# Etymology of "apple"



## Dhira Simha

The etymology of apple has always been somewhat obscure. Pokorny (1959) noted that it was not possible to attain a single form of vocalization so he gave the following reconstructed Indo-European (IE) variants: *ābel- (*ăbel), *ābol- (*ăbol), *abel- (Pokorny, 1959, 1-2). He also believed that these forms were related by primitive kinship and were not the result of borrowing ("Obgleich eine einheitliche Grundform nicht ansetzbar ist, wird es sich  beiden lat. kelt. germ. bsl. Formen nur um Urverwandtschaft und kaum um  Entlehnung handeln."). This initial reconstruction has not undergone any significant change. There two current versions *ābōl and its lyrengeal variant *H2ebōl (Blažek 1995).

The principal difficulty here is the fact that this word is only attested in Balto-Slavonic, Germanic and some Celtic languages:

Old Eng. æppel, Old Frisian and Dutch appel, Old Norse eple, Old High German (O.H.G.) apful, Germ. Apfel, Gaulish avallo fruit, Old Irish ubull, Lithuanian obuolys, Russian (Rus.) jabloko, Bulgarian (Bulg.) jablo, abĕlka, jabĕlka, Slovenian (Slov.) jáblo, jábolko, Czech (Cz.) jablko, (Old Czech jablo), Slovakian (Sk.) jablko, Polish (Pol.) jabłko, Old Prussian (O.Prus.) woble (Vasmer, 1964 -1973; Trubachev, 1974; Blažek, 1995).

From the above cognates it is obvious that only the Balto-Slavonic forms closely correspond to the reconstructed IE base but, generally, this list is nothing more than a number of related words without any credible etymology to explain their origin and semantics.

Perhaps the most daring etymology was proposed by Theo Vennemann (1998) in his article _Andromeda and the Apples of the Hesperides_ where Vennemann attempted to link apple to Semitic, particularly, the South-Eastern Semitic languages of Ethiopia. After an introduction, sketching his the theory regarding the languages of prehistoric Europe north of the Pyrenees and the Alps, Vennemann proposed that the reconstructed IE *abal could be cognate with the modern Ethiopic Ge'ez 'abāl, Tigrè habāl, Tigrinya 'abal, Amharic abal and Gurage abal, allegedly meaning genitals. According to him, this word was used to mean apple in Semitic and it was borrowed into Germanic with this meaning. The meaning apple was subsequently lost in all Semitic languages except in the named Ethiopic ones where it was replaced, due to “an awkward metaphoric shift”, by a new one - genitals, via the association of the external form of apples with testicles.

What do you think of this?  Is  "apple"  a Semitic loan?

*References:*
Julius Pokorny, Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (French & European Publications, 1959).
Václav Blažek, "Indo - European "apple(s)", _Sborník prací Filosofické fakulty Brněnské university_ 44 (1995), pp. 15-20.
Max Vasmer, Etimologicheskiy slovar' russkogo yazyka (Russian Etymological Dictionary) Translated from German. Vol.1-4 (Moscow: Progress, 1964 -1973).
O.N. Trubachev, Etimologicheskiy Slovar' Slavyanskikh yazykov. Praslavyanskiy leksicheskiy fond (Etymological Dictionary of Slavonic Languages. Pra-Slavonic lexical fund) (Moscow: Nauka, 1974).
Vennemann, Theo, "Andromeda and the Apples of the Hesperides", in Karlene Jones-Bley and Angela Della Volpe and Miriam Robbins Dexter and Martin E. Huld, ed., _Proceedings of the Ninth Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference, Los Angeles, May 23, 24, 1997 (Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph Series 28)_ (Washington, D.C.: Institute for the Study of Man, 1998), pp. 1-68. [Reprinted as chapter 18 in: Theo Vennemann, Europa Vasconica - Europa Semitica, ed. by Patrizia Noel Aziz Hanna (Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs, 138), Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2003.]


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## berndf

You probably know that this is part of a broader scheme. Vennemann tries to prove that there has been important Semitic on languages in the North Sea area about 300 BC as a consequence of alleged Punic colonization. E.g. he also regards Germanic strong verbs as a consequence of Semitic influence. The general reception by his peers has been "sympathetically dismissive": While most of his claims are regarded as insufficiently founded, his attempt to re-evalute the history of European civilization beyond traditional beliefs should be applauded (Source, p.35).


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## aeneas dardanus

I once heard a highly primitive native S. American "Indian" child replying to the church missionary that their word for apple is {*A-pel-le-bit* }


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## Dhira Simha

I read all major works of Vennemann and, while I can not agree with many of his etymologies, I value his originality.  Still, any bright ideas on the origin of "apple"? Do you think that  *ābel- (*ăbel) is an inherited IE  word or a loan? Is you think that it is a loan, where from?


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## Dhira Simha

Please give a place, date, native language of the S. American "Indian" child and other references.


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## eamp

Well, lets compare the likelihood of Indo-European or Semitic Origin of the word.

Assumptions that need to be true for an IE origin:
*A word of the shape *abVl- existed in IE meaning apple. Support for that are words in three (though neighboring) branches showing regular correspondence and all meaning apple.

For Semitic Origin:
*A word of comparable shape existed in Proto Semitic. Unproven, only survives in one branch.
*It meant apple. Pure guess, not attested.
*It was preserved in Phoenician. Pure guess, not attested.
*Phoenicians made their way north and had intense contacts with northern European populations passing many words to them. Apparently they were also highly involved in cultivating apples so that their word for it replaced the native one in those languages. There is no good evidence for any of that. 

So what would you judge more likely?


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## aeneas dardanus

Dhira Simha said:


> Please give a place, date, native language of the S. American "Indian" child and other references.


It was a TV documentary I saw some 25 years ago, but by curiosity it stuck in my mind for so long. But I remember how they looked, and with some luck, I might find out who they are/where.


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## fdb

Geʻez _ʼab__āl_ means “flesh, piece of flesh, member of body, member (of a community), limb, genitals, self, person” (thus Leslau 1989; basically following Dillmann 1865). Neither in Geʻez nor in other Ethiopic languages does it mean “apple”, or indeed any fruit. The semantic development flesh > genitals seems straightforward, so there is no reason to postulate a supposed older meaning “apple”.


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## Dhira Simha

fdb said:


> Geʻez _ʼab__āl_ means “flesh, piece of flesh, member of body, member (of a community), limb, genitals, self, person” (thus Leslau 1989;


 I have checked the Leslau ((Leslau, 1973) dictionary but this word can mean ‘genitals’  only in the expression  abalä zär where zär means ‘seed, sperm’  and is directly related to the Hebrew zera ‘seed, sperm’, so abalä zär may be explained as ‘sperm, seed member’. It appears to be a rather recent calque of one of the euphemisms for genitals (cp. the English ‘member’ in the sense ‘penis’). Please correct me if I am wrong.


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## Dhira Simha

eamp said:


> Well, lets compare the likelihood of Indo-European or Semitic Origin of the word.
> 
> Assumptions that need to be true for an IE origin:
> *A word of the shape *abVl- existed in IE meaning apple. Support for that are words in three (though neighboring) branches showing regular correspondence and all meaning apple.


There are several issues with this word. 1) It is only attested in the 'Nothern'  branch of IE. 2) This it is  the only  IE (reconstructed) root  starting with _*ab-*_ in Pokorny dictionary if we do not count the controversial _*ab-*_ "water" which is not recognised by all (At least it  missing in Watkins dictionary). As you know, the presumed /b/ in IE  is generally rather controversial. 3) Pokorny could not arrive to a single vocalic form so in order to  cater for all attested initial and medial vowels he had to posit  three forms *ā̆bel-, ā̆bōl-, abel-*. This  looks like jiggling to me. Watkins has it as _*ab(el)*_ which can hardly explain the range of initial  vowels from /u/ to /ya/ in various attested languages.


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## Sulius

Dhira Simha said:


> I have checked the Leslau ((Leslau, 1973) dictionary but this word can mean ‘genitals’ but only in the expression abalä zär where zär means ‘seed, sperm’ and is directly related to the Hebrew zera ‘seed, sperm’, so abalä zär may be explained as ‘sperm, seed member’. It appears to be a rather recent calque of one of the euphemisms for genitals (cp. the English ‘member’ in the sense ‘penis’). Please correct me if I am wrong.



Perhaps, it is more viable to look into the 'semitic' Abal in correlation with with Ball/Bol-e which indicates a shape. Zar- indicates a spheric shape in a South Eastern Language instead of a by-product of such shape (semen). Likewise, Molaris/Mollar/Mole (as in the bodily spherical growth), appear to originate from Molaris/Mill that many associate with grinding. However, the shape of the Mola (mill's stone) is smooth and not comb carved that could in that case denominated grinding. One can make a case that Mola expresses the circular move of the animals used to thrash the wheat in the old times, later replaced by a stone-mill technology.

If I recall correctly, apples originate from South East Europe (Carpathian/Illyricum) in ancient times, making their way to India about 16 century and back in Europe/England and Americas a bit later. Hence, we find a somehow consistent naming convention in most languages, primarily because of the recent common origine of this fruit into most of them.


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## Dhira Simha

Sulius said:


> Perhaps, it is more viable to look into the 'semitic' Abal in correlation with with Ball/Bol-e which indicates a shape.


Thank you, Sulius,  when you say "Ball/Bol-e"  you presumably refer to Germanic, I know that  it is believed to come from a hypothetical root "from PIE root *bhel- (2) "to blow, inflate, swell"  which I do not accept.  I would rather connect it with the attested Skr. bal "to whirl round in a circle". There is another Skr. word, however:   bala   which generally has a meaning "power, strength" byt can mean also "shape; body; semen virile". However I doubt that we can draw analogies  between Skr. and Semitic.  Also what do you mean by "a South Eastern Language"?

As for the origin of apples, I do not know where  you got the information about South East Europe (Carpathian/Illyricum). This is interesting. Can you give a source?  As far as I know, the apple tree (Malus domestica)  is believed to have originated from Central Asia (Harris et al., 2002; Juniper, 2007).


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## Dhira Simha

Sulius said:


> If I recall correctly, apples originate from South East Europe (Carpathian/Illyricum) in ancient times, making their way to India about 16 century and back in Europe/England and Americas a bit later. Hence, we find a somehow consistent naming convention in most languages, primarily because of the recent common origine of this fruit into most of them.



Where did you get it?  Modern genetic research (i.e. Stephen A. Harris and Julian P. Robinson and Barrie E. Juniper, "Genetic clues to the origin of the apple", TRENDS in Genetics 18 (2002), pp. 446-430.) confirms that its wild ancestors are species of Malus sieversii found in the mountains of Central Asia in southern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Xinjiang, China. It is suggested that wild horses originating from the same area may have played an important part in distributing the wild apple tree seeds over vast territories. The Malus sieversii apple could have been spread further into Middle East and Europe with caravans via the Silk Road. Apple cultivation probably started in Ferghana Valley which is considered one of the earliest centers of Neolithic agriculture. The apple tree spread from this area mixing with other wild varieties and became the base stock of the modern cultivars.

It is quite reasonable to presuppose that the areas of today's Iran, Afghanistan and North-Eastern India - where Indo-Aryans were located - were quite suitable for apple cultivation and that it would be reflected in their language and culture. Also, being a temperate climate tree, apple would not have been very suitable for the hot and arid conditions of the Arab peninsula and Ethiopia. There are modern, specially created varieties of apple which are now cultivated in Africa but in Ethiopia apples are still a luxury imported fruit.

However, you are right by saying that  it appears to be a rather recent  addition to agriculture and can hardly be  posited for a IE period. This, combined with other linguistic issues,  seriously weakens the presumed IE  origin of this word.


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## Sulius

Dhira Simha said:


> Thank you, Sulius, when you say "Ball/Bol-e" you presumably refer to Germanic, I know that it is believed to come from a hypothetical root "from PIE root *bhel- (2) "to blow, inflate, swell" which I do not accept. I would rather connect it with the attested Skr. bal "to whirl round in a circle". There is another Skr. word, however: bala which generally has a meaning "power, strength" byt can mean also "shape; body; semen virile". However I doubt that we can draw analogies between Skr. and Semitic. Also what do you mean by "a South Eastern Language"?
> 
> As for the origin of apples, I do not know where you got the information about South East Europe (Carpathian/Illyricum). This is interesting. Can you give a source? As far as I know, the apple tree (Malus domestica) is believed to have originated from Central Asia (Harris et al., 2002; Juniper, 2007).


 

I was referring simply to the English (Francais or Allemande mal prononce - if you like) word "ball" (like in basketball, but also in human reference). Bala/ Ball/Bole mean the same thing and have a common conotation with the words (bal, b:hel, ball, bale, abal) you have illustrated your last three posts with. 'Zar' may have the same meaning but I am not sure whether it is a cognate etymologically. I commented on it to illustrate a (your) point. 

What I am trying to say here, is that the semitic counterparties for the  "apple" word you came up with, relate to a different etimon. However, it is interesting to know that this root traces back to ... Illirycum. Additionally, if it was possible to prove a B-> M or M-> B case of rhotacism, a language conversion to another may explain Ball from Mole/Mollar. (Keep in mind that ball is an American Indian invention). In short, the word is definitely not one with an Indian origin. That leaves us with the European one.

A source on the origin of the apple is "Apples production technology and economics" Kanwar, 1987 . The book is quoted thoroughly by agriculture buletins, international forums and British Encyclopedia on Indian forestry. There are more details than the ones I quoted, but none depicts East Asia (Khazakstan) as a source. China on the other hand is not part of our etymological discussion. 







,


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## Dhira Simha

Thank you for the reference "Apples production technology and economics" Kanwar, 1987. However I would not connect Mole/Mollar here. The function of these teeth is to grind the food  and  I would rather  connect them with LAT mola "mill, millstone," related to molere "to grind," from PIE *mele-, *mel- "to crush, grind," and Slavonic molot'/meliti  and Skr. mṝ "to grind, smash". It has nothing to do with round shape.


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## berndf

Dhira Simha said:


> I read all major works of Vennemann and, while I can not agree with many of his etymologies, I value his originality.


Everyone seems to agree on this. 


Dhira Simha said:


> Still, any bright ideas on the origin of "apple"? Do you think that  *ābel- (*ăbel) is an inherited IE  word or a loan? Is you think that it is a loan, where from?


Without a Canaanite cognate, the explanation how this word should have arrived in Germanic languages and only there through alleged Punic colonization sounds very remote. He would need another explanation how a South-Semitic word should have traveled to the shores of the North Sea without leaving traces in other European languages. Does he offer any?


Dhira Simha said:


> The principal difficulty here is the fact that this word is only attested in Balto-Slavonic, Germanic and some Celtic languages:
> 
> Old Eng. æppel, Old Frisian and Dutch appel, Old Norse eple, Old High German (O.H.G.) apful, Germ. Apfel, Gaulish avallo fruit, Old Irish ubull, Lithuanian obuolys, Russian (Rus.) jabloko, Bulgarian (Bulg.) jablo, abĕlka, jabĕlka, Slovenian (Slov.) jáblo, jábolko, Czech (Cz.) jablko, (Old Czech jablo), Slovakian (Sk.) jablko, Polish (Pol.) jabłko, Old Prussian (O.Prus.) woble (Vasmer, 1964 -1973; Trubachev, 1974; Blažek, 1995).
> 
> *From the above cognates it is obvious that only the Balto-Slavonic forms closely correspond to the reconstructed IE base*...


Why? PIE _*ab(e)l-_ > Proto-Germanic _*ap(e)l-_ is exactly what you would expect applying Grimm's law.


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## Dhira Simha

berndf said:


> Why? PIE _*ab(e)l-_ > Proto-Germanic _*ap(e)l-_ is exactly what you would expect applying Grimm's law.



How do you fit in the picture: Old Irish ubull; Lithuanian obuolys; Old Prussian (O.Prus.) woble; Bulg. jablo, abĕlka, jabĕlka?


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## Dhira Simha

Sulius said:


> is not part of our etymological discussion.



Contrarily, I think  it is directly relevant here. If this fruit is a recent addition then postulating an IE origin, which even by most conservative dating goes before the attested spread of apple, becomes problematic. Also you would expect that the name  is more likely to originate where the fruit originated and spread on to other parts with it. This is true of many fruit names. Take  kiwi or mango for example.


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## Dhira Simha

berndf said:


> Everyone seems to agree on this.


Still, the influence of Afro-Semitic on Germanic (even more so on Celtic)  can not be easily discounted. Even if you look at genetics, the mixed character of Germanic  with a high percentage (more then 20% in South German) of African, middle-Eastern and Semitic haplogroups (http://www.eupedia.com/europe/european_y-dna_haplogroups.shtml) would suggest language admixture.


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## berndf

Dhira Simha said:


> How do you fit in the picture: Old Irish ubull...


If Old Irish were the only Celtic language we know, the vowel mutations had to be explained though vowel shifts are usually less significant than (unexplained) consonant shifts. If we look at the broader picture, it seems to fit rather well. First, there seems to be fricative mutation of voiced intervocalic stops (like Spanish intervocalic "b") in same Celtic languages (/b/>/β/>/v/; Source, page 10) which would explain Beton _aval_ and Welsh _afal_ (both from _abal_). I found this overview here. They write "possibly non-IE, but N. European". If it is IE, than the Germanic and Celtic forms are consistent. If it is a non-IE loan common to both, than the /p/ in the Germanic forms means that it must have been imported before the first Germanic consonant shift which might just about be consistent with a hypothetical 4th century BC Punic influence: compare Greek _κάνναβις _and German _Hanf_, English _hemp_, Islandic _hampur_, reconstructed Proto-Germanic _*hanapiz_; an apparent loan which also underwent the first Germanic consonant shift (this word could, by the way, theoretically also be a Semitic rather than a Greek loan, if Vennemann were right).


Dhira Simha said:


> ...Lithuanian obuolys; Old Prussian (O.Prus.) woble; Bulg. jablo, abĕlka, jabĕlka?


I am a bit confused. _You_ said "Balto-Slavonic forms closely correspond to the reconstructed IE base".


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## eamp

Dhira Simha said:


> There are several issues with this word. 1) It is only attested in the 'Nothern'  branch of IE. 2) This it is  the only  IE (reconstructed) root  starting with _*ab-*_ in Pokorny dictionary if we do not count the controversial _*ab-*_ "water" which is not recognised by all (At least it  missing in Watkins dictionary). As you know, the presumed /b/ in IE  is generally rather controversial. 3) Pokorny could not arrive to a single vocalic form so in order to  cater for all attested initial and medial vowels he had to posit  three forms *ā̆bel-, ā̆bōl-, abel-*. This  looks like jiggling to me. Watkins has it as _*ab(el)*_ which can hardly explain the range of initial  vowels from /u/ to /ya/ in various attested languages.



1) It has limited geographic distribution, true, but I don't think Celtic, Germanic and Baltic/Slavic constitute one branch of IE.
2) How many roots would you expect? There are only a bit over two thousand entries in Pokorny, there is also only one root ed- for example. 
/b/ seems to be rare in IE, especially word initially, but it appears to be required for a few words still. Quite possible it's a late addition to the PIE phoneme inventory, but still common to all classical IE dialects.
3)For the root vowel the Balto-Slavic forms seem quite regular to me /a/ > /ā/ through Winter's law, this became /ja/ word initially in Slavic and /ō/ in Lithuanian and Prussian apparently. I don't know enough about Irish to tell whether /u/ is a regular development here, but it seems in any case a phenomenon restricted to Irish, the other Celtic languages show /a/ Gaulish avallo, O.Bret. abal Welsch afal. The vowels in the suffix -Vl are less important, ablaut was very common here still in Late PIE, assuming an original l-stem forms with -ōl, -ol, -el, -l should be expected.

I am not opposed to assume a post PIE spread of the word among the northern European dialects from an unknown source, I just think PIE origin is not necessarily unlikely and there is not enough evidence to pull the scales decisively to either side.


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## Dhira Simha

Thank you! It was really helpful and informative.  As for your last bit, it really should  have been  Slavonic i.e. Bulg. jablo, abĕlka, jabĕlka. I have actually grown out of the Balto-Slavonic postulate and no longer accept it.


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## Dhira Simha

eamp said:


> 1)
> 3)For the root vowel the Balto-Slavic forms seem quite regular to me /a/ > /ā/ through Winter's law, this became /ja/ word initially in Slavic and /ō/ in Lithuanian and Prussian apparently.



Thank you! This was very helpful. Still, I should note, that Winters's law is not unanimously accepted and a pre-requisite  for it would effectively mean the aceptance of the "glottalic" theory. Correct me if I am wrong.  Also it is  a bit suspicious why Pokorny had to postulate /a/ and  /ā/  variants. They would have different reflexes in attested languages. I need to think about it.


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## berndf

eamp said:


> 1) It has limited geographic distribution, true, but I don't think Celtic, Germanic and Baltic/Slavic constitute one branch of IE.


Certainly not, though these groups might have split considerably later than the separation of Mediterranean branches from PIE. Anyway, in the 4th century BC, they very certainly separated. But what matters for Vennemann's hypothesis is a connected geographic distribution and not belonging to a common branch. But then Vennemann's theory would be weakened, if Celtic and Germanic the words for _apple_ on the one side and the Balto-Slavic words on the other side were cognate because at that time (4th century BC or before), the Slavic settlement area was much further east than in the Middle Ages when Slavic languages were spoken as far West as Lübeck.


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## Sulius

Sulius said:


> I was referring simply to the English (Francais or Allemande mal prononce - if you like) word "ball" (like in basketball, but also in human reference). Bala/ Ball/Bole mean the same thing and have a common conotation with the words (bal, b:hel, ball, bale, abal) you have illustrated your last three posts with. 'Zar' may have the same meaning but I am not sure whether it is a cognate etymologically. I commented on it to illustrate a (your) point.
> 
> What I am trying to say here, is that the semitic counterparties for the "apple" word you came up with, relate to a different etimon. However, it is interesting to know that this root traces back to ... Illirycum.* Additionally, if it was possible to prove a B-> M or M-> B case of rhotacism, a language conversion to another may explain Ball from Mole/Mollar.* (Keep in mind that ball is an American Indian invention). In short, the word is definitely not one with an Indian origin. That leaves us with the European one.
> 
> A source on the origin of the apple is "Apples production technology and economics" Kanwar, 1987 . The book is quoted thoroughly by agriculture buletins, international forums and British Encyclopedia on Indian forestry. There are more details than the ones I quoted, but none depicts East Asia (Khazakstan) as a source. China on the other hand is not part of our etymological discussion.



"The Hittite (this race overuled Hati - note from Sulius) /sh/ regularly dissapeared in the other Indo European languages and the *ml *passed through the juncture_ mpl _to become _*bl*/pl_-" _A. Rona-Tas, f.192 "Hungarian and Europe in the early middle ages"


_So, the version* ML *assumes priority over *M*a*PL*e or even the later a*B*o*L*/Bol/Bule versions which I explained to indicate a circular shape. It is probable that bol/e/abul/ to denote a spherical shape is invented later, the primitive meaning being all the time a simple circular shape, like that of a flat circle. In the end, isn't the sphere nothing more but a fast spining circle? As I explained in my first post of this thread, the 'molar' concept has nothing in common with grinding, at least originally. Molar was the circle that animals traversed, tied by the neck into a pole, while thrashing the wheat. The circular move of the animals was replaced with that of a single block stone, the molar of a mill.

Which brings us to the two original consonants that appear to have defined the name of the Eden fruit: ML for - *Mola* from which derived- aMLa -aPLa - aBLa.


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## berndf

Sulius said:


> *I was referring simply to the English (Francais or Allemande mal prononce - if you like) word "ball" (like in basketball, but also in human reference)*. Bala/ Ball/Bole mean the same thing and have a common conotation with the words (bal, b:hel, ball, bale, abal) you have illustrated your last three posts with. 'Zar' may have the same meaning but I am not sure whether it is a cognate etymologically. I commented on it to illustrate a (your) point.


Yes, and that word is Germanic in origin. What Dhira Simha tried to explain to you was that this cannot derived from _*abal_ because the Germanic /b/ is decedent from the PIE /bʰ/ and not from /b/.



Sulius said:


> "The Hittite (this race overuled Hati - note from Sulius) /sh/ regularly dissapeared in the other Indo European languages and the *ml *passed through the juncture_ mpl _to become _*bl*/pl_-" _A. Rona-Tas, f.192 "Hungarian and Europe in the early middle ages"
> 
> 
> _So, the version* ML *assumes priority over *M*a*PL*e or even the later a*B*o*L*/Bol/Bule versions which I explained to indicate a circular shape. It is probable that bol/e/abul/ to denote a spherical shape is invented later, the primitive meaning being all the time a simple circular shape, like that of a flat circle. In the end, isn't the sphere nothing more but a fast spining circle? As I explained in my first post of this thread, the 'molar' concept has nothing in common with grinding, at least originally. Molar was the circle that animals traversed, tied by the neck into a pole, while thrashing the wheat. The circular move of the animals was replaced with that of a single block stone, the molar of a mill.


Your argument rests on the false assumption that _*abal_ and _ball_ are related. Without this assumption it collapses.

But the quote you discovered is nevertheless very interesting: It suggests that Greek _μῆλον_ and with it Latin _mālum_ and Italian _mela_ could indeed by cognate to _apple_. At the place you cited (here), Róna-Tas equates Hittite _shamlu_ with PIE _*abal_. Hittite is assumed to have split very early from PIE and Hittite forms can some insight into the internal developments within PIE before the group broke up. Here his remark that "Hittite /sh/ regularly dissapeared in the other Indo European languages" becomes important because then _sha__mlu_ and _μῆλον _appear to be very plausible matches and the Greek form with /m/ would then simply be a reflex of a very ancient form of _*abal_.


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## Sulius

berndf said:


> Your argument rests on the false assumption that _*abal_ and _ball_ are related. Without this assumption it collapses.



I have explained the connection between Abal-Balls and ball in my 1st post in this thread. Like in " you got balls!" which doesn't necessarily mean you are ready to play sports, but that as well doe to power engine. All b** versions are later versions of mola from the mother language that was later adopted into the lithurgic greek and latin cognates. Mola was a component of the Dodona magic formula given to chosen people who could make it in Hades and come back again. etc. But this is another topic.


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## Dhira Simha

berndf said:


> Yes, and that word is Germanic in origin. What Dhira Simha tried to explain to you was that this cannot derived from _*abal_ because the Germanic /b/ is decedent from the PIE /bʰ/ and not from /b/.
> 
> Your argument rests on the false assumption that _*abal_ and _ball_ are related. Without this assumption it collapses.
> 
> But the quote you discovered is nevertheless very interesting: It suggests that Greek _μῆλον_ and with it Latin _mālum_ and Italian _mela_ could indeed by cognate to _apple_. At the place you cited (here), Róna-Tas equates Hittite _shamlu_ with PIE _*abal_. Hittite is assumed to have split very early from PIE and Hittite forms can some insight into the internal developments within PIE before the group broke up. Here his remark that "Hittite /sh/ regularly dissapeared in the other Indo European languages" becomes important because then _sha__mlu_ and _μῆλον _appear to be very plausible matches and the Greek form with /m/ would then simply be a reflex of a very ancient form of _*abal_.



This was also proposed by Gamkrelidze & Ivanov.  This is how I comment on it it in the draft on my article:

"Hittite, being an IE language, is of particular interest. There appears to be no IE words for apple in Hittite and only the [giš]ḪAŠḪUR. Hittite was written in an adapted form of cuneiform but with regular use of logograms - non phonetic signs representing a word taken from Akkadian or Sumerian. Such logograms are called "akkadograms" or "sumerograms". If the Hittite reading of such logograms is unknown it is written in capital letters by its Sumerian reading (See, particularly, text Kbo XVI A 16 (Güterbock et al., 2010).

Gamkrelidze and Ivanov (1995, 550) proposed a Hittite reading sam(a)lu for this shumerogram. According to them, the text [giš]ḪAŠḪUR-lu-wa-an-za ’apple tree’ should be read as ša-ma-lu-wa-an-za - a reading not unanimously supported by Hittologists. Even if this questionable reading were correct, it would still be problematic to link it with *abal phonetically since it would imply the loss of the initial /š/ and change of /ml/ to /bl/. 

With so many inherent problems this hypothetical word can hardly be considered as a proto-base for 'apple'. At best, *šamalu can be viewed as a cognate with the Lat. malum ’apple’ or the Iranian seb."

Thank you for directing me to Róna-Tas!


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## Sulius

Not so easy man. I illustrated the ATESTED move in EU languages (where EU languages are a mixed pot of indigenous and barbarous languages during the dark era) from ML to BL. The move as explained abaove describes rather than cognativity a deformed prononciation from the root word into barbaric languages during centuries, which now have become now millenia. I went further to say, that Hittites themselves superposed Hati, whose culture is inscribed today to Hittite, to Persia, to Pharsi/Farsi and India to support a queer IE postulate from lingust with zero sanscrit knowledge ( Ia mquoting here our Indian counterparties.)

However, to stay within this topic, PL and BL are down the line of transformation, making it interesting thing to see who came first where. It appears that people that pronounce Mola with PL (like in apple), must have been present in EU centuries and centurie before population who uses BL. I am not going to do any population screening here. Each can draw his own results.


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## berndf

Dhira Simha said:


> ...it would still be problematic to link it with *abal phonetically since it would imply the loss of the initial /š/ and change of /ml/ to /bl/.


This is exactly what Róna-Tas claims. IF he is right there then the connection is obvious. It would be interesting to find out how he substantiates these claims.


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## berndf

Sulius said:


> Not so easy man. I illustrated the ATESTED move in EU languages (where EU languages are a mixed pot of indigenous and barbarous languages during the dark era) from ML to BL.


You did nothing of the sort. You just combinations of sounds and letters next to each other and filled the rest with imagination.

Róna-Tas made the very precise claim than /ml/>/bl/ happened from Hittite (supposedly a very early form of PIE) to later forms of PIE. Claims of such a law-like shift can be tested by comparing other word pairs. Just picking out a couple of words and claiming they should be related because such a sound shift *can *happen somewhere and sometime means nothing.

And tossing in some mind boggling and completely unsubstantiated claims like "Keep in mind that ball is an American Indian invention" out of the blue doesn't help either.

If you want to create a theory that could possibly explain the etymology of apple then please state it precisely. Say what should happen in transition from which language to which language and not "somewhere in a melting pot". Those vague claims could never be put to a test.


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## Dhira Simha

Sulius said:


> However, to stay within this topic, PL and BL are down the line of transformation, making it interesting thing to see who came first where. It appears that people that pronounce Mola with PL (like in apple), must have been present in EU centuries and centurie before population who uses BL. I am not going to do any population screening here. Each can draw his own results.


Sulius, I appreciate your input, however your approach falls into the area, which I classify as "sophisms". Not that I do not recur to it occasionally, but it is always the last resort.  In case of "mola"  there is quite a credible  connection with "grinding, crashing" which is well attested across several IE branches. This considerably weakens your theory. With the added complications of multiple metathesis it is even less plausible.


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## Dhira Simha

berndf said:


> This is exactly what Róna-Tas claims. IF he is right there then the connection is obvious. It would be interesting to find out how he substantiates these claims.


Perhaps, but  before we do it, we should be sure that  the reading "sam(a)lu"  is correct and whether it really refered to 'apple'. If we take the rather slippery road of metathesis then we would be better off with the Turkic  alma "apple". It derives from the area where  cultured apple originated, it is attested, and it does not require the explanation for a s- loss. The transition ml - bl  (or the other way round?) is theoretically possible.


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## berndf

Dhira Simha said:


> Perhaps, but  before we do it, we should be sure that  the reading "sam(a)lu"  is correct and whether it really refered to 'apple'. If we take the rather slippery road of metathesis then we would be better off with the Turkic  alma "apple". It derives from the area where  cultured apple originated, it is attested, and it does not require the explanation for a s- loss. The transition ml - bl  (or the other way round?) is theoretically possible.


True, there are a lot of ifs and buts. So, the rivaling theory would be as follows:
The modern Turkish elma is apparently derived from Old Turkic _almıla_ (if this is correct) which then became an assimilated loan in PIE as _*am(e)l _> _*ab(e)l_. Is this roughly the idea? The interesting bit would than still be if we could find evidence for an early PIE shift /ml/>/bl/. There we should look, how Róna-Tas supports that claim, even if we don't buy the the other bits (loss of initial /sh/ and the claim that the Hittite word was pronounced as he claimed and really meant _apple_). What really thrills me is the perspective of finding a relation between _μῆλον/__mālum _and _apple._


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## Dhira Simha

I shall think about it.  Now let us look at  Indo-Iranian.
Sanskrit (Skr.) has a number of words for thorn-apple and other local fruit but no specific word for the domesticated apple,: jambu  जम्बु ’rose-apple’, dadhittha  दधित्थ, bilva  बिल्व, 'wood-apple' tree’ etc. The unusually large number of words relating to thorn-apple is particularly interesting and deserves a special attention, whilst bearing in mind that among the dozens of such names there happens to be abalá  अबल  which denotes the plant Tapia Crataeva  

Grataeva is an evergreen tree belonging to Capparaceae family common to India and other tropical countries. The edible, green to yellow Grataeva fruits indeed resemble apples. The complete phonetic affinity with the reconstructed IE form *abal and the external appearance of Grataeva fruit - so similar to apples, makes it a rather suitable candidate for a cognate.  The early IE presence in the Central Asia and Eastern Turkestan is well known and the archaeological evidence is in support of the migration from the North-West (Childe, 1926; Mallory, 1989; Kuz'mina, 2007; Kuz'mina, 2008). Under this scenario the IE speakers, already having the word *abala for either a wild apple or for a domesticated  Malus sieversii, could use it for the visually similar Grataeva when they moved into India and came in contact with the local flora.
What do you think of this?


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## berndf

I thought अबल meant _woman_ or is that just an accidental homophone?


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## Dhira Simha

berndf said:


> I thought अबल meant _woman_ or is that just an accidental homophone?


It has many meanings:
*abala* mf(%{A4})n. weak , feeble RV. v , 30 , 9 , &c. ; m. the plant Tapia Crataeva ; a king of Magadha VP. ; (%{A}) f. a woman S3a1k. &c. ; N. of a woman Katha1s. ; (= %{acalA}) one of the ten Buddhist earths ; (%{am}) n. want of strength , weakness.


It does mean woman but it is an epithet literally meaning a-balā "the weak one" (bala - strength"). It is significant that the plant Tapia Crataeva is masculine so it is probably of different origin than "weak, feeble" which is neuter.


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## Sulius

berndf said:
			
		

> 1. Originally Posted by *Sulius*​Not so easy man. I illustrated the ATESTED move in EU languages (where EU languages are a mixed pot of indigenous and barbarous languages during the dark era) from ML to BL.
> 
> 
> 
> You did nothing of the sort. You just combinations of sounds and letters next to each other and filled the rest with imagination.
> Róna-Tas made the very precise claim than /ml/>/bl/ happened from Hittite (supposedly a very early form of PIE) to later forms of PIE. Claims of such a law-like shift can be tested by comparing other word pairs. Just picking out a couple of words and claiming they should be related because such a sound shift *can *happen somewhere and sometime means nothing.
> And tossing in some mind boggling and completely unsubstantiated claims like "Keep in mind that ball is an American Indian invention" out of the blue doesn't help either.
> If you want to create a theory that could possibly explain the etymology of apple then please state it precisely. Say what should happen in transition from which language to which language and not "somewhere in a melting pot". Those vague claims could never be put to a test.
Click to expand...



*Firstly*, I indicated that Mola (Illyrian), Malum (lat), Mele (it) dhe Bala/Bole/Ball/Abal/Bhel have all a common etymological meaning - the power circle/growth/a sphere.


> Perhaps, it is more viable to look into the 'semitic' Abal in correlation with with Ball/Bol-e which* indicates a shape*. Zar- indicates a *spheric shape* in a South Eastern Language instead of a by-product of such shape (semen). Likewise, Molaris/Mollar/Mole (as in the *bodily spherical growth*), appear to originate from Molaris/Mill that many associate with grinding.





> I was referring simply to the English (Francais or Allemande mal prononce - if you like) word "ball" (like in basketball, but also in human reference). Bala/ Ball/Bole mean the same thing and have a *common conotation *with the words (bal, b:hel, ball, bale, abal) you have illustrated your last three posts with. 'Zar' may have the same meaning but I am not sure whether it is a cognate etymologically. I commented on it to illustrate a (your) point.


*Secondly*, I explained that despite grinding and combing that linguist have associated in error with the ancient meaning of "molar", common logic and old EU language, logic proves the opposite.



> So, the version* ML *assumes priority over *M*a*PL*e or even the later a*B*o*L*/Bol/Bule versions which I explained to indicate a circular shape. It is probable that bol/e/abul/ to denote a spherical shape is invented later, the primitive meaning being all the time a simple circular shape, like that of a flat circle. In the end, isn't the sphere nothing more but a fast spining circle? As I explained in my first post of this thread, the *'molar' concept has nothing in common with grinding, at least originally*. Molar was the circle that animals traversed, tied by the neck into a pole, while thrashing the wheat. The circular move of the animals was replaced with that of a single block stone, the molar of a mill.


*Thirdly*, I made the point that *M*o*l*a/r dhe *A*bu*l* lines of words resonate etymologically, but have been incorrectly disproved to relate by linguists. Further, I hinted that the ML words in EU language/s must have been at some point in time converted to BL later on.



> What I am trying to say here, is that the semitic counterparties for the "apple" word you came up with, relate to a different etimon. However, it is interesting to know that this root traces back to ... Illirycum. *Additionally, if it was possible to prove a B-> M or M-> B case of rhotacism, a language conversion to another may explain Ball from Mole/Mollar.* (Keep in mind that ball is an American Indian invention). In short, the word is definitely not one with an Indian origin. That leaves us with the European one.



*Fourthly*, I provided support (Rona-TAS) to the theory that ML converted into MPL/PL and later into BL.



> "The Hittite (this race overuled Hati - note from Sulius) /sh/ regularly dissapeared in the other Indo European languages and the *ml *passed through the juncture_ mpl _to become *bl*_/pl_-" _A. Rona-Tas, f.192 "Hungarian and Europe in the early middle ages"_


*Fifthly*, I provided sources for the apple cultivation and distribution by territories that pinpoint a central EU origin of that tree.


> A source on the origin of the apple is "Apples production technology and economics" Kanwar, 1987 . The book is quoted thoroughly by agriculture bulletins, international forums and British Encyclopedia on Indian forestry. There are more details than the ones I quoted, but none depicts East Asia (Kazakhstan) as a source. China on the other hand is not part of our etymological discussion.
> If I recall correctly, apples originate from *South East Europe (Carpathian/Illyricum)* in ancient times, making their way to India about 16 century and back in Europe/England and Americas a bit later. Hence, we find a somehow consistent naming convention in most languages, primarily because of the recent common origine of this fruit into most of them.


*
Finally*, I summarized that:


> Which brings us to the two original consonants that appear to have defined the name of the Eden fruit: ML for - *Mola* from which derived- aMLa -aPLa - aBLa.



or more specifically:

*(ML consontants): Mola (Illyr.) ->Malum (Lat.) ->Mele (It.)->Hamle(Hatt.) ->sHamlu(Hitt)->aLMa (hung) into (PL consonants): ->Apfel(Germ)->Apple(Engl.) ->Pomme (Fr) into (BL consonants):** -> Abul (semit.) ->yabloko (Russ.) etc.*

Any person with some minimum language knowledge knows that the core of the words is made from consonants. OAUAH vowels add onomatopoeic noise. As you did with that mediocre post. 

_PS. Translation for :__ "Keep in mind that ball is an American Indian invention". 
The ball in some sort of rubber material was originally construed in Americas and brought to Europe about or post Columbus time. It follows that any connotation relating to the game should be considered medieval. Hence the true definition of a "ball" must come from another object or shape (perhaps a bodily part as in 'abul')._ 

Please, next time save your own mind's substance by asking whenever you fail to get the point.


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## berndf

Sulius said:


> I indicated that Mola (Illyrian), Malum (lat), Mele (it) dhe Bala/Bole/Ball/Abal/Bhel have all a common etymological meaning - the power circle/growth/a sphere


Semantic analysis is a useful tool in etymological research but phonetic similarity and semantic agreement do not constitute etymological connection _per se_. The most famous example is Latin _hab-ere _and German _hab-en_ which mean the same and sound the same but are not etymologically related.


Sulius said:


> *(ML consontants): Mola (Illyr.) ->Malum (Lat.) ->Mele (It.)->Hamle(Hatt.) ->sHamlu(Hitt)->aLMa (hung) into (PL consonants): ->Apfel(Germ)->Apple(Engl.) ->Pomme (Fr) into (BL consonants):** -> Abul (semit.) ->yabloko (Russ.) etc.*


No, we don't have time machines, there is no such thing as backward causation in etymology. You have to respect time lines.



Sulius said:


> Any person with some minimum language knowledge knows that the core of the words is made from consonants.


A purely consonant based analysis is useful in Semitic etymology but not in IE etymology. There are simply too many ambiguities. You have to undertake the painful tasks of analysing which vowel shifts are plausible and which aren't.



Sulius said:


> _PS. Translation for :__ "Keep in mind that ball is an American Indian invention".
> The ball in some sort of rubber material was originally construed in Americas and brought to Europe about or post Columbus time. It follows that any connotation relating to the game should be considered medieval. Hence the true definition of a "ball" must come from another object or shape (perhaps a bodily part as in 'abul'). _


The same applies here. The Germanic root _ball-_ is demonstrably older than Columbus.



Sulius said:


> Please, next time save your own mind's substance by asking whenever you fail to get the point.


Then you'd better have a point next time.


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## berndf

Dhira Simha said:


> It is significant that the plant Tapia Crataeva is masculine so it is probably of different origin than "weak, feeble" which is neuter.


Ok, but this remains uncertain evidence. Unfortunately, gender shifts are not that infrequent. Especially in dialect continua to sometimes happens that gender is geographically unstable. Standard languages emerging from continua then sometimes loan both forms and start to lexically separate them which then leads to independent semantic development. E.g. The cognate of the English word _sea_ exists twice in German: _See_ (m) and _See_ (f); the former means _lake_ and the latter _sea_.


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## Sulius

> berndf said:
> 
> 
> 
> Semantic analysis is a useful tool in etymological research but phonetic similarity and semantic agreement do not constitute etymological connection _per se_. The most famous example is Latin _hab-ere _and German _hab-en_ which mean the same and sound the same but are not etymologically related.
> 
> 
> 
> I agree what you say to be the general case. However, it is clear to both of us that the *general case is not the case *in the case at hand.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> No, we don't have time machines, there is no such thing as backward causation in etymology. You have to respect time lines.
> 
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> There is no way to write in 3D. What I wrote is that Illyrian to be root of all cognates, including Hati (a related language) and Hittitte which borrored from the later. You can than assign your the time frame for the remainder of words. However, the tree blocks indicate rather the chronology of borrowing->Europian/gaul-hun-goth->/Asiatic, which is in the reverse direction of the Indian-Europian borrowing mold. I daresay this is not the exception to a case....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A purely consonant based analysis is useful in Semitic etymology but not in IE etymology. There are simply too many ambiguities. You have to undertake the painful tasks of analysing which vowel shifts are plausible and which aren't.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Nobody relied on a "pure consonant" analysis. A and O are present in all provided samples. The point remains what Voltaire has expressed  and that the core of shifting from the Europian to barbaric languages can be viewed in the consonant rhotacism as depicted by Rona-Tas observation.
> The same applies here. The Germanic root _ball-_ is demonstrably older than Columbus.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Then you'd better have a point next time.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I do not make points to accomodate people's buyest opinions, regardless of the carrying costs.
Click to expand...


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## berndf

Sulius said:


> What I have said is that Illyrian is the root of all cognates


I am really sorry having to be so harsh, but this is pure and utter non-sense. This discussion has no base.


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## Sulius

berndf said:


> I am really sorry having to be so harsh, but this is pure and utter non-sense. This discussion has no base.



Nonsense? I rather see the logical basis for your harshness. Your personal opinion in none of my business, nor do I care for your applaud.


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## berndf

Sulius said:


> Nonsense? I rather see the logical basis for your harshness. You personal opinion in none of my business, nor do I care for your applaud.


Ok, one last attempt: Let's suppose (I don't agree with this; just hypothetically) there were a loan chain form Illyrian _mola _to Germanic _apple _(your sequence between English and German is wrong, by the way: _apple _is the older form and _Apfel _the younger) then you cannot explain the /ml/>/bl/ shift (/b/>/p/ is a distinct shift) by a shift (/ml/>/mpl/>/bl/) which happened before the ancestors of Illyrian and Germanic split, and that is what Róna-Tas talked about, a shift that happened within PIE.


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## Dhira Simha

I agree with you, this hypothesis looks rather flimsy. But It has been voiced before, I should have a rerefence somewhere in my records.


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## Dhira Simha

Sulius said:


> *Firstly*, I indicated that Mola (Illyrian), Malum (lat), Mele (it) dhe Bala/Bole/Ball/Abal/Bhel have all a common etymological meaning - the power circle/growth/a sphere.



Sulius, I have originated thes thread  so I feel a certain responsibility for the direction of the discussion. The blog is  supposed to be like a brain-storm. Everybody is wellcome to throw in  even the most incredible hypotheses but there may be  various opinions and I would like to ask you to adhere to a more academic-like style, please. I respect your opinion but, frankly, I cannot understand the logic. I do want to understand it so, to start, please explain what you mean by "Mola (Illyrian)" and specifically, what you mean when you say "Illyrian"?


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## fdb

This has all become very entangled. Maybe I could try to unravel some of the strands.

The word for “apple” in most Turkish dialects is _alm__ā_, in Ottoman and Modern Anatolian Turkish _elma_, in the dialect of Old Turkish described in al-Kashgari’s lexicon also _almıl__ā_. Clauson, _Etym. dict. of pre-thirteenth-century Turkish_, p. 146, wrote that the “double form” (_alm__ā__/almıl__ā_) “and the fact that the apple is unlikely to have been native to the original Turkish habitat, suggest this is a l.-w., possibly Indo-European”, though without specifying the possible I.-E. source. Superficially, _alm__ā_ looks suspiciously like Doric μᾶλ(ον) with its three letters jumbled, but this is a delusion. It is now more likely that the Turkish forms are all connected in some way with an Iranian *_amarnā_, as represented by Pashto _maṇa_ (with retroflex ṇ), Parachi _āmaṛ_, Shughni _mun_, Roshani _m__ā__wn_ etc.; possibly also by the Sogdian hapax legomenon ʼmʼnk, with metathesis of *_amar- _to _alm__a-_ in Turkish, perhaps facilitated by Turkish _al-_ 'red'. Hungarian _alma_ seems to borrowed from Turkish. See Sims-Williams/Hamilton, _Documents turco-sogdiens_, (1990) pp. 59-60; Morgenstierne/Elfenbein, _A new etym. vocabulary of Pashto_ (2003), p. 51. 

All of the Greek etymological dictionaries, including the recent one by Beekes, describe μῆλον as a “Mediterranean” word without identifiable cognates. Latin _malum_ is borrowed from Greek. It seems thus that we have a Mediterranean wanderwort _*m__ā__l-_ and a Central Asian wanderwort _*amarn-_, unconnected with each other.


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## Dhira Simha

Thank you very much for the informative post and the references! I personally do not favour the metathesis idea because it is more often an exception than a rule. *amarn- could explain alma. After all, Rhotacism-lambdacism is not anusual althogh, if I remember correctly, in Turkic and Altaic languages they usually discuss  _/s, sh - l_ lambdacism. I am too inclined to separate  _malum_ and _alma_. I also agree that Skr. _abala_ is most probably not related here at all. This takes us back to the beginning of the quest


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## berndf

Dhira Simha said:


> This takes us back to the beginning of the quest


Looks like it.


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## Perseas

fdb said:


> ... Doric μᾶλ(ον)......
> 
> ...All of the Greek etymological dictionaries, including the recent one by Beekes, describe μῆλον as a “Mediterranean” word ... Latin _malum_ is borrowed from Greek.


Also, this is exactly what the dictionary of Prof. Babiniotis says.
Note:<<μᾶλ(ον) was also Doric>>.

Just for the record there was also another _μῆλον_ meaning _sheep_. According to the same dictionary this _μῆλον_ traces its root to the I.E. term _*(s)mel-_ (= browsing/pasturing small animal, mainly for sheep and goats). 
Arm. _mal _(=sheep), Irish _mil_, Anc. Germ. _*smala-_ (=small) <<Germ. _schmal_, Engl. _small_>>.


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## Dhira Simha

Perseas said:


> Also, this is exactly what the dictionary of Prof. Babiniotis says.
> Note:<<μᾶλ(ον) was also Doric>>.
> 
> Just for the record there was also another _μῆλον_ meaning _sheep_. According to the same dictionary this _μῆλον_ traces its root to the I.E. term _*(s)mel-_ (= browsing/pasturing small animal, mainly for sheep and goats).
> Arm. _mal _(=sheep), Irish _mil_, Anc. Germ. _*smala-_ (=small) <<Germ. _schmal_, Engl. _small_>>.


I would also add  Slavonic _mal_ "small", LAT _malus_ "bad, deficient"  and, perhaps,  Skr. _mala_  "dirt, filth"  but I doubt that it may be related here.  Can it be connected with  "apple" as the symbol of the "forbidden fruit"?


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## Dhira Simha

Interestingly, all  three Western-European words for "apple": apple, malum and pomme  also meant initially "any fruit":
L. malum "apple"  from Gk. melon (Doric malon)  "apple," probably from a pre-Greek Mediterranean language. The Latin  and Greek words also meant "fruit" generally, especially if exotic. In Greek, melon  was used in a generic way for all foreign fruits. O.E. æppel "apple; any kind of fruit; fruit in general,"; In Middle English and as late as 17c., it was a generic term for all fruit other than berries but including nuts (e.g. O.E. fingeræppla "dates," lit. "finger-apples;" M.E. appel of paradis  "banana," c.1400). Hence its grafting onto the unnamed "fruit of the  forbidden tree" in Genesis. Cucumbers, in one Old English work, are eorþæppla, lit. "earth-apples" (cf. Fr. pomme de terre "potato," lit. "earth-apple;"). Fr. pomme is from L. pomum "fruit." (from http://www.etymonline.com).  This contrasts with Slavonic where  jablo-  specifically meant apple and no other fruit.


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## Perseas

Dhira Simha said:


> I would also add  Slavonic _mal_ "small", LAT _malus_ "bad, deficient"  and, perhaps,  Skr. _mala_  "dirt, filth"  but I doubt that it may be related here.  Can it be connected with  "apple" as the symbol of the "forbidden fruit"?


No, _μήλον_(=sheep) and _μήλον_(=apple) are not cognates. My point was just to show that from two different I.E. roots were formed two words identical in form. It was off-topic, of course.


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## CapnPrep

Dhira Simha said:


> There are several issues with this word [_apple_]. It is only attested in the 'Nothern'  branch of IE.


I'm not sure if Celtic counts as a "Northern" branch of IE… Anyway, something that has not been mentioned so far (unless I missed it) is that Latin _mālum_ is probably a Greek loan, according to Ernout & Meillet, which replaced the original Italic root, found supposedly in the place-name _Abella_ (= something like "Appleton").


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## sotos

Am I the only one who finds a relatedness between  the root ap- and the Gr. _apion_ (pear)?  Apples and pears belong to the same botanic family and are first cousins.


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## Dhira Simha

sotos said:


> Am I the only one who finds a relatedness between  the root ap- and the Gr. _apion_ (pear)?  Apples and pears belong to the same botanic family and are first cousins.


Σας ευχαριστούμε! Good point. Let me think about it. I have never come across this in  any of the attempts to etymologize  "apple". Can you please look up in a Greek etymological dictionary how they treat _apion?  _Is it a a recent word?


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## Perseas

Dhira Simha said:


> Σας ευχαριστούμε! Good point. Let me think about it. I have never come across this in  any of the attempts to etymologize  "apple". Can you please look up in a Greek etymological dictionary how they treat _apion?  _Is it a a recent word?



...............................................................................................................................................................................................
Prof. Babiniotis' dictionary has: *ἀπίδιον *(Hellenistic)* >** ἀ**πίδι* (Medieval Gr.) : diminutive of the ancient *ἄπιον*. 

According to the same dictionary: *ἄπιον*, possibly < *ἀ** + *pis- *;it relates to the Latin* pirum* (> Fr. *poire*, Span. *pera*, Engl. *pear*, Ital. *pera*).
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

*απίδι* is a word of the modern language also, a perfect equivalent of* αχλάδι*, although the latter is used in 9,9 out of 10 cases (maybe more often)


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## eamp

All dictionaries I checked connect Ancient Greek apion and apios to Latin pirum (pear) and pirus (pear-tree) deriving both from *(a)piso- and say it's generally assumed to be a loan word from a pre-Indo-European Mediterranean language. If from PIE its form would be h2piso-, which looks strange, h2p- + some suffix -is-?


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## Dhira Simha

Perseas said:


> ...............................................................................................................................................................................................
> Prof. Babiniotis' dictionary has: *ἀπίδιον *(Hellenistic)* >** ἀ**πίδι* (Medieval Gr.) : diminutive of the ancient *ἄπιον*.
> 
> According to the same dictionary: *ἄπιον*, possibly < *ἀ** + *pis- *;it relates to the Latin* pirum* (> Fr. *poire*, Span. *pera*, Engl. *pear*, Ital. *pera*).
> ...............................................................................................................................................................................................
> 
> *απίδι* is a word of the modern language also, a perfect equivalent of* αχλάδι*, although the latter is used in 9,9 out of 10 cases (maybe more often)



Thank you, very helpful. However, I think  that it would be problematic to  derive it from the hypotheyical *abVl-.  Do *ἀ*and* *pis   *have any meaning of their own?


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## Dhira Simha

eamp said:


> All dictionaries I checked connect Ancient Greek apion and apios to Latin pirum (pear) and pirus (pear-tree) deriving both from *(a)piso- and say it's generally assumed to be a loan word from a pre-Indo-European Mediterranean language. If from PIE its form would be h2piso-, which looks strange, h2p- + some suffix -is-?



Do I understan it correctly, that  strictly from the mainstream IE reconstruction point of view  it would be problematic to connect *ἄπιον  *with *abVl- ?


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## fdb

Dhira Simha said:


> Do I understan it correctly, that  strictly from the mainstream IE reconstruction point of view  it would be problematic to connect *ἄπιον  *with *abVl- ?



Indeed. They really only have *a- in common.


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## Dhira Simha

fdb said:


> Indeed. They really only have *a- in common.


Danke!


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## sotos

So many learned linguists cannot see the link between apion, apple, Gr. _achlas/achras_ (pear), obst and opium!

The pear in Greek is also αχράς/αχλάς, mod.Gr. αχλάδι(ον): http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aalphabetic+letter%3D*a%3Aentry+group%3D376%3Aentry%3Da%29xra%2Fs 

Let me transcribe it as _achlas_. This -ch- is the equivalent of -p- in other european languages (as in Gr. poios - Lat. quis - Eng. who). Usually the -p- is in Greek and the -ch/q/- in western languages (hippos - equus) but this is not compulsory, especially as fruits move around. So, the theoretically expected western equivalent of _achlas_ could be _aplas_, which does exist.


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## sotos

Let's take now the pear/apion. Apart from the ap- which connects it with the ap-ple/ap-fel etc, it is also connected with the meaning of "fruit", as this is "op-ora" on Gr., ob-st in German etc. From opora > opos (juice) > opium (the juice of the poppy). The opium is known as _aphion_ in medieval Gr. and Turkish, showing that op- can become ap-, or possibly had always been ap- in some parts of the Greek speaking world. 
Another interesting phenomenon is the relation of _mel-_ with these fruits (melocoton = sour apple). I suspect that is the same mel- of Gr. _meli_ (honey). The honey-bee is _melissa_ in Gr. but *Apis* in Latin. Another similar case is the insect *Aphis*, that tiny green fly that infests plants and produces a sweet sticky material on them. This insect is called *meligra* in modern Gr. but I don't know how old is this word. What is the etymology of Apis (bee) and Aphis? Why is it so much close to Apion? The apples are not sweet fruits and the ancient pears could not be as sweet as the modern impreved varieties, but possibly the older meaning of apple was "fruit". The "Apples of Esperides" are thought to be oranges which *are* sweet. Alternatively, this Apis/Aphis comes from the opos (juice). 

The only true in the connection between apples and genitals (see initial post) lies in the deconstruction of the "forbidden fruit" of Paradise as a sexual taboo (Freud), but this is beyond conventional linguistics.


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## sotos

Perseas said:


> Also, this is exactly what the dictionary of Prof. Babiniotis says.
> Note:<<μᾶλ(ον) was also Doric>>.
> Just for the record there was also another _μῆλον_ meaning _sheep_. According to the same dictionary this _μῆλον_ traces its root to the I.E. term _*(s)mel-_ (= browsing/pasturing small animal, mainly for sheep and goats).
> Arm. _mal _(=sheep), Irish _mil_, Anc. Germ. _*smala-_ (=small) <<Germ. _schmal_, Engl. _small_>>.



Is the μήλον (sheep) accidentally homoechus to apple? Probably yes, but the etymology from _*(s)mel_is not convincing. There are some more phytonyms that suspiciously sound like animals or animal materials. For example the root aig- (referring to oak, aigylops) is practically the same with aix (goat), fir and *perkus (pine)  are so close to fur and parka. There is also a reference that fruits of the conifers were called "sheeps" or "lammies". Finally, there was that failed thread with assumptions about the connection between tan (tree) and skin, which nobody care to comment. 
The melon (sheep) seems to be the origin (or the other way around) of the mallion (wool).


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## Dhira Simha

sotos said:


> So many learned linguists cannot see the link between apion, apple, Gr. _achlas/achras_ (pear), obst and opium!
> 
> The pear in Greek is also αχράς/αχλάς, mod.Gr. αχλάδι(ον): http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper...betic+letter=*a:entry+group=376:entry=a)xra/s
> 
> Let me transcribe it as _achlas_. This -ch- is the equivalent of -p- in other european languages (as in Gr. poios - Lat. quis - Eng. who). Usually the -p- is in Greek and the -ch/q/- in western languages (hippos - equus) but this is not compulsory, especially as fruits move around. So, the theoretically expected western equivalent of _achlas_ could be _aplas_, which does exist.


 Are you certain about the direction of change? As far as I know, according to the traditional paradigm, IE kw appears as p/t/k in Greek while you suggest the transition other way round x > p?


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## Dhira Simha

sotos said:


> For example the root aig- (referring to oak, aigylops) is practically the same with aix (goat), fir and *perkus (pine)  are so close to fur and parka.


Sorry, but this becomes too deviated from the main argument. I could comment on each of the above words at length but it is hardly relevant. Thank you for the _apion_, however. Even if it may not be related it creates a point for a discussion.


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## kilticwar

I know this is an older thread. Also I'm far from being even an amateur with words. Yet, I believe that there is some confusion on where the apple originates. The "cultivation" of the apple is thought by most scientists who have studied apples to have originated in the mountains of Central Asia. Wild apples were and are found through out northern Europe, Asia and the America's. In fact seeds have been found in archaeological sites dating back at least 100,000 years. Many of if not most of the most well known apples of the past few hundred years have been crosses of "cultivated" apples coming out of Central Asia and their wild counterparts in Europe,


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## Dhira Simha

The apple tree (_Malus domestica_) belonging to the rose family (_Rosaceae_), is believed to have originated from Central Asia (Barrie E. Juniper, "The mysteriuos origin of sweet apple", _American Scientist_ 95 (2007), pp. 45--51.). Its wild ancestors are species of _Malus sieversii_ (Named after a Russian explorer Ivan Sievers who discovered this unusually large wild fruit on the slopes of Tian Shan in 1973) is found in the mountains of Central Asia in southern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Xinjiang, China. Almaty, the ex-capital of Kazakhstan, derives its name from the Kazakh word _alma_ `apple'.

It is suggested that wild horses originating from the same area may have played an important part in distributing the wild apple tree seeds over vast territories. The _Malus sieversii_ apple could have been spread further into Middle East and Europe with caravans via the Silk Road. It should be noted though that, as it was later discovered, the same species of apple tree managed to make its way to Europe thousands of years before and was named _Malus pumila_ by Philip Miller in 1768. Thus the spread of the ancestor of _Malus domestica_ is somewhat ambiguous.

Apple cultivation probably started in Ferghana Valley which is considered one of the earliest centres of Neolithic agriculture. The apple tree spread from this area mixing with other wild varieties and became the base stock of modern cultivars. It is quite reasonable to presuppose that the areas of today's Iran, Afghanistan and North-Eastern India - where Indo-Aryans were located - were quite suitable for apple cultivation and that it would be reflected in their language and culture. Also, being a temperate climate tree, apple would not have been very suitable for the hot and arid conditions of the Arab peninsula and Ethiopia. There are modern, specially created varieties of apple which are now cultivated in Africa but in Ethiopia apples are still a luxury imported fruit.

The oldest evidence of dried and sliced apples comes from the Basra area of today's Iraq, dated between 2200-2100 BC (Jules Janick, "The Origins of Fruit Growing and Fruit Breeding", 2010). It is not known exactly whether they were of the sweet variety or the sourer wild one. Apple gardens were mentioned in a Sumerian cuneiform text dating from 1900 BCE, and at about the same time there were references to apple orchards in Hittite texts. Sweet smelling apples were mentioned in the Biblical Song of Songs (also known as the Song of Solomon, Solomon's Song of Songs, or as Canticles Song of Solomon 2 (New International Version)) which could also date to about 1000 BCE.

We may, therefore, conclude that at least by the first millennium BCE apples were already part of agriculture of the Middle-East but it is unlikely that they found their way to Egypt before the Graeco-Roman times (Janick, 2010, 21). Although it is uncertain when _Malus domestica_ appeared in Europe, particularly Western Europe, the wild apple varieties have always been present in this temperate area and were well known by the local inhabitants being part of their diet.


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## Erkattäññe

CapnPrep said:


> I'm not sure if Celtic counts as a "Northern" branch of IE… Anyway, something that has not been mentioned so far (unless I missed it) is that Latin _mālum_ is probably a Greek loan, according to Ernout & Meillet, which replaced the original Italic root, found supposedly in the place-name _Abella_ (= something like "Appleton").



More on this one:
Lat. _Abella (osk. Stadt in Campanien) malifera `äpfeltragend', nach Verg. Aen. 7, 740, dürfte ihren Namen nach der Apfelzucht erhalten haben und auf die Grundform *ablonā zurückweisen. Der Apfel ist nicht etwa erst nach der Stadt benannt._


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## Ben Jamin

aeneas dardanus said:


> I once heard a highly primitive native S. American "Indian" child replying to the church missionary that their word for apple is {*A-pel-le-bit* }



Have you seen apples in south American jungle?


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## sotos

Ben Jamin said:


> Have you seen apples in south American jungle?


Chile produces plenty.


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## Ben Jamin

sotos said:


> Chile produces plenty.


But apple is not indigenous to South America, and any name in a South American Indian Language will be a loan, or a descriptive neologism.


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## Ljudevit

Apple - oblo - oval = round shaped?


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## Ben Jamin

Ljudevit said:


> Apple - oblo - oval = round shaped?



I think that "oval" comes from Latin ovum (egg), and "ovum" from PIE *owyo, and has nothing to do with "apple".


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## Ljudevit

I know that's the commonly accepted theory, but is it possible to look  past that? What rules are making the change from a word meaning round  (or a ball), to a round fruit, unlikely or silly? Is it a lack of any  historical written records? Can somebody also, please, explain to me the  change form Latin ovum to egg. I can see it changing from PIE *owyo  directly to Germanic. Similarly, couldn't it at least be considered  that English eye and egg are distant cousins (was it ever, why not)? I  apologize if I'm asking questions with answers obvious to you. I'm  interested in etymology, but have a lot to learn.

apple, jabolka,  a ball, oblo (round), oval, owyo - What is wrong with brainstorming  this way, considering it for a moment, and proving it wrong or right,  and was it done before? Thanks.


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## Ben Jamin

Ljudevit said:


> I know that's the commonly accepted theory, but is it possible to look  past that? What rules are making the change from a word meaning round  (or a ball), to a round fruit, unlikely or silly? Is it a lack of any  historical written records? Can somebody also, please, explain to me the  change form Latin ovum to egg. I can see it changing from PIE *owyo  directly to Germanic. Similarly, couldn't it at least be considered  that English eye and egg are distant cousins (was it ever, why not)? I  apologize if I'm asking questions with answers obvious to you. I'm  interested in etymology, but have a lot to learn.
> 
> apple, jabolka,  a ball, oblo (round), oval, owyo - What is wrong with brainstorming  this way, considering it for a moment, and proving it wrong or right,  and was it done before? Thanks.



There is indeed nothing wrong in asking questions or brainstorming: Etymology, however is not based on free associations but on attested phonetic and semantic changes. Latin *ovum*, Germanic *egg*, Slavic *jajco*, are all attested descendants of PIE *owyo, but *apple *is not.
By the way, *egg *does not "come from" *ovum, *br but the two words er related to **owyo.*


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## Ljudevit

Thanks for taking time to answer. Can you point me to a  good book or a website that would break down how the truth was attested, and how the  free association idea was rejected? I can find a plenty of sources of  what is considered attested, but I cannot find an explanation "how"  exactly. What specifically is wrong with changing it phonetically and  semantically in my way? I don't have the knowledge to do it myself. Is  the answer too obvious, or complicated to be written here, and I just have  to go to a right school, pay my dues, and earn my knowledge the "hard"  way?


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## Ben Jamin

Ljudevit said:


> Thanks for taking time to answer. Can you point me to a  good book or a website that would break down how the truth was attested, and how the  free association idea was rejected? I can find a plenty of sources of  what is considered attested, but I cannot find an explanation "how"  exactly. What specifically is wrong with changing it phonetically and  semantically in my way? I don't have the knowledge to do it myself. Is  the answer too obvious, or complicated to be written here, and I just have  to go to a right school, pay my dues, and earn my knowledge the "hard"  way?


I can recommend you to start with the articles in Wikipedia on "Etymology" and "Proto-Indo-European language". You can also find many interesting explanation in "On line Etymology Dictionary" of the English language. Then you can try to buy or borrow an Etymological Dictionary of your mother tongue.


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## Ljudevit

Thanks for the suggestions. I am looking for something more specific  than a dictionary, I own quite a few of them (Buck, Barnhart, Ayto,  Bodmer, Gluhak...). Dictionaries I own, just give me a "fact", and I am  supposed to believe in it, or have to learn a college worth amount of  information.  
I'm hoping to find an etymologist on this forum,  willing and capable of demonstrating (using a scientific method) how it  is impossible to connect one, or both, of following: 
a.apple and oval, 
b.eye and egg

Thank you.


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## Borin3

*Moderator note: Start of merged thread.*


Apple | Origin and meaning of Apple by Online Etymology Dictionary
As we can see, word apple exists in various Germanic languages just as Slavic. It mentions old Church Slavonic example "Jabloko" which developed differently in different Slavic languages. Serbian lost L, and vowels changed so in turn we got "jabuka". It also mentions PIE root *ab(e)l. And at last it mentions the relation and original sense is uncertain.

Let's hold on to older shape of Slavic word "Jobloko"(Yobloko) which still exists in the same form in Russian.  "oblok" construction in J*oblok*o makes me recall word oblik-shape. Noun oblik-shape is tightly connected to adjective oblo-spherical? (round not as a line, or a ball, but sphere..spherical is a right word? Sphereical and smooth). Last word comes in three genders as obal(m.), obla(f.) and oblo (n.) so obviously *obl* is the root. This same root gives noun like *obl*ik-shape, *obl*ak-cloud (since cloud has that shape which is spherical, round, smooth), *obl*ina- curve etc. etc.

Reconstructed Proto-German *ap(a)laz leads to all similar words in different Germanic languages and stages which all have obl counstruction in them concerning apple. In English itself b changed to p. Now, it's quite obvious that jabloko comes from the same root obl, where J(Y) was added later. Apple also seems to come from the same root..Does that make sense?


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## berndf

/p/ is the regular outcome predicted by Grimm's law for pre-Germanic /b/.


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## Saley

Borin3 said:


> Slavic word "Jobloko"(Yobloko) which still exists in the same form in Russian


_Apple_ is _я́блоко_ in Russian, _я́блуко_ in Ukrainian (_я_ = /ja/); it never had /o/ in the first syllable.


> This same root gives noun like *obl*ik-shape, *obl*ak-cloud


In _о́блик_ and _о́блако_ _об-_ is a prefix, so these words are not related to _я́блоко_.


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## CyrusSH

Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂ébōl - Wiktionary: There are several indications that the word for "apple" did not belong to the oldest layer of the Indo-European protolanguage (the word is limited to the West Indo-European languages) ... most likely as a borrowing from Semitic.


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## Borin3

Saley said:


> In _о́блик_ and _о́блако_ _об-_ is a prefix, so these words are not related to _я́блоко_.


Sorry how can OB be a prefix? 


berndf said:


> /p/ is the regular outcome predicted by Grimm's law for pre-Germanic /b/.


How does that change the picture?


CyrusSH said:


> Reconstructionroto-Indo-European/h₂ébōl - Wiktionary: There are several indications that the word for "apple" did not belong to the oldest layer of the Indo-European protolanguage (the word is limited to the West Indo-European languages) ... most likely as a borrowing from Semitic.


I can't find the original sense except for fruits. Fig is not apple. Ubullat means fruits, so it also denotes brandy made of fruits? All the brandies are mostly made of fruits. The only thing that falls into the eye is that Ubullat means fruit.


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## berndf

Borin3 said:


> How does that change the picture?


You asked about it.



Borin3 said:


> In English itself b changed to p.


This change has has nothing to do with English but us common Germanic.


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## Borin3

berndf said:


> This change has has nothing to do with English but us common Germanic.


Oh sorry, i meant all Germanic languages including German and English. 


berndf said:


> You asked about it.


At the moment you read it, the message was unfinished and saved by accident.


Borin3 said:


> Apple also seems to come from the same root..Does that make sense?


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## Saley

Borin3 said:


> Sorry how can OB be a prefix?


Just like in all other words with this prefix.

_Облик_ is obviously related to _лик_: both words share the same meaning even in Serbian.

_Облако_ is reconstructed as Proto-Slavic _*obolkъ < *ob- + *volkъ_; the root’s meaning is ‘to draw, pull, shamble’. The disappearance of root-initial _в_ is common after the prefix _об-_ (cf., for example, _враћати_ vs. _обраћати_ in Serbian).


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## berndf

Borin3 said:


> I can't find the original sense except for fruits


The connection with the Arabic word is a bit of a long shot and shouldn't be taken too seriously. But the a narrowing of the meaning in the loaning process wouldn't be really a problem. That happens often, e.g., English _panini_ has a much narrower meaning then Italian _panino_, which simply means _small bread_.

What remains is that it is unlikely that there is a common root that goes all the way back to PIE. It is missing in main branches of IE completely and the Germanic and Celtic attestations on the one hand and the Baltic and Slavic attestations on the other hand do not allow a consistent reconstruction all the way back to PIE. From DWDS, lemma _Apfel_: _Grundform läßt sich nicht erschließen. Die germ. und kelt. Formen führen im wesentlichen auf ie. *ab(a)l-, *ablu-, während die balt. und slaw. Formen Länge des Anlauts, zum Teil auch des zweiten Vokals zeigen, also auf ie. *ābō̌l-, *ābel-, *āblu- weisen._


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## Borin3

Saley said:


> Just like in all other words with this prefix.
> 
> _Облик_ is obviously related to _лик_: both words share the same meaning even in Serbian.
> 
> _Облако_ is reconstructed as Proto-Slavic _*obolkъ < *ob- + *volkъ_; the root’s meaning is ‘to draw, pull, shamble’. The disappearance of root-initial _в_ is common after the prefix _об-_ (cf., for example, _враћати_ vs. _обраћати_ in Serbian).


I didn't consider oblak to have such a route, neither that oblik would be rather related to lik. ak and ik are also suffixes in number of cases. 
Anyway don't be selective with words when giving out examples for ob as a prefix. Obletati, obgrliti, obloga (obloziti), opkoliti (b>p), obraditi.. are all circular actions and so obletati can be only translated as fly around, obgrliti- to hug the whole of something or someone (obgrliti-to put hands all around something) opkoliti-to surround (kolo is already a circle where ob stresses it's meaning even more), obraditi-to process (raditi-to work, with ob it's a complete one action and it can be translated to work (something) all around...There are plenty of cases. OB in most of them as a prefix denotes a whole one process completed, and mostly carries a meaning of a circle. 

If what you said is correct, it doesn't change the fact that obl is a root for spherical, and that it exists in word for apple. At the end oblutak is exclusively a spherical, smoothed out stone.


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## berndf

Borin3 said:


> If what you said is correct, it doesn't change the fact that obl is a root for spherical, and that it exists in word for apple.


It changes everything. I means that the word for _apple_ does not contain that "root" but incidentally contains this same short sequence of phonemes.


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## OBrasilo

Borin3 said:
			
		

> opkoliti (b>p)


That (b>p) is only true in Serbian, Slovenian, for example, maintains the b: _obkoliti_. Also, I agree that most if not all ob- have some sort of "round" meaning but I think that stems from the fact that the prefix ob- has the meaning of "around".
And I really don't think it has anything to do with the word for apple, which by the way, in Slovenian, is _jabolko_. The -ko is clearly a suffix here, with jab-l- being the root, as indicated by the Slovenian word for apple tree, which is _jablana_, having the same jab-l- root but suffix -na.
In Russian, the words are _yabloko_ (apple the fruit) and _yablonya_ (apple tree), stressed on the first syllable just like the Slovenian words. So both words are clearly common Slavic.
And to me, the relation of Slavic _yabl-_ to Germanic _apl-_ is clear, some Slavic languages adding a y- to vowel-initial word is a know thing, for example, PIE _hégom_ (I) yieleded Germanic _ik_ and Old Slavic _azŭ_, and the latter also gained a y- in most Slavic languages (Slovenian _jaz_, Russian _ya_, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian _ja_, Czech/Slovak _já_, etc.). So an Old Slavic _ablŭ-_ replated to Germanic _apl-_ that gained an initial y- in most Slavic languages, would not be unprecedented.


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## Sobakus

OBrasilo said:


> That (b>p) is only true in Serbian, Slovenian, for example, maintains the b: _obkoliti_.


It's just an orthographic convention. Stops are allophonically devoiced before other voiceless stops in every Slavic language, but as far as I know this is only orthographically represented in BCS with its extremely phonetic orthography (possibly also Macedonian).


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## James in London

berndf said:


> The connection with the Arabic word is a bit of a long shot and shouldn't be taken too seriously.



What about this, for instance? English apple, from Anglo-Saxon aeppel, also meaning fruit in general, similar to forms in Celtic and Slavic. Could these not be related to Latin malus, as in the term malic acid, and Greek melon or malon, again both meaning apple or fruit?

Turkish is thought to be utterly unrelated. However, borrowings are still possible. The Turkish for apple is elma. The capital of Kazakhstan used to be Alma Ata or Almaty, meaning apple something; there’s a forest of wild apple trees near there. Kazakh is a Turkic language, thus related to Turkish. Recent analysis of the genome of the domestic apple, Malus pumila, has shown that it is descended from a wild apple called _Malus sieversii_. This is found in the mountains of Central Asia in southern Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Xinjiang, China. Cultivation of the species probably began in the forests on the lower slopes of the Tian Shan mountains, and it went on over a long period of time. The word could have been borrowed from Turkic into Indo European in prehistoric times, from IE into Turkic, or from a member of a now lost third language family into both IE and Turkic, or even from a common ancestor of both proto-IE and proto-Turkic. I doubt that the word originated in Turkic as the Turks had not yet left Mongolia: the IE Scythians or the Tocharians would have been there.

What we have is a group of words with a similar meaning of apple or fruit and a core of –bl- or –ml- or –lm-. Of interest too are lemon and lime, which are thought to be from Arabic _laymūn_ or _līmūn_, and from Persian li_mūn_, a generic term for citrus fruit, which is a cognate of Sanskrit (_nimbū_, lime), so –nm- is also possible as a variant. Let us call these the core words. The core words are in various seemingly unrelated language families and would have come from an earlier word for fruit in general. This would have arisen in a fruit-growing area where different peoples encountered one another in prehistoric times. If the fruit is an apple, then Central Asia fits the bill. Here perhaps not only the Indo-Europeans and the Turks met but also the Uralic peoples, the ancestors of the Hungarians , the Finns and others: the Hungarian for apple is elma, the same as the word in Turkish.


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## fdb

James in London said:


> Turkish is thought to be utterly unrelated.



Have you looked at no. 47 ?


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## Oranje

I went to verify what James was saying about Kazakstan and discovered that central Asia is apparently where wild malus sieversii, the progenitor of the domesticated apple, shows the most genetic diversity. The place of domestication is thought to be Tian Shan forest in Kazakhstan. It is dated to the cross breeding of M. domestica and M. orientalis over 4,500 thousand years ago. Per glottochronology, this would make the apple younger than Indo-European but older (or as old) as common Turkic. If the date is correct, the place in which the apple was domesticated in central Asia will have fallen within the limits of the Afanasevo culture. This means the root of apple is within the usual timelimit for linguistic reconstruction consistent with neogrammatrian methods.

These are facts which would be of interest to archeologists-cum-linguists similar to Matthew Spriggs and Roger Blench (SE Asia specialists) if such scholars existed for Eurasian prehistory.

But these facts are non-linguistic.

I think more careful comparative work needs to be done before non-linguistic circumstantial evidence can be integrated into an argument. For example:

- are _mal-_ (Baltic, Latin) and _apVl_ (Indo-European) all meaning apple the same root? [probably not, the former has good alternative etymologies as in Blažek (1995) in the OP]
- what is the position of Oghuz _almā_ in areal context? What are the phonotactic constraints of Turkic, IE, Uralic and Mongolic? Are there any known sound law tests for detecting deep borrowing within and between these groups operant on our root? [Mong. _alim_, Kalm. _al'mn_, yet unattested in Siberian Turkic; (root initial?) pre-Turkic p/b > Turkic h; Chuvash n is a regular correspondence of Oghuz m after r (possibly l?)]
- why Sankrit numbū for lime? Are there any other borrowed roots in complementary distribution? Can we date this?

As you might expect, this requires a deep familiarity with more than a few rogue words that resemble one another superficially.

Alma-Mati is almost certainty a folk etymology. Ml/bl/lm as a routinely metathesised root for generic Eurasian fruit is not tenable.

EDIT: It so happens that Middle Chinese 頻婆 /biĕn buɑ/ > Mandarin 蘋果 píngguǒ, both "apple", is borrowed from Sanskrit बिम्ब bímba "Momordica gourd". The gourd in question is red and fleshy. From the shape, the root isn't likely to be IE.


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## fdb

Oranje said:


> EDIT: It so happens that Middle Chinese 頻婆 /biĕn buɑ/ > Mandarin 蘋果 píngguǒ, both "apple", is borrowed from Sanskrit बिम्ब bímba "Momordica gourd". The gourd in question is red and fleshy. From the shape, the root isn't likely to be IE.



There is bimba- (m.) “disk of the sun or moon”, and bimbā- (f.) “the gourd Momordica monadelpha”. Presumably you mean the latter.


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## Oranje

berndf said:


> You probably know that this is part of a broader scheme. Vennemann tries to prove that there has been important Semitic on languages in the North Sea area about 300 BC as a consequence of alleged Punic colonization. E.g. he also regards Germanic strong verbs as a consequence of Semitic influence. The general reception by his peers has been "sympathetically dismissive": While most of his claims are regarded as insufficiently founded, his attempt to re-evalute the history of European civilization beyond traditional beliefs should be applauded (Source, p.35).


Strange how scientific sabotage or, assuming the best, sloppy clumping is considered something that we should applaud if the motivation was to disrupt the past. I understand you are just quoting their opinions but this is a really harmful attitude.


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