Maybe Rosenthal is too proper to mention seret kachol, which means the same as "blue movie" in English.
Maybe I'm too proper...
That's really interesting, particularly the bit about the link between cosmetics and alcohol. My two cents: the connection is probably less etymology than legal, which is to say that if I were researching this, my first thought would be to check Islamic law, since, to my eye anyhow, al-kohol [?; I know no Arabic]looks to be in this instance a legal category. And, if the internet is to be trusted, this seems to be borne out at least at first blush: http://www.sunnah.org/msaec/arti...les/
alcohol.htm
In Arabic, the color associated with kHl is clearly black, rather than blue. The Lisan al-Arab gives:
الكَحْلاءُ مؤنث الأَكْحَل والشديدة سواد العين أو التي كأنها مكحولة وإن لم تُكْحَل
kaHlaa', f. of 'akHal: a woman with very black eyes, as if covered with kohl even if she has none on.
and in Algerian dialect, the word has simply come to mean "black". The photo http://www.trekearth.com/
gallery...photo375052.htm gives some idea of why...
How kaHol ended up as "blue" in late Hebrew would be interesting to know. Presumably kohl also came in blue?
My Syrian high school Physics teacher said that the Arabic word 'alkohol' came from English 'alcohol' which came from the Arabic 'Al-Gool'. The letter G in 'Al-Gool' represent a sound that does not exist in English and probably lost in Hebrew. I think in Hebrew it used to be a gimmel with a dot (fort dagesh ?). In Arabic it is represented by Aiyn with a dot above it. Al-Gool in Arabic is a mythical frightening figure. The behavior of a drunk person is frightening.
According to this, there is no link between the color and alcohol.
In Syrian Arabic, 'Kuhli' (adjective) means dark blue.
Regarding Lameen comment, I owuld replace the 'as if' in your translation with 'or' for the Arabic 'Aw'. If that is done, then the word 'kahlaa'' may have two meanings: strong black, and another color (could be dark blue).
First of all, I have posted an update to this post, with an interesting new discovery.
Baviv - interesting link. It certainly is ironic that the word alcohol came from a religion that forbids its consumption.
Lameen - Stahl discusses a bit about how Arabic took the root to mean "black" and Hebrew "blue". He points out that blue is a dark color, fairly close to black.
Kevin - I have seen that theory, although it doesn't seem to be as popular as the one I wrote about. Stahl writes about the term gul (ע'ול) and writes that besides being the origin of ghoul (as you mention), it may also be connected to the word "gorilla" and the Hebrew gilul גלול - a derogatory term for idols. Actually, this looks pretty interesting, maybe I should do a post about it...
Some colors in Syrian Arabic are:
Wardi (pink), same origin as the Hebrew for pink (I think 'vered'). 'Wardi' is an adjective meaning having the color of 'ward= roses'. Similarly, 'kuhli' is an adjective describing the color of 'kuhl'. My conclusion is that the cosmetic material 'kuhl' used to be (very)dark blue, hence 'kuhli' describing that color. Then the color of 'kuhl' changed to become black.
Thanks for giving some info about Stahl's book, is it possible to purchase it used from somewhere? Is there an Israeli site for used books?
Kevin: Speakers of Yemenite Hebrew tend to pronounce gimel with no dot as a ghimmel, the same sort of sound as Arabic ghayin (although I have a feeling that in some Arabic dialects it is pharyngealised to be closer to 'ayin). As far as I understand this phoneme in Semitic translates to an 'ayin in Hebrew.
Somewhat off the topic: we were taught in high-school chemistry that the collection of chemicals that alcohol belongs to (methanol, ethanol, propanol, etc) are called alkanols. The reference to this word in online dictionaries is limited, so it might not be used all over the world, but obviously the chemists have created this word from the other, as well as having other organic compounds like "alkane", "alkene", and "alkanoic acid". Now this 'al' is coming from Arabic (as they tend to) and probably from "alcohol", but then the k must be used because "alcene" would be pronounced with an s-style c. And then they must have pulled the n from the alkane/alkene form... Just a convoluted way to form a naming convention.
Kevin - Vered does appear in Hebrew as well. It's out of print, but you might get lucky to find it in a used book site. One site that I use is http://www.findabook.co.il
Joel - Interesting development. Another example is the word "trafficking" - which should really be "trafficing", but would be pronounced with an "s" style c.
Based on histories of chemistries, and comprehensive dictionaries like the OED, the European meaning for "alcohol" undoubtedly goes back, through Medieval Latin, and probably Spanish, to al-kuhul, "finely powdered antimony."
This was borrowed in alchemical texts, and only slightly "naturalized," still in reference to dark solids that had been "finely divided" into powder.
In the later sixteenth century the term was applied, probably first by the notoriously eccentric Paracelsus (of whom much could be said) to "spirits of wine" instead. This might have been a reference to it being "finely divided" by fractional distillation. Or it may have been one of his arbitrary invention/coinages in pseudo-Arabic style.
"Spirits" in this sense was connected to the established physiological theories of the day, in which it referred to hypothetical fine liquids which conveyed sensory impressions -- accounting nicely for how an infusion of "spirits" confused perception. But the word also had a great many other meanings, so the opaque "alcohol" had its advantages.
"Alcohol" was beginning to appear in this meaning in English by 1672, and, although long practically universal in the language, it still has not completely replaced the older "spirits" in relation to distillates.
The suggested derivation from al-Gool could have been prompted by French "alcool." German "Alkohol" (itself still co-existing with "Spiritus") might have been a little more transparent.
Ian Myles Slater - Thanks for the fascinating background.
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