# Persian آلاو



## desi4life

Is this word (as defined by Hayyim) a cognate of Hindi _alāw_ "bonfire" (< Sanskrit _alāta_ as shown by Turner) or is it a loanword?

Thanks


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## CyrusSH

Persian *alo* means flame, I think it is from Proto-IE _*ol-__:

*Proto-IE: *ol-*
Meaning: to burn, to flame
Baltic: *ōl-u-, *ūl-u- adj.
Germanic: *al-a- (~ *al-ō-) vb.
Latin: adoleō, -uī (/-ēvī), adultum, adolēre 'благоухать; курить (благовониями); возжигать; уничтожать огнем, сжигать'
Russ. meaning: гореть, пылать_

Old English *āl* (fire): al - Wiktionary


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## desi4life

Shouldn't the Persian form be with an /r/ instead of /l/ then, since Old Iranian didn't have /l/?


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## Treaty

Is آلاو attested in Persian texts outside India? Dehkhoda's references are all Indian dictionaries (Borhan, Jahangiri and Rashidi). His examples also belong to poems of Timurid era, with at least on lived in India. Can it be a loanword from Indian or is it also found in other Iranian languages?


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## PersoLatin

This is from this site, sorry about the layout, I still can't get that right here:


> نهی  که در اصل واژه هندو و ایرانی از ریشه نه  هست و هیچ ربطی به عربی ندارد.  شعله  واژه هندو ایرانی است و ربطی  به زبان عربی ندارد و درست آن شولا  است. مشعل  بصورت عربی شده از  شعله ساخته شده – شُله – سولا – به معنی زبانه آتش و خورشید هم هست.
> *
> واژه دیگری که خیلی ها آن را عربی تصور می کنند هاله است.
> 
> هاله کلمه است که هیچ ارتباطی به زبان عربی ندارد این کلمه فارسی است و با ألو ALO از یک ریشه است الو یعنی آتش – شعله – آتش زدن در یونانی نیز به آتش الو می گویند. در تمام خراسان و قهستان و افغانستان به آتش  ألو  می گویند ألو  در زبان هندی و سانسکریت هم معنی گرم کردن و آتش روشن کردن می دهد و مشخص می شود که ألو واژه ای هند و ایرانی است .
> 
> اگر سفرنامه ابن بتوته (بطوطه ) را بخوانید در آنجایی که به تماشای سوزاندن مرده ها در دهلی می رود یک زن که می خواهد خود را روی جنازه شوهرش بیاندازد تا با آتش افروخته او نیز به همراه شوهر بمیرد مردم جلو آتش پرده ای می گیرند که از شعله آتش نترسد او فریاد می زند ” مرا از الو نترسانید  مرا از الو نترسانید من از الو نمی ترسم ” الو در اینجا همان شعله آتش است دیکشنری ابی نیز الو را شعله ترجمه کرده  flame*



There's also reference to the meaning of 'Holocaust' and how the 'Holo-' part means 'alo/fire', as opposed to its Greek meaning 'whole', you can read that for yourself.


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## CyrusSH

desi4life said:


> Shouldn't the Persian form be with an /r/ instead of /l/ then, since Old Iranian didn't have /l/?



Yes but in Middle Persian "l" sound exists, like "lap" (lip), "listan" (lick), ...


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## CyrusSH

Treaty said:


> Is آلاو attested in Persian texts outside India? Dehkhoda's references are all Indian dictionaries (Borhan, Jahangiri and Rashidi). His examples also belong to poems of Timurid era, with at least on lived in India. Can it be a loanword from Indian or is it also found in other Iranian languages?


Neither Hindi _alāw_ has Indian origin nor Turkish _alev_ has Turkic origin, both of them just mean "flame" and have Persian origin. Kurdish _alav_ has probably the same Iranian origin.


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## desi4life

CyrusSH said:


> Neither Hindi _alāw_ has Indian origin nor Turkish _alev_ has Turkic origin, both of them just mean "flame" and have Persian origin. Kurdish _alav_ has probably the same Iranian origin.



What's your source for the origin claim?

Hayyim lists a few different spellings: آلاو, الاو, الو, علو

Hayyim apparently considers it a Turkish word as indicated here: علو


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## desi4life

Treaty said:


> Is آلاو attested in Persian texts outside India? Dehkhoda's references are all Indian dictionaries (Borhan, Jahangiri and Rashidi). His examples also belong to poems of Timurid era, with at least on lived in India. Can it be a loanword from Indian or is it also found in other Iranian languages?



Is this word used in Modern Persian? I thought it was since it's listed by Hayyim.


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## Radik Safin

desi4life said:


> Hayyim apparently considers it a Turkish word as indicated here: علو



Turkish  «alev» - flame, tongue of flame.
Azerbaijani «alov» - flame, fire.

Bashkir "ялҡын" (yalqin) - flame.


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## CyrusSH

Treaty said:


> Is آلاو attested in Persian texts outside India? Dehkhoda's references are all Indian dictionaries (Borhan, Jahangiri and Rashidi). His examples also belong to poems of Timurid era, with at least on lived in India. Can it be a loanword from Indian or is it also found in other Iranian languages?


 معنی آلاوه | فرهنگ فارسی عمید



> (اسم) ‹آلاو، الاو› شعلۀ آتش؛ زبانۀ آتش؛ الو: ◻︎ ز چشمان آن‌قدر اخگر ببارم / که گیتی سربه‌سر آلاوه گیرد (باباطاهر: لغت‌نامه: آلاوه).


Baba Tahir lived in 11th-century.


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## fdb

CyrusSH said:


> Baba Tahir lived in 11th-century.



If he existed at all. The poems ascribed to him are of doubtful authenticity.


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## CyrusSH

fdb said:


> If he existed at all. The poems ascribed to him are of doubtful authenticity.



Existed or not, the important point is that  Baba Tahir's full hand-written manuscript which is already in Konya, dates back before Timurid era.


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## desi4life

CyrusSH said:


> Existed or not, the important point is that  Baba Tahir's full hand-written manuscript which is already in Konya, dates back before Timurid era.



If it's of doubtful authenticity, how can you be certain that it dates back before the Timurid era?


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## fdb

desi4life said:


> Is this word (as defined by Hayyim) a cognate of Hindi _alāw_ "bonfire" (< Sanskrit _alāta_ as shown by Turner) or is it a loanword?



To tie the previous discussion together:

1)    Persian ālāw is not reliably attested before the Timurid period. This makes it unlikely (though not perhaps impossible) that it is an inherited Iranian word.

2)    Indo-European *al (or *h2el, or however you want to reconstruct it) ought to be *ar, not *al in Iranian. And anyway, how do you explain the second syllable?

3)    alev “flame” is well known in Turkic languages, but it does not look like a genuine Turkish word (no vowel harmony). So presumably borrowed from somewhere.

4)    Turner’s derivation of Hindi alāw from Skr alāta is phonologically unproblematic, but it is not perhaps the only possibility.

Now just as a hypothesis: Pashto alwoy-, al(w)ey- means “to scorch, singe, roast”. It might be from Iranian *dau- (Skt dav-) “to burn”, with preverb ā- (thus Cheung). The shift of d > l is specific to Pashto and a few other Eastern Iranian languages (Bactrian, some dialects of Sogdian and a few others). Maybe the “flame” word was borrowed from an Eastern Iranian language into Turkish, and thence to Western Iranian and Indo-Aryan?


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## CyrusSH

It is good to mention it:

Alaz - Wikipedia 



> Alaz (Turkish: Alaz, Azerbaijanese: Alaz) is god of fire in Turkic mythology. Also known as Alas-Batyr[1] or sometimes Alaz Khan. He is an important deity in folk beliefs and son of Kayra.
> 
> * Etymology*
> 
> Turkish tradition maintained that it was related to Persian words connected to blaze (Alaw, Alav, Alev), which in turn was thought of as related to flames.


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