After uttering that affirmation in response to Peter Grubtal's wish (here) that "the [Butkara] stupa doesn't get destroyed like many other Buddhist relics in that area" — thinking of the Taliban and Bamiyan — I worried that what I said may have been too Christian and Jewish. Upon reflection, however, I realized that nothing could […]
Makes your head spin. Takes so many different shapes and serves so many different purposes: Historically, a kiosk (from Persian kūshk) was a small garden pavilion open on some or all sides common in Persia, the Indian subcontinent, and in the Ottoman Empire from the 13th century onward. Today, several examples of this type of […]
As native speakers of English, we have a direct, non-analytical understanding of the differences among "look", "see", and "watch", the three main verbs for expressing visual perception. The first indicates that we have a purposive gaze at / toward / for something; the second that our sight focuses on what we were looking for; and […]
A couple of days ago, we had occasion to come to grips with the word "garble": "Please do not feel confused" (8/19/22). This led Kent McKeever to write as follows: Your recent use of "garble" has prompted me to pass on something I recently stumbled on. I have been poking at the digital files of […]
For a good example of how music and musical instruments, together with the words to designate them, could travel long distances in antiquity, we have already taken a look at the case of the shawm: "The shawm and its eastern cousins" (11/16/15). Since writing that post nearly seven years ago, a few more interesting facts […]
Many of us first learned about the Balkan red pepper sauce / relish / spread called "ajvar" in this post: "Bosnian menu" (7/28/22). Simplicissimus contributed a nice comment in which it was averred that the BCS (Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian) "word ‘ajvar’ and the English word ‘caviar’ both derive from the same etymon, the Ottoman Turkish word ‘havyar’ […]
On Facebook, this conversation thread followed from a post by Bill Benzon, commenting on his recent blog post, "Once more around the merry-go-round: Is the brain a computer?"
The giraffe is such an outlandish animal that many otherwise sensible people have thought that it must be a combination of several species. From the concept of a giraffe being an amalgam of several animals jointly; compare Persian شترگاوپلنگ (šotorgâvpalang, “giraffe”, literally “camel-ox-leopard”) and Ancient Greek καμηλοπάρδαλῐς (kamēlopárdalis, “giraffe”). Noun زَرَافَة • (zarāfa) f (plural زَرَافَات […]
If you stroll through the grounds of the Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania, you may come upon this phenomenal tree:
Every five years or so, popular science magazines have a "Genghis Khan tomb" story. Here's a current iteration: "Where is the tomb of Genghis Khan?" By Owen Jarus, published 12 days ago The location of the tomb of Genghis Khan (c. 1162 – August 18/25, 1227; the founder and first great Khan [Emperor] of the Mongol […]
Oil is one of the most important substances used by human beings. It can be an essential food for consumption, a medium for cooking and frying, a lubricant, a material for the transmission of pressure through closed channels, a soothing substance for the skin, a substance to burn for propulsion and illumination, a polishing agent, […]
Mehmet Oguz Derin writes: Recently, while reinspecting the numerals, I found that the case of forty in Turkic is a bit more challenging (kırk/qwrq). It made me wonder, could this possibly be a very early borrowing from Indo-European, from the same stem that produces the quaranta word with the same meaning? Maybe the base got […]
The ambiguity of how to pronounce 咀 (jǔ, zuǐ) in toponyms (see this recent post) is mirrored by the situation regarding 堡. Is it bǎo, bǔ, or pù? bǎo small camp; small mud fortification fort; fortress Short for 漢堡／汉堡 (hànbǎo, “hamburger”) bǔ (often in placenames) town or village with walls 吳堡 / 吴堡 ― Wúbǔ […]