The thing to keep in mind as you read this post is that, in at least a languages, "s" and "sh" are more-or-less the same thing. Japanese, English, and Hebrew, for instance, all treat "sh" as a variation of "s."
The Hebrew and Spanish words for "six" are, respectively, "shesh" and "seis." Coincidence? Or did the Hebrew word enter Spanish via Arabic? Spain spent 700 years under Arab rule, and quite a bit of Arabic found its way into Spanish. Wikipedia estimates that 8% of Spanish comprises loanwords from Arabic. So, did Spanish get "six" from Hebrew via Arabic, or no? This should be easily answered by finding out the Arabic word for "six," right?
Quite a few Arabic numbers are cognates of Hebrew ones. Remember, in hunting cognates, focus on the consonants.
1 = echad (Hebrew) = wahid (Arabic)
2 = shtyaim = ithnain
3 = shalosh = thalatha
4 = arba = arbaa
5 = chamesh = chamsa
6 = shesh = sitta
7 = sheva = sabaa
8 = shmoneh = thamaniah
9 = tesha = tisaa
10 = eser = ashra
From this pattern, we can see that the initial Hebrew "sh" seems to correspond to an Arabic "th." When "sh" falls in the middle of the Hebrew word, it seems to correspond to the Arabic "s." (The Kdsh = Qds model also supports this idea.)
So, WTF's happening with 6? Wouldn't we expect this to be "sisa" in Arabic? So are these words cognates or not? If not, is the Spanish-Hebrew "six" just a coincidence?
And here's another problem. Why would 6 be the only number that Spanish imported from Arabic?
I consider this mystery provocative, yet unsolved.
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2 comments:
I seem to recall that there were a lot of Jews in Spain at one point (oddly, the Arabs treated Jews better than most of Europe did). If this is right, then Spanish might have picked up some words directly from Hebrew.
Doesn't prove anything and doesn't explain much (why only 6) even if I have it right.
Oh! Yeah, I hadn't thought of a direct transfer from Hebrew to Spanish. A very good thought!
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