Teaser

Full Text

Proto-Indo-European *h₂elbʰós white

Anatolian *albós
- Hittite 𒀠𒉺𒀸 alpas cloud
Hellenic *alpʰós
- Classical Greek ἀλφός alphós alphos, leprosy with white lesions
  - Latin alphos
    
    English alphos
Italic *alβos white
- Latin albus white, bright, pale, gray, fortunate
  - Central Romance
    
    Dalmatian jualb white
  - Eastern Romance
    
    Romanian alb white, clean
  - Old English albe white robe worn by priests, alb
    
    English alb
  - Spanish albo white
    
    Spanish albino albino
    
    English albino
  - Vulgar Latin *albidiare to whiten, to dawn
    
    Central Romance
    
    Italian albeggiàre to turn white, to dawn
    
    Western Romance
    
    Spanish albear to whiten
  - Vulgar Latin *alba dawn, sunrise
    
    Central Romance
    
    Italian alba dawn, sunrise
    
    Western Romance
    
    French aube dawn, sunrise, beginning
    
    Occitan alba dawn
    
    English alba
    
    Spanish alba dawn
    
    Spanish albada
    
    Vulgar Latin *albidiare to whiten, to dawn
    
    Central Romance
    
    Italian albeggiàre to turn white, to dawn
    
    Western Romance
    
    Spanish albear to whiten
  - Latin album whiteness, a blank tablet, a list or register, egg white (albumen)
    
    English album
    
    English White Album
  - Latin albūmen egg white (albumen)
    
    English albumen
  - Latin albor whiteness, egg white (albumen), first light, dawn
    
    Central Romance
    
    Italian albore glimmer, first light, dawn
    
    Insular Romance
    
    Sardinian arbore
    
    Eastern Romance
    
    Romanian alboare glimmer, radiance
    
    Western Romance
    
    Old French aubour
    
    Spanish albor whiteness, first light, dawn
  - Vulgar Latin *albaster whitish ^[1]
    
    Eastern Romance
    
    Romanian albastru blue, sky-blue
    
    Vulgar Latin *albasterellus
    
    Central Romance
    
    Italian albastrello marsh sandpiper
  - Latin albēdō white, whiteness
    
    English albedo
  - Latin albūgō albugo, leucoma
    
    English albugo
  - Latin alburnum alburnum, sapwood
    
    Central Romance
    
    Italian alburno
    
    Western Romance
    
    Spanish alburno
    
    English alburnum
  - Latin alburnus whitish
    
    Western Romance
    
    Old French auborne blond, off-white
    
    English auburn
  - Latin albō I whiten, I make white
    
    Latin dealbō I whitewash, I plaster, I purify "whiten thoroughly"
    
    Western Romance
    
    Old French dauber
    
    English daub
    
    Latin exalbō
    
    Central Romance
    
    Italian scialbare
    
    Latin inalbō
    
    Central Romance
    
    Italian inalbare
- Umbrian 𐌀𐌋𐌚𐌖 alfu white
  - Byzantine Greek ἄλβος álbos white
Unknown
- Finnic *kalbas
  - Finnish kalvas pale
Proto-Indo-European *h₂elbʰyos whitish
- Hellenic
  - Classical Greek Ἀλφειός Alpheiós the river Alfeios and its associated divinity
    
    Greek Αλφειός Alfeiós
    
    English Alfeios ^[2]
    
    Latin Alphēus
    
    French Alphée
    
    English Alpheus ^[2]
    
    English Alph ^[2]
- Proto-Indo-European *h₂elbʰi-
  - Proto-Indo-European *h₂ólbʰis white one, the white
    
    Germanic *albiz elf
    
    North Germanic *albiʀ
    
    Old Norse alfr elf
    
    Danish alf fairy, elf learned borrowing
    
    Icelandic álfur elf, fool
    
    English oaf
    
    West Germanic *albi
    
    Old English ælf
    
    English elf
    
    Frankish *alf
    
    Dutch alf elf
    
    Old High German alb
    
    German Alb elf, nightmare
    
    Germanic *Albigaizaz personal name: Elf-Spear
    
    North Germanic
    
    Old Norse Álfgeirr
    
    Icelandic Álfgeir
    
    West Germanic
    
    Old English Ælfgār
    
    English Elgar
    
    Germanic *Albigastiz personal name: Elf-Guest, Elf-Stranger or possibly *Albigaistaz: "Elf-Ghost"
    
    West Germanic
    
    Old High German
    
    German Elbegast
    
    Frankish
    
    Dutch Elegast
    
    Germanic *Albiharjaz personal name: Elf-Warrior
    
    North Germanic
    
    Old Norse Álfarr
    
    Swedish Alvar
    
    Icelandic Álfar
    
    West Germanic
    
    Old English Ælfhere
    
    Old Saxon Alfheri
    
    Spanish Álvaro ^[3]
    
    Spanish Álvarez
    
    Germanic *Albihildiz personal name: Elf-Battle
    
    North Germanic
    
    Old Norse Alfhildr
    
    Swedish Alfhild
    
    Germanic *Albirēdaz personal name: Elf-Counsel
    
    West Germanic
    
    Old English Ælfrēd
    
    English Alfred
    
    Germanic *Albirīks personal name: Elf-King
    
    West Germanic
    
    Old English Ælfric
    
    English Elric
    
    Old High German Alberih
    
    German Alberich
    
    Old French Alberon
    
    Middle English Auberon
    
    English Oberon
    
    French Aubrey
    
    English Aubrey
    
    English Avery
    
    Lombardic
    
    Italian Alberico
    
    Italian Alberici
    
    Germanic *Albiwiniz personal name: Elf-Friend
    
    West Germanic
    
    Old English Ælfwine
    
    English Alvin
    
    Old High German Albewini
    
    Lombardic Alboin
  - Proto-Indo-European *h₂elbʰih₂
    
    Germanic *albī river
    
    North Germanic
    
    Old Norse elfr river
    
    Danish elv river
    
    Icelandic elfur river
    
    Icelandic Saxelfur the Elbe lit. "Saxon river"
    
    West Germanic *albī river, the River, the Elbe
    
    Old English Ælf the Elbe
    
    Old High German Elba the Elbe
    
    German Elbe
    
    English Elbe
    
    Latin Albis the Elbe
    
    Classical Greek Ἄλβις Álbis the Elbe
    
    Slavic *olba the Elbe
    
    East Slavic
    
    Russian Ла́ба Lába the Elbe
    
    South Slavic
    
    Serbo-Croatian Лаба Laba the Elbe
    
    West Slavic
    
    Polish Łaba the Elbe
  - Proto-Indo-European *h₂élbʰi(t) barley, barley-flour
    
    Pre-Albanian *albi
    
    Albanian elb barley
    
    Hellenic *álpʰi(t)
    
    Classical Greek ἄλφι alphi flour, barley flour
    
    Classical Greek ἄλφιτον álphiton barley flour, barley groats, meal, groats
  - Proto-Indo-European *h₂l̥bʰés barley, barley-flour
    
    Indo-Iranian *Hr̥pā́ćš
    
    Iranian *Hr̥pacáh barley
    
    Pashto وربشی ōrbaše barley
    
    Northern Iranian
    
    Turkic *arpa barley
    
    Oghur
    
    Chuvash урпа urpa barley
    
    Common Turkic *arpa
    
    Oghuz
    
    Turkish arpa barley
    
    Karluk
    
    Uyghur ئارپا arpa barley
    
    Kipchak
    
    Kazakh арпа arpa barley
    
    Siberian Turkic
    
    Old Turkic 𐰀𐰼𐰯𐰀 arpa barley
    
    Shor арба arba barley
    
    Hungarian árpa barley
    
    Hungarian Árpád personal name: Little Barley
    
    English Arpad
    
    English Arpadian
    
    Manchu ᠠᡵᡶᠠ arfa naked oat
    
    Mongolic *arbaï
    
    Mongolian ᠠᠷᠪᠠᠢ arvaj barley, a horse breed
  - Proto-Indo-European *h₂elbʰᶤyō
    
    Celtic *albiyū the upper world (not underworld), the lit world, high mountains, the Alps, Britain oblique stem *albiyon-
    
    Brythonic *ėlβɨð the world
    
    Welsh elfydd earth
    
    Hispano-Celtic
    
    Latin Albionēs
    
    Old Irish Albu Scotland
    
    Irish Alba Scotland archaic
    
    Irish Albain Scotland originally dative, "to Scotland"
    
    Medieval Latin Albania Scotland
    
    English Albany
    
    West Germanic *albijā
    
    Old High German alba Alp, mountainous area, highland
    
    Old High German alpen the Alps plural
    
    German Alpen
    
    Classical Greek Ἀλβίων Albíōn Brittain
    
    Latin Albion
    
    English Albion
    
    Latin Alpēs
    
    French Alpes
    
    English Alps
    
    Latin Alpīnus
    
    Central Romance
    
    Italian alpino alpine, Alpine
    
    Western Romance
    
    French alpin alpine, Alpine
    
    Spanish alpino alpine, Alpine
    
    English alpine
    
    Latin Albānus an Albanian ^[4]
    
    Byzantine Greek Ἀλβανός Albānós an Albanian
    
    Greek Αλβανός Alvanós an Albanian
    
    Byzantine Greek Ἀλβανία Albaníā Albania
    
    Greek Αλβανία Alvanía Albania
    
    English Albania
    
    Illyrian ^[4]
    
    Classical Greek Ἀλβᾱνός ^[4]
    
    Byzantine Greek Ἀλβανός Albānós an Albanian
    
    Greek Αλβανός Alvanós an Albanian
    
    Byzantine Greek Ἀλβανία Albaníā Albania
    
    Greek Αλβανία Alvanía Albania
    
    English Albania
    
    Latin Albānus an Albanian ^[4]
    
    Byzantine Greek Ἀλβανός Albānós an Albanian
    
    Greek Αλβανός Alvanós an Albanian
    
    Byzantine Greek Ἀλβανία Albaníā Albania
    
    Greek Αλβανία Alvanía Albania
    
    English Albania
    
    Albanian arbën an Albanian ^[4]
    
    Greek αρβανός arvanós an Albanian
    
    Bulgarian арбанаш arbanaš
    
    Romanian arbănaș Albanian
    
    Albanian Labëria ^[4]

Visual

Collected English words

Footnotes

Oddly, Vulgar Latin *albaster: "whitish" is the not the origin of "alabaster", despite the phonological and semantic resemblance. Latin "alabaster" comes from Classical Greek ἀλάβαστος alábastos: "a vase of alabaster" (and its variant ἀλάβαστρος alábastros). Though the specific form of the Latin borrowing alabaster from Greek was probably influenced by the Latin suffix -aster.

In the 1930s, Egyptologist Kurt Sethe derived "alabaster" from ꜥj-r-bꜣstjt / a-labaste: "bowl of Bastet". In the 1960s Gerhard Fecht proposed jnr-bꜣstjt / ana-baste: "stone of Bastet". But as far as I know, neither of those phrases are attested in Egyptian.

The name bꜣstjt (Bastet) has been linked to bꜣs: "jar", but that's a much later association, and it's probably not the real etymology of her name. bꜣs may or may not have a link to alabaster, but it's unlikely to be through Bastet.

It's also been suggested that Greek ἀλάβαστος alábastos comes from a place name in Egypt that alabaster was imported from. This is based on Pliny's _Naturalis historia_ and Ptolemy's _Geographia_.

Pliny lists a city he calls Alabastron, and Ptolemy has one likewise (though in a different place) and Ptolemy also lists the Alabastrites Mountains. Pliny discusses the stone alabastrites in Book 36 and says it comes from two places: near Thebes and near Damascus (with Damascus being the better quality) but does not connect it to the place Alabastron he mentioned in Book 5.

It's worth noting that Pliny and Ptolemy are writing hundreds of years after the conquest of Egypt by Alexander, and the names they give are not Egyptian names but Greek names which only sometimes have anything to do with Egyptian names for the same places. While the Greeks were almost certainly getting alabaster from the places they called Alabastron and Mons Alabastrites, it seems more likely they named the place(s) after the material instead of vice versa!

More recently a comparison has been made to Arabic علبة ʿulba/ʿalaba: "box, trunk, can", though to be from an obsolete similar word for a kind of palm tree that was used for making boxes; the palm tree is also attested in Akkadian as 𒀀𒆷𒈪𒌅 alabattu: "a kind of palm-tree".

From Classical Greek Ἀλφειός Alpheiós: "the river Alfeios and its associated divinity", the real world river in the modern day is generally called Alfeios in English; and the river god and the mythical version of the river are usually Alpheus. Coleridge anglicized the name as "Alph". The Alfeios river runs through the karst topography of Peloponnesus, disappearing into the ground and re-emerging somewhere else. Thus the literary/mythical versions of the river as a river in Hades, or as flowing under the sea to emerge in Siciliy, or running "through caverns measureless to man / Down to a sunless sea."

The exact derivation of Spanish Álvaro is hard to pin down.

It could be from Gothic. Many Germanic names in Spanish come through Visigothic during the time of the Visigothic kingdom in Iberia; but there is no evidence of the word *albiz in East Germanic, it may be an innovative word in Northwest Germanic after the split from East Germanic.

It could come through a Frankish -> Old Occitan -> Spanish or Lombardic -> Old Occitan -> Spanish path. If so, we would expect to see the name used in French and/or Italian, but not necessarily.

It could be from a different Germanic bithematic name (through any of those paths): *Allawardō or *Aþalawardō for example (All-Guard, Noble-Guard).

The relationship between Classical Greek Ἀλβᾱνός, Latin Albānus, and Albanian arbën and Albanian Labëria is obscure and complicated. They may or may not all be related. Each one may or may not be from one or more of Latin alba, Celtic *albiyon-, and/or an Illyrian word which may or may not be cognate to either of those.

AidanEM

Other articles

Word Family - Gossamer

Introduction

Word Family - Tree

May theme: Plants 🌱

Introduction

Teaser

Full Text

Word Family - Aqua

August theme: Elements So Slow 🌎🌊

Teaser

Full Text

Other articles

Introduction

May theme: Plants 🌱

Introduction

Teaser

Full Text

August theme: Elements So Slow 🌎🌊

Teaser

Full Text

social