# Persian: دویست



## aisha93

Hello

Why is two hundred called دوبیست instead of دوصد?
دوبیست equals to forty (2x20) or (20+20)

Thanks


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## Treaty

Hi,

It is دویست _devīst _not دوبیست. It is probably borrowed from Sogdian _dwē-st, _itself from older Sogdian or Avestan _duye-saite_ (or a similar origin, like Sanskrit _dviśata_), cf. Middle Persian _dwē-sad_. In Iranian new Persian it gradually changed to _devīst/divīst _(with some people pronouncing it _dovīst_).


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## PersoLatin

Treaty said:


> It is probably borrowed from Sogdian _dwē-st, _itself from older Sogdian or Avestan _duye-saite_ (or a similar origin, like Sanskrit _dviśata_), *cf. Middle Persian dwē-sad*.


Surely NP devist comes directly from MP _dwē-sad_, i.e. no borrowing, if you transliterate the MP _dwē-sad_, you will get *دویسد* (i.e. into NP) with the very likely pronunciations of devisad or doisad which were later simplified to devist/doist.


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## Treaty

Maybe, but there are two questions. First, why Persian developed two 200s _dwē-sad>dwēst_ and _do-sad? _Second, why the shift d>t happened? I can think of three possible reasons for the latter:
- it was a loan from Sogdian (or another eastern language) with -_t_ ending.
- d>t occured when _sad_ began to be read as _sd_ (so voiceless assimilation). But why it was started to be read as _sd _(why didn't this happen to other _sad_s)?
- it was an imitation of 20's ending _st_.

It should be noted that _dowēst/dwēst _was used very early in NP (as in rhymes of Shahname). So, _sad>st_ should have occurred in MP or very early NP. In addition, there is also a word spelled _tyryst_ (three hundred) in Middle Persian which doesn't seem a genuine Persian word (though it is not Sogdian _šēsat _or Parthian _hrēsad_ either).


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## truce

It should be noted that the number 200 only in Iranian Persian is called "دویست" while in Afghan Persian it is called "دوصد".


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## PersoLatin

truce said:


> It should be noted that the number 200 only in Iranian Persian is called "دویست" while in Afghan Persian it is called "دوصد".


This is interesting since MP already had _ē _in_ dwē-sad_, maybe Dari at a later stage purge this 'apparently' superfluous_ ē _as they deemed it a mistake, I don't know.


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## PersoLatin

Treaty said:


> - d>t occured when _sad_ began to be read as _sd_ (so voiceless assimilation). But why it was started to be read as _sd _(why didn't this happen to other _sad_s)?


This is the likeliest in my view. I believe it is to do with do/2 ending in a vowel, this fact had already introduced _ē _after_ dw _in_ dwē-sad._ Maybe it was already pronounced as _dwisd,_ in MP times. You may not agree with this, but Perso-Arabic must have cemented the 'doisd' pronunciation, as دویسد could easily be read as _dwisd/_ and then_ dvist/_دویست, in same way as _molana _is read as _mevlana_, (Turkish), this has happened to many Persian/borrowed Arabic words, that have و in them.

Three hundred/si-sad in also interesting, I guess the same _ē _was introduced to sé/se too (as we don't have sesad), i.e. sē-sad, pronounced _seysad _and that changed to _sisad _(Perso-Arabic reasons) but easier to say than _doisad_.


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## Treaty

PersoLatin said:


> You may not agree with this, but Perso-Arabic must have cemented the 'doisd' pronunciation, as دویسد could easily be read as _dwisd/_ and then_ dvist/_دویست, in same way as _molana _is read as _mevlana_, (Turkish), this has happened to many Persian/borrowed Arabic words, that have و in them.


As explained in the other thread (or PM), you are implying that Persians of 1000AD learned the language from written sources. This is a bold claim considering ~95% of them were illiterate. Second, your comparison with Turkish is wrong, plain and simple. Turkish never borrowed _molānā_; they borrowed _mawlānā_ that is its Arabic pronunciation, as still is in Tajik Persian. Turkish borrowed and is using it very loyal to its original pronunciation: _meβlana_. The difference between Turkish _eβ_ and Arabic _aw_ is negligible. Meanwhile, every single Turkish word (which I know) with spelling _ev_ for Perso-Arabic و represents Persian/Arabic _aw _not _o_, _u_ or _ū_. Similarly, an absolute majority of these Arabic _aw-_words are also loyally pronounced with _ō_ in Iranian Persian. This is a clear evidence that the Perso-Arabic script didn't confuse Turks. But for some reason, you keep using this non-existent confusion to support your argument.

If _sad>sd>st_ had happened at some stage, it should have been because of ease of pronunciation not the script. I wonder about the possibility of this happening even in OPers.: _-θata>-θta>-sta_, so the final _-t_ didn't change to _-d_ in MPers. But again, this doesn't explain MP _tyryst_.


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## PersoLatin

Treaty said:


> As explained in the other thread (or PM), you are implying that Persians of 1000AD learned the language from written sources.


You are twisting my words, I don't believe forum members, especially yourself, would read it that way.



Treaty said:


> This is a bold claim considering ~95% of them were illiterate.


Again twisting my words, I always use 'maybe', 'may', 'might' etc. Now talking about 'claims' I am sure you have proof that "~95% of them were illiterate" otherwise this IS a bold claim. Anyway if you are right then ~5% literacy is very impressive, it beats many countries in the 21st century.



Treaty said:


> Turkish never borrowed _molānā_; they borrowed _mawlānā_ that is its Arabic pronunciation


I didn't say that but you sound very sure that's were the Turks got it from, but the source is irrelevant here. Maybe I used a bad example. Another example of how Perso-Arabic و can produce several outcomes, is the name city of مرو/Marv in present Turkmenistan, it was renamed to *Mary*, (also known as Merv & Meru). I remember listening to a British TV report recently, the reporter said something like 'ancient city of *Mary*' (pronounced like mother of Jesus), I caught a glimpse of the map which helped identify this mysterious place was, مرو/Marv. You may know a different story about that.


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## Treaty

PersoLatin said:


> You are twisting my words, I don't believe forum members, especially yourself, would read it that way...Again twisting my words, I always use 'maybe', 'may', 'might' etc.


Well, you are twisting your own words. The only "may"s in your post were about the _time_ of it (not its occurrence) and what _I_ agree with. Otherwise, you have used strong terms "believe" and "must have":


PersoLatin said:


> but Perso-Arabic *must have* cemented the 'doisd' pronunciation


I interpret it that people learned to pronounce it "doisd" because of the Perso-Arabic script. Obviously, they should have been literate to be influenced by the script. If you haven't mean this, then, OK, I apologize.


PersoLatin said:


> you sound very sure that's were the Turks got it from, but the source is irrelevant here


Are you implying that I said they had borrowed it from Arabic? If so, I haven't said that. I said they borrowed it with its Arabic _pronunciation_, which was used in the Persian of the time before we changed it into _ō_.


PersoLatin said:


> the name city of مرو/Marv in present Turkmenistan, it was renamed to *Mary*, (also known as Merv & Meru). I remember listening to a British TV report recently, the reporter said something like 'ancient city of *Mary*' (pronounced like mother of Jesus), I caught a glimpse of the map which helped identify this mysterious place was, مرو/Marv. You may know a different story about that.


Now this may be a bad example. First, it is Turkmen not Turkish. Second, it is a final [w] after a consonant. I have no idea how Turmen languages coped with this in its phonology. I can only guess (based on current phonology) that if the local pronunciation of the city was _marw_ (with true [w]) then because Turkmen didn't have the sound [w], they might have used [_β_] ("w" in Turkmen script) or/and a (or more) vowel which is "y" (which in its short form is more like a shwa). Anyway, may be we should approach Turkmen as a once-colloquial dialect. Consider dialects which say _tehrū_ instead of _tehrān, _does the omission of [n] and _ā_>_ū _have anything to do with the script?


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## Pouriya

There are some irregular rules for that :
دویست/devīst/
سیصد/sisad/
پانصد/pansad/


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## fdb

The development of Old Iranian *dwai satai to early NP duwēst is parallel to that of *wīsati to NP bīst. In both cases the vowel in the paenultimate syllable was syncopated BEFORE the time when  post-vocalic /t/ was voiced to /d/. Either this, or the /t/ was secondarily restored after /s/. The same thing happened in OP *asa-tara- > NP astar “mule”. There is no need to assume that these words were borrowed from Sogdian.


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## Treaty

fdb said:


> There is no need to assume that these words were borrowed from Sogdian


What about MP _tyryst_? Was it a less common _tr>tir_ or a loanword?


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## fdb

MP tīrist seems to continue the feminine form of “three”: Av. tišr-, Vedic tisr-, with *tri-sr- > tišr-> tīr-. But this is debated.


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## Treaty

Thank you


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## Derakhshan

Is Russian *двести *_dvesti _with the same meaning, a coincidence?

For what it's worth, we say _dobist_ in my dialect.

Edit: Okay it's obviously not a 'coincidence' and they are cognates, but I was just struck by the phonological closeness of _devist_ and _dvesti_, which is probably coincidental


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