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From Bill Thomas via John Rohsenow:

What a strange concatenation of languages and symbols!

The objects pictured seem to be a set of earrings and a necklace, all sporting the Confederate flag.  At the bottom right are three figures that look like a cheesehead (?), an upside-down strawberry (?), and a lovable little snail (I almost missed that little bugger when I first looked at the ensemble, but the snail is my logo and I've actually kept a pet snail for years, so I was very happy when I finally noticed that jaunty gastropod).

Wait a minute!  That's SpongeBob and his friends Patrick Star and Gary the snail!  Other than the fact that they are popular and cute, however, I have no idea why they are on this package.

But what does the writing in Arabic script say at the top?  According to Peter Golden:

It’s Arabic: ابراج الصين abrâj al-Ṣîn “towers / castles of China”; abrâj is the plural of burj, an old borrowing from Greek πύργος.

I'm really grateful to Peter for mentioning "burj", which immediately made me think of the Burj Khalifa (known as the Burj Dubai before its inauguration), the world's tallest skyscraper.  Digging into the etymology of burj via Wiktionary, I was gobsmacked by all of the interconnections emanating from that innocent seeming little word:

Borrowing from Classical Syriac ܒܘܪܓܐ ‎(burgāʾ), from burg in Middle Persian, or from Ancient Greek πύργος ‎(púrgos) which may be an ancient borrowing from Proto-Germanic*burgz, , from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerǵʰ- ‎(“fortified elevation”), then the English words borough and burg, German Burg and Berg, Dutch burg and others.

Ancient Greek πύργος ‎(púrgos) is first attested in Homer's Iliad 7.206. Believed to be a borrowed word, probably from Urartian [script needed] ‎(burgana, “palace, fortress”); compare also Old Armenian բուրգն ‎(burgn, “pyramid”). Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerǵʰ- ‎(“high”), with cognates including Sanskrit बृहत् ‎(bṛhát, “lofty, high, tall”), Old Armenianբարձր ‎(barjr, “high”) and Old English burg (English borough). Kretschmer suggested a borrowing from Proto-Germanic *burg- ‎(“fortified town, hill-fort”) mediated through some Northern Balkan language (Macedonian?). However, according to Beekes the abundance of Pre-Greek placenames (e.g. Πέργαμον ‎(Pérgamon)) seems to indicate a Pre-Greek origin.

Since, however, "burj" and its cognates seem to be securely embedded in several Semitic languages and has what looks like a classical triliteral Semitic form (brj), I questioned whether it really was a borrowing from Indo-European.  Unsure, I asked a number of specialists in Arabic and Semitic languages their opinion.  Here are the results.

Joe Lowry:

Borrowed words, if they are old enough and conformed enough to the triliteral root system, behave like normal Arabic plurals.  Qaṣr (palace), for example, which is also from Indo-European, has the plural quṣūr.  Words often have more than one plural, so burūj and abrāj are both valid plurals of burj.

Roger Allen:

Here's another instance where the lack of a historical dictionary of Arabic becomes a problem…

So, the dictionary lists the verbal root B _ R _ J, as meaning "to be manifest, evident" and, in particular "to be high / elevated."

The specific word "burj" is listed as being linked with the Greek word "purgos" meaning "a tower."  Two plurals are given for that word: "buruuj" as a plural of multiples; and "abraaj" as a plural of paucity.  "Burj" is also listed (secondarily) as "a sign of the Zodiac" (in which case, either plural form is found, but "buruuj" is the more common).

The question of precedence and the timing of possible linguistic borrowing is complicated  by the fact that the word "buruuj" occurs three times in the text of the Qur'an (probably meaning "constellations"): 15 v. 16;  25 v. 62; and 85 v. 1.

From John Huehnergard:

Yes, ˀabrāj is one of the plurals of burj (the other is burūj); so ˀabrāj aṣ-ṣīn is something like ‘towers of China’; burj can also mean ‘constellation’ and ‘sign of the zodiac’, if that would make more sense of the package and/or Mr. Spongepants and friends. I’m no good at Arabic calligraphic writing, so can’t tell you what the logo to the left of ˀabrāj aṣ-ṣīn says.

Non-Semitic loans into Arabic are assimilated to the root+pattern system where possible, and then outfitted with one or more of the “broken” plurals; a common example is film ‘film’, pl. ˀaflām. (Patterns also exist in the language for loans that have more than 3 consonants, as infabrīka ‘factory’, pl. fabārik.)

We now have a good understanding of the linguistics of abrâj al-Ṣîn ابراج الصين (“towers / castles of China”) though there's still the conundrum of what they have to do with Confederate themed jewelry and SpongeBob and his friends.  And what is that ornate symbol at the top left?

[Thanks to Brian Spooner and Devin Stewart]

December 24, 2016 @ 5:46 pm · Filed by Victor Mair under Borrowing, Etymology, Language and advertising, Language and business, Language and culture

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