# Pupil (diverse etymologies)



## hungryplanets00

I remember, a few years ago, when a teacher mentioned that the word "niña" in Spanish can mean both "girl" and "the pupil of the eye." Ever since, I've been fascinated by a possible connection between the two. The OED has the following to say on this: 

"<Middle French pupille opening in the iris through which light pases into the eye (1314 in Old French; French pupille) and its etymon classical Latin pūpilla in same sense, transferred use of pūpilla, female child, also doll... so called on account of the small reflected image seen when looking into someone's pupil."

The key here is the "small reflected image" that symbolizes a young person. This relationship goes back to Ancient Greek. (I'm not sure which kind.) 

The OED mentions many romance languages that share this connection; I wonder if any other languages (preferably non-Indo-European or romance) show this? I've investigated Arabic, with no success; the eye part is إنسان العين and pupil (student) is طالب. 

Any info would be greatly appreciated.


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## jmx

I've found this link (in Spanish):

http://www.elcastellano.org/palabra.php?q=pupila

According to it, in Hebrew the pupil is called _eshon ayin_, "little man in the eye", and in classical Greek _kore_ meant "doll", "girl" or "pupil".


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## hungryplanets00

(jmartins, le paso este comentario en español porque usted es hispanohablante)

Le agradezco la información y la dirección web. Sólo cuestiono el significado preciso de "eshon ayin"; dice que es “hombrecillo”. ¿Y cuál es la forma para un alumno?  Quizá algún estudioso de hebreo nos pueda explicar cómo funcionan éstas.


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## ancalimon

In Turkish we call it Göz bebeği (baby of the eye)


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## hungryplanets00

ancalimon said:


> In Turkish we call it Göz bebeği (baby of the eye)



Thank you, ancalimon. 

But does "Göz bebeği" refer to the person or to the part of the eye? 

Just a note for future responders: I thank you for your information, but please clarify which English words your examples refer to. Thanks.


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## rubidou

hungryplanets00 said:


> ¿Y cuál es la forma para un alumno?  Quizá algún estudioso de hebreo nos pueda explicar cómo funcionan éstas.



I wish I could really help out, but since I'm not a native Hebrew speaker ... all I have managed to find out is this: as you mentioned, _eshon ha-ayin_ indeed means pupil (of the eye). The Hebrew word for student is _talmid_, and I never heard of it referring to the pupil of the eye. Strangely enough, the online dictionary I'm using names both _eshon ha-ayin_ and _talmid _for the latter. They might be mistaken, though - I presume they are -, or else I am.   

The Hebrew word for doll is _buba_ and might be related to Latin _pupa_ - has to be verified -, but it has nothing to do with the aforementioned words and their roots.


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## ancalimon

hungryplanets00 said:


> Thank you, ancalimon.
> 
> But does "Göz bebeği" refer to the person or to the part of the eye?
> 
> Just a note for future responders: I thank you for your information, but please clarify which English words your examples refer to. Thanks.



It refers to both the part of the eye and the person who is "someone dearest" (as in she is a doll, she is the best, she is the most loved, brightest, etc).  For example: that student has very high grades, she is good at everything. Her teacher would call the student her "Göz Bebeği". "She is my pupil: "baby of the eye"" ;  "she is my eye's baby: O benim gözümün bebeği"

http://www.seslisozluk.com/?word=g%C3%B6z+bebe%C4%9Fi

Still she needn't be a student. She or he could be the "göz bebeği" of a family as well.

All of these bring to my mind "Kor Göz" and "Kör Göz"
Ancient Turks believed that The Sun was the "Kor Göz" (everbright eye: the eye that sees everything, that is wise, bright ordered by Tengri). The moon was the "Kör Göz" (blind eye: the eye that doesn't see anything ordered by Tengri)

"Kor" is also the heart of fire. (The small black (white?) shape inside a fire) So it could be related to "pupil" as well. Maybe related to old Turkic OR (center, middle) which we today call ORTA (middle center)

And it seems like KorGöz is connected to "Gözümün Nuru : the brightness, light of my eye".  We use it as a compliment to people who we love and are close to us. "Gözümün nurusun: You are the brightness, everlasting light of my eye."


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## apmoy70

There's a similar thread, here:
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1666143


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## artion

Possibly the earliest attested connection between pupil and child is in Greek. Κόρη (kore) means  daughter, girl and pupil of the eye. 
I don't know why is that, but I can assume it's because the eyes are considered the most valuable organ. In Gr. we say "Matia mou" (my eyes) with the sense of "my beloved".


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## er targyn

In Turkic languages pupil of the eye is qaraq, qaraçıq or göz/köz qara-sı (it's not black of the eye, as can be assumed by folk etymology). Qaraq has shifted it's meaning mostly to just "eye" or polite addressing like qarağım "my dear", while qaraçıq became pupil of the eye. The base qara- is cognate to Mongol qara- "to look".


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## ancalimon

er targyn said:


> In Turkic languages pupil of the eye is qaraq, qaraçıq or göz/köz qara-sı (it's not black of the eye, as can be assumed by folk etymology). Qaraq has shifted it's meaning mostly to just "eye" or polite addressing like qarağım "my dear", while qaraçıq became pupil of the eye. The base qara- is cognate to Mongol qara- "to look".



http://www.karam.org.tr/Makaleler/790182865_bayat.pdf

The article talks about the characteristic Z>R transformation and also Oghuz>Oghur and also KIZ (Turkish daughter, girl) and how it became QHIR among Oghur (OnOgur>Hungar "Baskakov"). So also here there seems to be a relationship between daughter, eye, seeing, dearest, etc.

Article also talks about the Western immigrants invading China creating a nation there during 1100BCs and how they called rivers "ögüz" because the moon (the mother of Oguz and Ogur) was related to water (su) and Sun was related to fire. It could be because the moon reflected on rivers and could be related as well in my opinion.

Öküz (ox) and Böğür (in Tungiscic, Mongolian, Turkic) share the same Altaic root. And BÖ means "reflection"

Moon - Ox - Oghuz are connected to the same semantic roots.

According to Kafesoğlu during 2000BCs Turkic divided into two dialects and this Z>R transformation happened and true names of first Bulgar Türks are Ogur.

Turkish: Göz: eye   Gör: to see


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## er targyn

Your information is outdated. There were proto-Turkic sounds ŕ and ĺ, now lost. They mostly became r, l in Ogur and z, ş in the rest. Göz is from göŕs. Here you can find the etymologies.


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## rayloom

Although not the most common word for pupil (of the eye), but إنسان العين actually means "Human of the eye". Which does appear in early Classical Arabic literature (probably older).

Commoner words for pupil in Arabic are حدقة and بؤبؤ (Hadaqa & bu'bu' respectively).

Following a thread (and onto another thread), it appears that to this day, in bedouin Arabic, the pupil is called صبي العين "child of the eye".


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## hungryplanets00

So it seems like we have quite a treasure trove of knowledge here! Let me do some summarization: 

  In Spanish, the word “niña” refers to both the pupil of the eye and a little girl. This pattern is repeated in Ancient Greek, in which Κόρη refers to “daughter, girl and pupil of the eye” (Thanks artion for this info). The Ancient Greek word is probably the cultural/linguistic root of this exact pattern in other languages, even though Turkic and Semitic languages would be hard to explain in this context. 

  Then we have a “compound category” in which words for the pupil of the eye are composed of a word indicating a human being, together with the word for eye. For instance, the outdated/formal Arabic إنسان العين literally means “human of the eye” and refers to the pupil. Even though the concept of a “girl” is not invoked here, the word still relates the pupil to a human being. Bedouin Arabic has صبي العين, “child of the eye”, for the pupil. (Thanks to rayloom for this). (Ancient?) Hebrew has “eshon ayin”, which means “little man of the eye”. (Thanks to jmartins for this.) Turkish is in this category as well; Göz bebeği refers to “the baby of the eye.” Göz bebeği is used to refer to someone dear, in addition. (Thanks to ancalimon). 

  Thanks for all the interesting info. I would especially be interested in examples from more Asian languages, of other language families.


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## origumi

hungryplanets00 said:


> Hebrew has “eshon ayin”, which means “little man of the eye”.


The etymology of Hebrew "_ishon_ of the eye" is not clear. There are two possible spellings: _eshun_ and _ishon_, there are two Biblical idioms that contain it: "- of the eye" and "- of the night". "_little man_ of the eye" is a possible reading, but so are "_middle_ of the eye" and "_dark part_ of the eye". _eshun_ in "- of the night" may be borrowed from Akkadian _isinnu_ from Sumerian _ezen_ = time (thus something that happens in fixed time, thus festival, like Hebrew _mo`ed_), and consequently "- of the eye" is figuratively "middle of the eye".


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## Outsider

hungryplanets00 said:


> The Ancient Greek word is probably the cultural/linguistic root of this exact pattern in other languages, even though Turkic and Semitic languages would be hard to explain in this context.


All those language families have been in contact at one point or another. I don't think the possibility of a calque can be dismissed.


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## rayloom

According to this website here:
In Ge'ez (an ancient South Semitic language), a word for pupil is  "bǝnta ʕayn" (lit. daughter of the eye).


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## Aoyama

Some more food for thought .
In Chinese and in Japanese, both using the same ideograms, the word for pupil (eye) is 瞳孔  (*tong kong* in Chinese, *dô kô* in Japanese).
The first ideogram (hanzi) 瞳 has on the left the radical for eye, on the right the word "small child".
The second hanzi 孔 has on the left side the radical for child.


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## Outsider

It's interesting and a bit surprising that the same idiom can be found that far away! Perhaps the metaphor comes from the thought that pupils are _children under the watchful eye_ of teachers.


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## Ghabi

Aoyama said:


> ... the word for pupil (eye) is 瞳孔  (*tong kong* in Chinese, *dô kô* in Japanese).


Actually 瞳 and 童 are supposed to represent the very same word (tong2 "child; child in the eye=pupil"). In more ancient texts only 童 is used, with 瞳 coined later for differentiation.



> The second hanzi 孔 has on the left side the radical for child.


I think we should be cautious not to confound the idea of word and that of character. It doesn't matter whether there's a 子 zi3 in the character 孔, as what concerns us is the word kong3 "hole". As we can see, the words kong3 "hole" and zi3 "child" bear no phonetic resemblance, and are unlikely etymologically connected.


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## Aoyama

> I think we should be cautious not to confound the idea of word and that of character. It doesn't matter whether there's a 子 zi3 in the character 孔, as what concerns us is the word kong3 "hole". As we can see, the words kong3 "hole" and zi3 "child" bear no phonetic resemblance, and are unlikely etymologically connected.


I (of course) agree with the above. My point was just to show _some_ graphic resemblance. Now 孔 (kong3 -incidently the hanzi for 孔子=kongzi=Confucius 孔夫子 /kongfuzi) as said, originally means "hole" (but a rather rare usage) or "very".


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## Ghabi

My apologies if I overreacted, dear Aoyama. Since many people confound the ideas of "etymology" and "character etymology" (for the lack of a better word), I figured that I'd better point that out, even at the risk of stating the obvious (for the connoisseurs).

As to 孔, it's one of those characters whose  "character etymologies" remain controversial. As to the etymology of kong3 "hole", it may be a cognate of 空 kong1 "empty".


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## Aoyama

> As to 孔, it's one of those characters whose "character etymologies" remain controversial. As to the etymology of kong3 "hole", it may be a cognate of 空 kong1 "empty".


Right. Further discussion would be a bit off-topic here. I just wanted to show that _mutatis mutandis_ , both hanzi for "ocular pupil" had a link with eye and child ...


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## Ghabi

By the way, even more illustrative is the compound word 瞳人 (also meaning "pupil") in classical Chinese. There's even a story entitled 瞳人語 ("The Pupils Speak") in the famous collection of grotesque stories 聊齋誌異, in which the two pupils of a man, like the nose in Gogol's well-known story, run away from the ocular chambers!


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## Aoyama

> By the way, even more illustrative is the compound word 瞳人 (also meaning "pupil") in classical Chinese.


Absolutely. For those not familiar with Chinese the simple hanzi 人 (ren/jen) means "person/man/human". So eye pupil + person = pupil (student).


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## Ghabi

Aoyama said:


> So eye pupil + person = pupil (student).


No no, 瞳人 means "pupil of the eye", not "student". I didn't write carefully, sorry.


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## Aoyama

Really ? Well, you should know better than I do.
I thought there could be a double entendre there ...
Anyway, it shows that the "logic" in naming this part of the body is similar in Chinese to western languages.


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