# Bishop



## xav

Hi,

I've noticed that the Greek word "episkopos" (_bishop_ - original meaning : watcher) has given very different words in western european languages :

_évêque_ (previously évesque) in French
_obispo_ in Spanish
_vescovo_ in Italian
_Bischof_ in German,

and I'd like to see how it is written (and pronounced, if not evident) in as many other languages as possible. Sometimes, as in the examples above, the word will be the result of a very long evolution ; sometimes it will come from an european language. So, I'd be interested by some information about the oldness of the word and its origin, if possible (and except if evident, of course !).

Thank you !


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## Roi Marphille

In Catalan is _bisbe_.


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## Outsider

Portuguese: *bispo*



			
				xav said:
			
		

> Hi,
> 
> I've noticed that the Greek word "episkopos" (_bishop_ - original meaning : watcher) has given very different words in western european languages :
> 
> _évêque_ (previously évesque) in French
> _obispo_ in Spanish
> _vescovo_ in Italian
> _Bischof_ in German,


You may find this link interesting. See the bottom of the page.


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## cuchuflete

To make it easier for lazy folk like me...here is the etymology from Outsider's fine source:



> Provenç. evesques, avesque, vesque, bisbe ; espagn. obispo ; portug. bispo ; ital. vescovo ; du latin episcopus, le terme grec signifie proprement surveillant et provient de deux mots se traduisant par sur et examiner. L'ancien français disait evesque et vesque ; cette dernière forme provient du provençal, qui lui-même fait, bien que rarement, comme l'italien, le retranchement de la première syllabe du mot.


_op. cit._


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## diegodbs

In Basque: apezpiku
In Russian: epískop
In Finnish: piispa
In Old English: biscop (pronounced like bishop)
In Albanian: dhespot (dh is pronounced like th in English "the") This word perhaps comes from Greek "despótes" meaning lord, master.


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## Ilmo

In Swedish: biskop


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## cherine

In Arabic it's *Osqof أســقـف* , which sounds like an arabisation of the "foreign word", and I said foreign for i'm not sure which of these languages was the first source to this word.


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## Jana337

Czech: Biskup

Jana


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## amikama

Hebrew: בישוף (_bishof_) or הגמון (_hegmon_).


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## diegodbs

amikama said:
			
		

> Hebrew: בישוף (_bishof_) or הגמון (_hegmon_).


 
Hi amikama, do you know if "hegmon" comes from Greek "hegemón" meaning commander, leader, etc.? or is it a Hebrew word?
Thank you.


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## Hakro

diegodbs said:
			
		

> In Basque: apezpiku
> In Russian: epískop
> In Finnish: piispa
> In Old English: biscop (pronounced like bishop)
> In Albanian: dhespot (dh is pronounced like th in English "the") This word perhaps comes from Greek "despótes" meaning lord, master.


Pronunciation in Finnish: pee-spah


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## amikama

diegodbs said:
			
		

> Hi amikama, do you know if "hegmon" comes from Greek "hegemón" meaning commander, leader, etc.? or is it a Hebrew word?
> Thank you.


Don't know, but sounds plausible. According to my dictionary, "hegmon" is a Talmudic word, and Talmudic Hebrew used to adopt many words from Greek.


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## diegodbs

amikama said:
			
		

> Don't know, but sounds plausible. According to my dictionary, "hegmon" is a Talmudic word, and Talmudic Hebrew used to adopt many words from Greek.


 
That's interesting, though. Because if Talmudic Hebrew used to adopt many words from Greek, it is curious, to say the least, that the adopted word was "hegemón" and not "epískopos". Perhaps "hegemón" was the word used by early Christian communities in the "koiné" referring to the leader of their communities and that's the reason why Talmudic Hebrew adopted it. I am no expert at all, but it's a curious word that Hebrew "hegmon".
Thanks.


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## Danse Macabre

In french : evêque.

On a side note, the adjective is "episcopal".


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## diegodbs

Danse Macabre said:
			
		

> In french : evêque.
> 
> On a side note, the adjective is "episcopal".


 
The same in Spanish:
Obispo, and the adjective "episcopal".


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## xav

Thank you everybody, all this is very, extremely interesting !

I'd still like to know if the Polish word comes from German like the Czesh one or from Greek like the Russian one ; I bet for German (something like _biskup_), since Poland is catholic. Same thing for Serbo-croat (even if Serbia isn't catholic !!) - and I bet the Bulgarian word is near to the Russian one. 
I'd much like to know the Turkish word, too...

The Hebrew doublet _bishof_/_hegmon_ (German/probably Greek) is very interesting too : one word from the Ashkenaz community, the other one from Talmud ! Talmud writers took another word to describe that notion as the Greek episkopos or its translation in Hebrew, why ? Would it be because this translation would be _netser_, too near to _notsri_ which, I think, already meant "christian" ? (Yeshoua haNotsri). Of course, it's a catholic notion, and these rabbis in Yavneh or Babylone only had pre-orthodox (and nestorian) people around them, with (perhaps) popes and patriarchs - no hegemons anyway, or I'm wrong ? This word _hegemon_ should have been the name of a rank in Constantinople's army.

The Arabic word _osqof_ brings a question : can this word derive directly from _episcopos_ ? It reminds the Italian _vescovo_, but normally the contact between Arabic and christianism is much older than the Italian language - that wasn't catholicism, but there already were some _episkopoï_ in Palestine in the IId century, and Arab christians in the IVth one ; so the word should come directly from the Greek origin. Is there a tendency in Arabic to reduce foreign words to the three consonant system ? And if so, can the first consonant(s) of a word disappear ?

I'd be much interested by the Far-eastern languages too : China, Japan, Philipines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, Vietnam... - when the word exists, of course.

 Wonderful forum - a gift, in the English _and_ in the German sense !


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## diegodbs

xav said:
			
		

> Thank you everybody, it's very, very interesting !
> 
> I'd still like to know if the Polish word comes from German like the Czesh one or from Greek like the Russian one ; I bet for German, since Poland is catholic. Same thing for Serbo-croat (even if Serbia isn't catholic !!) - and I bet the Bulgarian word is near to the Russian one.
> I'd much like to know the Turkish word, too...
> 
> The Hebrew doublet _bishof_/_hegmon_ (German/probably Greek) is very interesting too : one word from the Ashkenaz community, the other one from Talmud ! Talmud writers took another word to describe that notion as the Greek episkopos or its translation in Hebrew, why ? Would it be because this translation would be _netser_, too near to _notsri_ which, I think, already meant "christian" ? (Yeshoua haNotsri). Of course, it's a catholic notion, and these rabbis in Yavneh or Babylone only had pre-orthodox (and nestorian) people around them, with (perhaps) popes and patriarchs - no hegemons anyway, or I'm wrong ? This word _hegemon_ should have been the name of a rank in Constantinople's army.
> 
> The Arabic word _osqof_ brings a question : can this word derive directly from episcopos ? It reminds the Italian vescovo, but normally the contact between Arabic and christianism is much older than Italian - of course, that wasn't catholicism. Is there a tendency in Arabic to reduce foreign words to the three consonant system ? And if so, can the first consonant(s) of a word disappear ?
> 
> I'd be much interested by the Far-eastern languages too : China, Japan, Philipines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, Vietnam... - when the word exists, of course.
> 
> Wonderful forum - a gift, in the English _and_ in the German sense !


 
I wouldn't be surprised if in Tagalog (the language in Philipines) the word for bishop, were very similar, if not identical, to Spanish "obispo", since the first contact with Christianism in the Philipines was through Spaniards who conquered the Philipines in 1521 and formed part of the Spanish empire until 1898.


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## diegodbs

Four more words for "bishop":

Tagalog: obispo (the Spanish word, as I guessed)

Hungarian: püspök  (ü as in French u, ö as in French eu)

Turkish: pispokos

Swahili: askafu (similar to Arabic)


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## cherine

xav said:
			
		

> The Arabic word _osqof_ brings a question : can this word derive directly from episcopos ? It reminds the Italian vescovo, but normally the contact between Arabic and christianism is much older than Italian - of course, that wasn't catholicism.


I think the word derives indeed from the Greek word. Egypt was a Hellenic "colony" for a long time, and it won't surprise me if this word has a Greek origin. Arabs entered Egypt in the 7th century, and maybe it's then that the languages (Arabic, Coptic and Greek) started to interchange. (Coptic and Greek had already done that long ago)



			
				xav said:
			
		

> Is there a tendency in Arabic to reduce foreign words to the three consonant system ? And if so, can the first consonant(s) of a word disappear ?


Not really, they most generally keep their original form : we say televesion, radio, telifon... so as you see the three consonant system is not applicable with foreign words. (you'd also be amazed by the Arabic names of the car parts, for example, taken from French and English, but that may be a subject for another thread)
As for the first consonant(s) of the words, I'm not sure they are subject to a determined rule, but more a matter of common use and the evolution of this use.


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## cherine

diegodbs said:
			
		

> Swahili: askafu (similar to Arabic)


Interesting remark. It lead me to make a quick search, and i found this :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swahili


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## amikama

About Hebrew _bishof/hegmon_:
I consulted again with my dictionary and it turns out that _hegmon_ in the sense of "bishop" is modern one, while the Talmudic _hegmon_ means "governor, ruler" (close to its original meaning in Greek, I guess). 


			
				xav said:
			
		

> Talmud writers took another word to describe that notion as the Greek episkopos or its translation in Hebrew, why ? Would it be because this translation would be _netser_, too near to _notsri_ which, I think, already meant "christian" ? (Yeshoua haNotsri).


I don't see how _netser_ (נצר) can be translation of Greek _episkopos _(none of the meanings of _netser_ is related to our discussion). Hebrew _notsri_ (נוצרי), which indeed means "christian", is derived from _Natsrat_ (נצרת), the Hebrew name of Nazareth.


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## diegodbs

cherine said:
			
		

> Interesting remark. It lead me to make a quick search, and i found this :
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swahili


 
That's true. I once bought a cheap Teach Yourself book in Swahili, just to have a slight idea of the language, and you'd be surprised to find so many words resembling Arabic. 
elfu (thousand), askari (soldier), asubuhi (morning), farasi (horse), mashariki (east), magharibi (west), bariki (bless), msaada (help),....


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## Nineu

diegodbs said:
			
		

> In Basque: apezpiku
> In Russian: epískop
> In Finnish: piispa
> In Old English: biscop (pronounced like bishop)
> In Albanian: dhespot (dh is pronounced like th in English "the") This word perhaps comes from Greek "despótes" meaning lord, master.


 
In basque: "apezpiku" and "gotzain".


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## diegodbs

Nineu said:
			
		

> In basque: "apezpiku" and "gotzain".


 
Do you know the meaning of "gotzain" (apart from bishop) or its origin?
"Apezpiku" is reasonable taking into account that Christianism reached the Basques through Latin or Castilian, I don't know. That's why I would like to know the origin of "gotzain".


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## Nineu

*Apezpiku* and *gotzain* only mean *bishop*.
This is what I think:
*Apezpiku* comes from *apeza* (priest, sacerdote, cura, prête).
*Gotzain* comes from "goi" (up, more than...) "artzain" (shepherd, pastor, berger). Goi-artzain => gotzain.


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## annettehola

In Danish it's biskop. 
Annette


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## Nizo

Nothing exciting to add here.  In *Esperanto*, _episkopo_ is the word for bishop.  Clearly from the Greek.


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## noncasper

In Vietnamese
Giám mục


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## suslik

*In Estonian:* piiskop


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## Maja

In Serbian, an  Orthodox priest is called  "*episkop/епископ*" or "*vladika/владика*". 
However we do use word "biskup" for Catholic priests at the  same cleric position in the church hierarchy.


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## alex.raf

*Persian:*
Osghof اسقف


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## robbie_SWE

In Romanian it's *episcop*, from the Greek _epískopos_.

 robbie


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## Chazzwozzer

Turkish word _piskopos _also comes from Greek _episkópos. _


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## jaxlarus

In the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, the world *επίσκοπος *found in the Greek Scriptures (New Testament) was rendered *overseer*, which is an exact translation of the world and does not carry any clergy sense, instead of the traditional *bishop*. In fact *επίσκοπος *does literally mean supervisor, overseer.

The word in Armenian also derives from the Greek one: *Եպիսկոպոս* [_yebisgobós _WA, _yepiskopós _EA]

@ Chazzwozzer: *epískopos*


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## kusurija

Lithuanian:
vyskupas [vi:skupas]


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## natkretep

xav said:


> I'd be much interested by the Far-eastern languages too : China, Japan, Philipines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, Vietnam... - when the word exists, of course.



The word in Malay is either USKUP or BISKOP. I don't know about etymology: _biskop _ could be from English, and _uskup _looks like the Arabic word.

Chinese favours combining native elements, rather than retaining the pronunciation of the source language. In Mandarin Chinese, bishop is ZHUJIAO (ZHU = head, JIAO = teaching, religion), and in Cantonese Chinese, this is CHUEKAAU.


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## jazyk

It sounds similar to Japanese shikyou 司教. Is it the same kanji/hanzi? I think it is, based on your explanation.


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## CapnPrep

jazyk said:


> It sounds similar to Japanese shikyou 司教. Is it the same kanji/hanzi? I think it is, based on your explanation.


It's 主教 in Chinese.


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