[Lexicog] A prototypical blessing

[Peter Kirk]

On 23/04/2004 17:06, Kenneth C. Hill wrote:

>Spanish provides another pair of examples with origins in blessings:
>¡hola! for arrival and ¡adiós! for leave-taking. ¡Hola! comes from the
>Arabic wa-lla:h 'por Dios' ['by God'] according to the Spanish Academy and
>¡adiós! is transparently from a Dios 'to God'.
>
>

Interesting! If this the true etymology of Spanish ¡hola!, then it is
probably also of English "hello". See the following from the American
Heritage dictionary, http://www.bartleby.com/61/60/H0136000.html:

> Alteration of /hallo/, alteration of obsolete /holla/, stop!, perhaps
> from Old French /hola/ : /ho/, ho! + /la/, there (from Latin /illc/,
> that way).


I am sure some English speakers would be horrified at the thought that
every time they say "hello" they may be invoking the name of Allah!
(Although of course if we are looking at etymology, Allah is the same as
eloah/elohim, the Hebrew generic word for "god", and is also the word
used by Arabic Christians, and so is not specifically Muslim.)



--
Peter Kirk
peter at qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk at qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/



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