# Persian: kih



## Wolverine9

What is the origin of the Persian 'kih' with the meaning "that"? Is it a loan from Arabic?


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## fdb

Middle Persian distinguishes between _kē_ (Manichaean script: ky; Pahlavi script: MNW), with the meaning “who, which (pronoun)”, and _kū _(kw/ʼYK), in the meaning “where, that (conjunction)”. In early New Persian they are often still distinguished (كى vs. كو), but they soon fall together as _ki_ كه . In Pahlavi manuscripts of the Muslim period there is also a general confusion between MNW and ʼYK.


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## Treaty

Currently, _ke _(که) is almost only used for conjunction "that" in formal and major colloquial and regional dialects. _kee _کیand _ku_ کو are still used widely for "who?" and "where?" in colloquial Persian (and sometimes formal), respectively. Anyway, does it (along with چـ _ch-_) have the same root with romance "qu-" interrogative words? And further Germanic "w-" ones?


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## fdb

Yes, Indo-European *kw becomes k or č in Indo-Iranian. The interrogative pronoun Avestan ka-, ča-, Sanskrit ka-, is thus cognate with the forms with qu- in Latin and hw- in Germanic.


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## marrish

^Definitely so but when you said ''Indo-Iranian'' it is not correct as I'm not aware of any č in Indic languages, including Sanskrit/Pali/Modern languages. Do you happen to know of some example in the Indic languages for č?


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## fdb

"Indo-Iranian" is the reconstructed (hypothetical) ancestor of the Indo-Aryan and the Iranian languages. This would have had k- before IE back vowels and č- before IE front vowels, but in the case of the interrogative pronoun Sanskrit generalised k- throughout. That is why in this particular word there are forms with č- only in Iranian, but not in Indo-Aryan. Sorry if I did not explain this clearly enough.

PS. č is the consonant sound in Skt. च .


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## marrish

^Thank you for clarification; Re. PS I was aware of č/ć/c in Sanskrit in general; I was referring only to its absence in pronouns - as this thread is concerned with them


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## Wolverine9

marrish said:


> ^Thank you for clarification; Re. PS I was aware  of č/ć/c in Sanskrit in general; I was referring only to its absence in  pronouns - as this thread is concerned with them



What do you mean exactly by the absence of č/ć/c in pronouns?  Besides the coalescing of Indo-Iranian č/k into k.


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## marrish

Wolverine9 said:


> What do you mean exactly by the absence of č/ć/c in pronouns?  Besides the coalescing of Indo-Iranian č/k into k.


I mean that pronouns that begin with this consonant are not attested in Sanskrit.


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## fdb

The nominative singular of the interrogative pronoun (who? what?) is:

Old Avestan:  m. kə̄, f. kā, n. kat
Young Avestan: m. kō, f. kā, n. čit, čim
Sanskrit: m. kaḥ, f. kā, n. kim (Vedic also kat)
Compare Latin: quis, quis, quid

What we see in OA. and Skt. is called “paradigmatic levelling”. YA. has the etymologically expected distribution of k/č.
Do note, however, that the expected form with č survives in the enclitic OA/YA. –čit, Skt. –cit.


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## marrish

fdb said:


> Do note, however, that the expected form with č survives in the enclitic OA/YA. –čit, Skt. –cit.


I've never thought of it before, thank you.


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## Wolverine9

Is there any difference between č and c?


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## fdb

No, *c* is the standard transliteration in Sanskrit and Indian studies for the voiceless palatal stop. In Iranian studies we generally prefer to represent this phoneme by *č* and to use *c* for the alveolar fricative /ts/, which is separate phoneme in some Iranian languages (Pashto, Bactrian, etc.).


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## Wolverine9

Along those lines, the _ś _in Sanskrit and Indic studies is the same phoneme as the _š _in Iranian, right?


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## fdb

Wolverine9 said:


> Along those lines, the _ś _in Sanskrit and Indic studies is the same phoneme as the _š _in Iranian, right?



Yes, apart from the fact that Skt distinguishes between palatal ś and retroflex ṣ.


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## Dhira Simha

> What we see in OA. and Skt. is called “paradigmatic levelling”. YA. has the etymologically expected distribution of k/č.
> Do note, however, that the expected form with č survives in the enclitic OA/YA. –čit, Skt. –cit.


I would  like to add to this that the k/č  distinction also  exists in Slavonic. Cp. Rus kto? 'who?'  and čto? 'what'.


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