ/ for that matter)


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## origumi

0m1 said:


> and while we're at it, /ħ/ to /x/ seems a common enough sound shift, especially when people who easily pronounce /x/ but cannot in any way manage /ħ/ try to pronounce the latter (see Europeans saying /axmɛd/ and thinking they've got "Ahmad" spot-on, or Hebrew speakers trying to pronounce any Arabic words with /ħ/ for that matter)


Correct, in Hebrew (except of those who keep the Yemenite or similar accent) we cannot tell the difference between the two "kh", for example khaia (animal) and khaia (snake) sound the same, but we will never mix any of the two "kh" with "h".

BTW, did anybody discuss here the similarity of Arabic haram to ancient Egyptian "mer" (pyramid) or Hebrew "armon" (king's house)? The latter is assumed to be derived from the Semitic root *a-r-m which supposedly means "high", "tall".


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## Abu Rashid

> or Hebrew speakers trying to pronounce any Arabic words with /ħ/ for  that matter


I think even in Hebrew itself, pretty much all Semitic roots with /ħ/ have become /x/, the two sounds have completely merged (like ayin and ghayin also and sod and dod and zayn and dhal etc.), and have always been represented with the same grapheme anyway. But in the past they were distinct.

*Moderator note:
Off-topic discussion initiated by this post moved to this new thread.*


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## 0m1

origumi said:


> for example khaia (animal) and khaia (snake) sound the same



But those sounds both correspond to /ħ/ in Arabic, namely ħayawaan (animal) and ħayya (snake), so I'm not sure how distinct they actually are? Though actually I don't know if the latter (ħayya) appears in Standard Arabic, but it's definitely used in my dialect of Lebanese (and going a teeny-tiny bit off topic, it seems to feature in Syriac as khewyā (ܚܘܝܐ), and might have entered the coloquial therefrom; though this is a whole other can of worms (so to speak!), methinks! Maybe as a borrowing it followed different phonetic rules or something)



origumi said:


> BTW, did anybody discuss here the similarity of Arabic haram to ancient Egyptian "mer" (pyramid) or Hebrew "armon" (king's house)? The latter is assumed to be derived from the Semitic root *a-r-m which supposedly means "high", "tall".



That's an interesting point... though again we seem to be working with different roots, one A-R-M meaning lofty and the other H-R-M meaning ancient


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## sokol

0m1 said:


> Only problem is that Proto-Slavic seems to date "before the 7th century", making contact with Arabic more than highly implausible (unless we're to revise that date, or the the fact that "hram" comes from a Proto-Slavic root).


Correct, that's spot on.

Of course there was Arabic influence during the Middle Ages beginning possibly even before the 10th century - but only during Ottoman rule there was significant Arabic influence (through the means of Ottoman Turk, of course).

I cannot contribute concerning the Arabic root, or etymology, but I can assure you that Proto-Slavic was in no linguistic relation with Arabic.
Or at least, Slavic "hram" (OCS храмъ, Proto-Slavic - before liquida methathesis -  *xormъ) anyway definitely is not an Arabic loan.
This site gives the etymology as follows:



> Proto-IE: *g'hArm- Meaning: temple, castle
> Hittite: karimmi- n., karimna- c. 'Tempel' (Tischler 507); Old Indian: harmyá- n. 'large house, palace, mansion'; Slavic: ? *xormъ; Russ. meaning: храм, замок



However, this site is trying to establish the Nostratic family - so I would take this with a grain of salt. But as in this case only Indo-European roots are given I think that this might be one of the more "reasonable" entries.


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## 0m1

sokol said:


> Proto-IE: *g'hArm- Meaning: temple, castle
> Hittite: karimmi- n., karimna- c. 'Tempel' (Tischler 507); Old Indian: harmyá- n. 'large house, palace, mansion'; Slavic: ? *xormъ; Russ. meaning: храм, замок
> 
> However, this site is trying to establish the Nostratic family - so I would take this with a grain of salt. But as in this case only Indo-European roots are given I think that this might be one of the more "reasonable" entries.



Thanks, that's interesting indeed! I had tried looking around a few databses myself but could find nothing giving IE cognates for *xormъ

I can see where they're going with the Nostratic thing there, "harmyá", khorm- and haram/ħaram seem like very tempting links, at least to an untrained eye...

Even the root *g'hArm is tempting, but I imagine if there *is* any connection, it might be attributed to Proto-Semitic / Proto-Indo-European contacts... which, I think I'm right in saying, is a fairly accepted linguistic theory? There are a lot of supsicously similar IE/Semitic roots, the first that springs to mind of course being th-w-r/taur-. 

So this might be straying yet again further into the wilderness, as far as this thread is concerned, but could some reconstructed Proto-Semitic root *x-R-M be in some sort of connection with IE *g'hArm? The meanings and phonetics appear similar enough, but I don't know if the sound shifts would work... though actually, in retrospect, both "pyramid" and "holy sanctuary" seem to have developed later, from fairly abstract meanings of "forbidden" and "old", so that makes the link a fairly feeble one... 

Just to avoid confusion, I should announce that I probably withdraw a big chunk of what I just said


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## sokol

Yes, 0m1, we're indeed straying further into wilderness  - especially when we're close to anything called "Nostratic". I hesitated posting what I did above but then did with this remark; and as in this particular quote only IE relations are mentioned this looks to be more or less serious (however, I don't have the resources at hand to check them all).

But everything straying beyond IE is a little bit adventurous.


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## 0m1

Hehehe... but I wonder, surely PSmc / PIE interactions can still be valid without needing to go down Nostratic road, so to speak?  I was under the impression that it was a fairly accepted theory that there were some borrowings between Proto-Semitic and Proto-Indo-European, regardless of their lack of common origin?


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## shawnee

For what its worth the word is also to be found in modern Greek as χαράμι – waste, to fritter away one’s time or money. It is a loan word from the Turkish haram something forbidden for religious reasons, unlawful derived from Arabic. So the appearance of the word in Slavic languages could be a much later acquisition perhaps.


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## sokol

0m1 said:


> Hehehe... but I wonder, surely PSmc / PIE interactions can still be valid without needing to go down Nostratic road, so to speak?  I was under the impression that it was a fairly accepted theory that there were some borrowings between Proto-Semitic and Proto-Indo-European, regardless of their lack of common origin?


Yes, there have been plenty of speculations about loans from PSmc to PIE or vice versa (not only words, there's also speculation about some relation between ablaut and broken plurals - which I would consider highly hypothetical as both features still work differently, but that would be a topic for another thread ;-); however, I haven't really read the relevant literature so I cannot say what is accepted and what is still more or less hypothetical.

And as I don't know for sure I'd like to remain sceptic here.


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## Mechachleopteryx

هرم plural  *أَهْرام*

As a verb it means to be old, senile, or to fall apart from age, as a noun it means, "pyramid".

"The ancient thing", or "the old, falling apart thing", might be a good translation.

هرم - Wiktionary


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## Treaty

Pyramids are so old that the root _h-r-m_ might have come from a name for them rather the other way around, I wonder.


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## Abaye

Treaty said:


> Pyramids are so old that the root _h-r-m_ might have come from a name for them rather the other way around, I wonder.


Indeed, the pyramids are methuselah. Logical development.


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