# Old Norse fíll "elephant"



## CyrusSH

I was searching for Akkadian-origin words in Persian that I found _pil_ "elephant", by considering Germanic sound changes, I thought it can be interesting that _fil_ means the same in Germanic.

What do you know about this Old Norse word?


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## berndf

There is no known or reconstructable native Germanic word for elephant, which is hardly surprising. If there was any pre-Grimm loan it was lost. All Germanic forms are post-Grimm loans from Greek, possibly via Latin. The conflation of meanings _elephant_ and _camel_ suggests this word was adopted without actual exposure to the animals. Older forms with _b_ (Gothic) or _p _(Old English), i.e. without spirantisation of Greek phi/Latin ph, suggest early loans. The OHG form with_ f _and all modern forms spelled _f_ or _ph_ and pronounced /f/ are later re-imports.


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## Treaty

CyrusSH said:


> I thought it can be interesting that _fil_ means the same in Germanic.


Except, it doesn't mean the same in Germanic. The Old Norse _fíll _is an Arabic loan.


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## fdb

Treaty said:


> Except, it doesn't mean the same in Germanic. The Old Norse _fíll _is an Arabic loan.



I wonder who wrote that article.


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## CyrusSH

Treaty said:


> Except, it doesn't mean the same in Germanic. The Old Norse _fíll _is an Arabic loan.



Who were these Arabs who lived in Southern Russia?! In Ossetian it is also _pil_: пыл - Wiktionary


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## fdb

Not Arabs, Vikings (Rus). The word was borrowed by way of the ivory trade.

Iron пыл, Digor пил has a (historically) short vowel, showing that it is a borrowing from one of the adjacent (Caucasian or Turkic) languages.


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## Treaty

fdb said:


> I wonder who wrote that article.


François De Blois, 1998


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## berndf

Treaty said:


> François De Blois, 1998


He knows. Look at the initials.


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## Treaty

Oh, stupid me.


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## CyrusSH

fdb said:


> Not Arabs, Vikings (Rus). The word was borrowed by way of the ivory trade.



What was this ivory trade route? through which countries?  

Of course we know ivories were traded in the ancient times but not elephants, even in modern times many people don't know that some ivory products relate to elephants, as they don't know chocolate relates to a Theobroma plant.


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## berndf

The main trade route to the Byzantine empire were the Dnieper and Vistula routes to the Back sea and the main route to the Abbaside Empire was the Volga route to the Caspian Sea. Viking trade routes where practically always along to water ways, seas, lakes and rivers. You can be sure they knew where ivory came from. They were very skilled and successful traders.


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## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> There is no known or reconstructable native Germanic word for elephant, which is hardly surprising. If there was any pre-Grimm loan it was lost. All Germanic forms are post-Grimm loans from Greek, possibly via Latin. The conflation of meanings _elephant_ and _camel_ suggests this word was adopted without actual exposure to the animals. Older forms with _b_ (Gothic) or _p _(Old English), i.e. without spirantisation of Greek phi/Latin ph, suggest early loans. The OHG form with_ f _and all modern forms spelled _f_ or _ph_ and pronounced /f/ are later re-imports.



I read in the web that Old Norse _ulfaldi_ and _fill_ are related to Gothic _ulfila_ "little wolf?", is it true?


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## ahvalj

CyrusSH said:


> I read in the web that Old Norse _ulfaldi_ and _fill_ are related to Gothic _ulfila_ "little wolf?", is it true?


For the former, not: Wiktionary, the free dictionary (enter from here since WordReference doesn't allow Gothic letters in urls: ulbandus - Wiktionary).


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> Gothic _ulfila_


That is an incorrect (or let's say _imprecise_) contemporary Latinisation. _Little wolf_ in Gothic is _wulfila_.


ahvalj said:


> WordReference doesn't allow Gothic


There is a well established scientific transcription of the Gothic alphabet. I think that will do fine here. If you have trouble with _þ_ and _ƕ_, feel free to transcribe them _th_ and _hw_ (or _hv_), respectively.


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## ahvalj

berndf said:


> That is an incorrect (or let's say _imprecise_) contemporary Latinisation. _Little wolf_ in Gothic is _wulfila_.
> 
> There is a well established scientific transcription of the Gothic alphabet. I think that will do fine here. If you have trouble with _þ_ and _ƕ_, feel free to transcribe them _th_ and _hw_ (or _hv_), respectively.


I mean that the full articles in Wiktionary have Gothic (and many other, by the way) letters in their urls. When I insert them in the posts, they get cut (like in #13). Hence I have to link to the latinized version, where the visitor is suggested to press the blue text in "Romanization of ".

P. S. It turns out that this is the problem not only with urls. The letters in the post have been deleted as well. I recall the same with Lydian.


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## desi4life

Treaty said:


> Except, it doesn't mean the same in Germanic. The Old Norse _fíll _is an Arabic loan.



Which of the two pronunciations is more prevalent in classical and modern Persian: _pīl _or _fīl_?


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## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> The main trade route to the Byzantine empire were the Dnieper and Vistula routes to the Back sea and the main route to the Abbaside Empire was the Volga route to the Caspian Sea. Viking trade routes where practically always along to water ways, seas, lakes and rivers. You can be sure they knew where ivory came from. They were very skilled and successful traders.



In the early Islamic period, from Spain to Central Asia, the main regions which were not under control of Arabs, were the regions around the Black sea and the Caspian sea, so it seems to be clear that Vikings didn't get this word from Arabs.


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## CyrusSH

desi4life said:


> Which of the two pronunciations is more prevalent in classical and modern Persian: _pīl _or _fīl_?



In modern Persian both of them are used but in classical Persian texts, Arabic _fil_ had a very rare usage, you can't find this word in Shahnameh,  works of Nizami, ...


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> In the early Islamic period, from Spain to Central Asia, the main regions which were not under control of Arabs, were the regions around the Black sea and the Caspian sea, so it seems to be clear that Vikings didn't get this word from Arabs.


I said that the trade routes to the Abasside Empire ran through the Caspian sea and not that Vikings traded ivory in the Caspian sea. Besides, Abasside rule did extend to the Caspian sea.

In addition, Arabic speaking traders and diplomats also used the Volga route were they had contact with Vikings. The most famous account of such contacts is that of Ahmad ibn Fadlan. I am sure you must have heard of him.


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## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> I said that the trade routes to the Abasside Empire ran through the Caspian sea and not that Vikings traded ivory in the Caspian sea. Besides, Abasside rule did extend to the Caspian sea.
> 
> In addition, Arabic speaking traders and diplomats also used the Volga route were they had contact with Vikings. The most famous account of such contacts is that of Ahmad ibn Fadlan. I am sure you must have heard of him.



If it was a direct loanword from Arabic, then it should be similar to Spanish _alfil_.


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> If it was a direct loanword from Arabic, then it should be similar to Spanish _alfil_.


Why?


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## CyrusSH

For the same reason that it is _alcohol_, not _cohol_, even early Persians didn't know the name of god in Islam is not _allah_.


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## Treaty

This is a reason for _*could* [have] be[en.]_, not for _*should* be_. There are plenty of Arabic loans in European languages without the article _al-._


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## CyrusSH

Treaty said:


> This is a reason for _*could* [have] be[en.]_, not for _*should* be_. There are plenty of Arabic loans in European languages without the particle _al-._[/en]



Yes but  through an intermediary language like Persian and Turkish.


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## Ihsiin

CyrusSH said:


> For the same reason that it is _alcohol_, not _cohol_, even early Persians didn't know the name of god in Islam is not _allah_.



What is the name of God in Islam?
Also, can you please provide me with an example or two of a word loaned directly from Arabic to a Germanic language with the definite article _al_? Thank you.


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> For the same reason that it is _alcohol_, not _cohol_, even early Persians didn't know the name of god in Islam is not _allah_.


Only a minority (Haven't counted them but I would guess something like 20%) of Arabic loans into European languages include the definite article.


CyrusSH said:


> Yes but through an intermediary language like Persian and Turkish.


Counter examples are _sugar_ and the Spanish river _Guadalquivir _or Spanish _hasta_. The word for sugar is in Spanish with _a-_ but in Italian/medieval Latin (from where the English word is derived) without _a-_. So, no there is no reliable by that would allow you to say a loan without definite article can't be direct.


Ihsiin said:


> What is the name of God in Islam?


He is referring to the origin _Allah_ =  _Al Ilah_. But of course this argument it wrong. _Allah _had developed into a proper name already within Arabic.


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## CyrusSH

Ihsiin said:


> What is the name of God in Islam?



It is _ilah_, the interesting point is that Turkish Muslims still use _allah_, for example they say _allah'a şükür_ "Thank God" but in Persian we say _ilahi šokr_.



Ihsiin said:


> Also, can you please provide me with an example or two of a word loaned directly from Arabic to a Germanic language with the definite article _al_? Thank you.



For example another animal: _algazel_ algazel - Wiktionary


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## Ihsiin

CyrusSH said:


> It is _ilah_, the interesting point is that Turkish Muslims still use _allah_, for example they say _allah'a şükür_ "Thank God" but in Persian we say _ilahi šokr_.



The word _ilāh _means 'deity', not 'God'. It's not "the name of God in Islam" because it's indefinite. The word _ilāhī _means 'my god' in Arabic and is not a name either.



> For example another animal: _algazel_ algazel - Wiktionary



Do you believe that this is a direct loan from Arabic to English, and not via Spanish for example? Do you also believe that the more common word 'gazelle' doesn't come from Arabic, since it doesn't have the prefixed _al_?


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## berndf

Ihsiin said:


> The word _ilāh _means 'deity', not 'God'. It's not "the name of God in Islam" because it's indefinite. The word _ilāhī _means 'my god'


Right. The fact that a common noun out of which a name has developed continues to exist as a common noun cannot be taken to mean it is not a proper name. Of course _Bernhard_ is a proper name even though both _bear_ and _heart_ exist as common nouns.


CyrusSH said:


> For example another animal: _algazel_ algazel - Wiktionary


Good example that it is not predictable whether an Arabic word is loaned with or without the definite article as both versions exist and there is no reason to assume that Turkish or Persian were involved.


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## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> Only a minority (Haven't counted them but I would guess something like 20%) of Arabic loans into European languages include the definite article.



By considering this fact that not more than 20% of Arabic loans into European languages could be directly from Arabic and most of them were first entered into Spanish and then other European languages.



> Counter examples are _sugar_ and the Spanish river _Guadalquivir _or Spanish _hasta_. The word for sugar is in Spanish with a but in Italian/medieval Latin (from where the English word is derived) without _a-_. So, no there is no reliable by that would allow you to say a loan without definite article can't be direct.



About _sugar_ I think the oldest known form in the European languages is Spanish _azúcar_: azúcar - Wiktionary


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> About _sugar_ I think the oldest known form in the European languages is Spanish _azúcar_: azúcar - Wiktionary


Here is what I said about _azúcar_:


berndf said:


> The word for sugar is in Spanish with _a-_ but in Italian/medieval Latin (from where the English word is derived) without _a-_


_Gazelle_ is not the only word that was loaned more than once independently.

The bottom line of all of this is that you can't exclude anything based on whether an Arabic loan is with or without a definite article. Both are possible.


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## CyrusSH

Ihsiin said:


> The word _ilāh _means 'deity', not 'God'. It's not "the name of God in Islam" because it's indefinite. The word _ilāhī _means 'my god' in Arabic and is not a name either.



I meant the same thing, those who don't know anything about Arabic think that Allah means both "God" and "deity", of course it was better that I said "the word for God".



> Do you believe that this is a direct loan from Arabic to English, and not via Spanish for example? Do you also believe that the more common word 'gazelle' doesn't come from Arabic, since it doesn't have the prefixed _al_?



It actually depends on the people who borrow Arabic words, if they know _al_ is not part of the word then it is possible that they drop it, Germanic people were not among these people, unless you believe in early contacts between Germanic and Semitic peoples.


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> It actually depends on the people who borrow Arabic words, if they know _al_ is not part of the word then it is possible that they drop it, Germanic people were not among these people, unless you believe in early contacts between Germanic and Semitic peoples.


The Viking traders did have contact with Arab traders. That is how the word came into Old Norse and there is nothing whatsoever strange with a loan with or without the definite article.


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