Quiz - Where did these words originate?

[kokopelli]

For our resident linguists can anyone wager a guess on the origin of these two words. Maybe not what you think, at first.

 

Adobe and Ebony

 

A clue will be provided to further confound and confuse you although Susan and Phineas would know the answer.

[Rogie]

No idea as to origins.

 

Just to state the obvious,

 

Adobe is some kind of brick, so one might come across the description 'adobe hut' for example.

 

Ebony is a kind of black wood (sometimes contrasted with ivory).

[kokopelli]

Rogie, bricks and ebony, where oh where could they originate?

[KhorTose]

A young civilization on the banks of the Nile, give or take 4000 to 5000 years ago.

[Guest fountainhall]

The makers of Photoshop and Michael Jackson!

[kokopelli]

Phineas = Man from Nubia; Susan = Water lily

[kokopelli]

If you recognize this script you will know the word origins. One clever Frenchman recognized it.

[Bob]

Oh, some cunning linguists here.....

 

Adobe is sun-dried brick/clay and we yanks are used to the term as they use adobe to build houses/structures in the dry desert places of North and South America. But I'd guess they did that too in ancient times and I'll go with Khun Khortose's guess (Egypt or north Africa) as it's fairly dry around there too.

 

As for ebony, the name likely emanates from the wood or tree. Most of it is from Africa (and I think some in South America) but I'm not sure if there were any ebony trees in either Egypt or Greece. So I'd guess middle/north Africa in general.

[Guest thaiworthy]

Ancient Babylonians or Sumarians. I don't know if those are the correct answers but I think the prize should be a top of the line Vitamix 220-volt blender. Did I win?

[KhorTose]

The writing is Sumarian, but the words come from Egyptian according to Wiki. I know this from Middle eastern history that the first two cities in the world were Memphis in Egypt and Ur (Urak) in Mesopotamia. Now if you spend a minute and think about it, would you build a house out of adobe in mesopotamia where the flood are regular but vast or in Egypt were the size of the flood is usually constant so one knows what stays dry, and what gets wet.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebony

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe

[Rogie]

Looks like we have tracked down the part of the world the words originated but we haven't worked out how they were formed. As ancient Egyptian uses hieroglyphs where a word is often composed of recognisable shapes like a fish or a duck and adding two or more together makes the word. I am guessing Sumerian (if that's the language of that tablet in post #7) is similar.

 

So the word adobe will be formed by two or more component parts, ditto ebony. Both words contain the letters 'o', 'b' and 'e' next to each other, albeit reversed.

 

If my reasoning is on the right track, the origin of adobe and ebony is similar, once we know what the 'obe' part means we're halfway there.

 

But thereafter my pen runs dry . . .

[kokopelli]

Oh, some cunning linguists here.....

 

Oh no! I hope that was an unintentional pun? Dick lickers, but never cunning linguists.

[kokopelli]

You guys sure are clever linguistic sleuths so maybe just one more cunning clue will lead to the correct answer?The answer can be found written in Stone as the clever Frenchman, mentioned before, so discovered. His name was ...., well you really didn't think I would tell you!! But here is his grave.(Kind of hard to read the name, 5555)Plus a photo of him.

[Guest fountainhall]

I think I have put the pieces together – but this is really tough!

 

The writing is on the most visited artifact in the British Museum. The Frenchman is probably Jean-Francois Champollion who deciphered the hieroglyphs and other writings on what became known as the Rosetta Stone, so named after a town in the Nile Delta.

 

The Stone has three different scripts – hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek. Scholars believe that the word adobe comes from demotic and passed first into Arabic and then into the Spanish language after the Moors invaded the Iberian peninsula. From there it was adopted into English. Ebony came into English usage through Arabic from the demotic meaning of a dark-skinned man from Nubia.

 

But where Susan and Phineas come in beat me. Rosetta Stone is also the name given to Halle Berry’s character in the movie “The Flintstones”, but that didn’t seem to get me anywhere. Phineas also put me off, as I assumed it was something to do with “Around the World in 80 Days”. But that story is about the adventures of Phileas Fogg, not Phineas.

 

However, the word for a Nubian probably passed through Hebrew and Greek to become, as Koko mentioned, the name we know today as Phineas. Susan has a similar sort of derivation, coming via demotic, where it means ‘water-lily' (thanks again Koko), and Hebrew into English.

 

Do I win the top of the line Vitamix 220-volt blender?????

[kokopelli]

You win FH but on the shoulders of giants in the field of linguistics, namely Rogie, Bob and Khortose. Here a clever cartoon of Jean Francois Champollion and a link to an article in the New York Times with a graphic showing how adobe and ebony crept through time into English. I could not figure out how to include the graphic other than thru these links.http://www.nytimes.c...tml?ref=sciencehttp://www.nytimes.c...?pagewanted=allThe prize is a multi-use, non-electric; use anywhere blender.

[Guest thaiworthy]

That's an egg beater not a blender! Fortunately for me, I know Fountainhall, and I hope he will invite me to one of his soon-to-be-famous late-nite smoothie parties.

[Guest fountainhall]

And no doubt Khun TW will wish to have a liberal sloshing of champagne and kir in his smoothie (thinking back to his Christmas Quiz consolation prize earlier in the year) .

 

Stand by, though Khun TW, as the next end-of-year champagne Quiz is in preparation!

 

And Koko for President, please note I can't make smoothies with egg whisks. I really do need a top of the line Vitamix 220-volt blender