E 0717          RED

The word " red " is of Germanic origin .

H 1032            ד ר ו                     

Concept of root : rose

 Hebrew word

pronunciation

English meanings

ד ר ו

wered;

warod;

warad

rose (n) ;

pink;

to become red

Related English words

rose

Comparison between European words and Hebrew

Languages

Words

Pronunciation

English meanings

Similarity in roots

Hebrew

ד ר ו

wered;

warod ;

warad

rose( n );

pink ;

to become red

w . r . d

Armenian

vard

vard

rose

v . r d

Old Persian

varda

varda

rose

v . r d

Greek

ροδον

rodon

rose

r . d

English

red

red

r . d

Dutch

rood

red

r . d

 

 

Proto-Semitic *WARAD --- *WŪRD- Indo-European

 

 

English "rose with certainty comes from Latin "rosa" and nobody doubts that Latin "rosa" is related to Greek "rodon", but no explanation for the respective developments has been established. The flower "rose" has been brought to North Western Europe relatively late, in the Middle Ages, and kept its Latin name.

 

Note:
  • Hebrew. The word "wered" is a relatively younger form than what was the original noun : "*warad". This can be deducted from the composed forms of the word, like the plural "weradim". "Wered" is not found in the Biblical texts, but in Post Biblical Hebrew. The verb "warad" and the adjective "warod" have been coined in modern Hebrew.

 

Note:
  • Hebrew and Old Persian. During the first diaspora of Israel, after Nebuchadnezzar, an important ethnically Jewish minority lived in Persia. The story of Ester happened there. It is possible in such circumstances that words are loaned fom one language into the other, but this is difficult to establish . As to the "rose", seeing that Armenian has the same root, we tend to see them independent. The Jews would not have changed the A of the Persian word "varad" into E : "wered" when loaning it. But with Semitic, Hebrew words this is a very common practice.

 

Note:
  • Proto-Semitic . The root of "wered" is also found in Aramaic " ו ר ד א, wareddą". This is in harmony with our supposition of an original Semitic root, that shows just similarity with the old Indo-European words in Persian and Armenian. The root was probably present in Proto-Semitic. Hebrew "wered" is typically a noun derived from older "*warad". Proto-Semitic probably had a root : "* ו ר ד, W R D". In the comparison we have the double " A ".

 

Note:
  • Proto-Germanic . As to the words for "red", in Germanic languages these usually have "R O D/T", with the final "T" seen in German and its predecessors. Exceptions can be found in Gothic "raud-" that introduced a vowel "A" for pronunciation and Old English "rēod" that has led to the important exception of English "red". The "A" is also seen in Old Norse "raud-", that is accompanied by a verb "rjōda = to make red"! Very interesting is Old Frisian with neither "O" nor "U", but just a vowel "A" in "rād", besides "rea(d)". In our view the presence of the vowel "O" is sufficiently dominant in Germanic languages (with the exceptions like "red" easily explainable) for a hypothesis that the Proto-Germanic form was "R Ō D-", though a development out of "*R Ū D-" may have taken place in Proto-Germanic itself.

 

Note:
  • Greek seems to teach us that the basic root is the one in the name of the wonderful flower. It does not use this root to indicate the colors pink or red, as many other languages do. But there is no common view about the origin of the word. Some believe it comes from the Persian word we mentioned in the table. Others say that "rodon" comes from an older "*werdon".

     

    As to the first hypothesis, we see no reason at all why the Greeks would have had the necessity or interest to loan this word from Persian. And if they loaned it, that would be in the period of the Persian wars, and would have been more similar being a simple word. And this at a time when the word was already "rodon" in Greek !

     

    The second hypothesis is more convincing, as it places Greek nearer to two languages that were spoken in the more limited territory " Near East – Anatolia " : Armenian, Greek and Hebrew.

     

    The word "rodo" for "rose" has remained, without the final N of course, in Modern Greek, but it is little used. Greeks today call a rose a "τριανταφυλλα , triandafilla". Litterally this says "thirtyleafs" and if one checks on this, a rose has thirty petals !

 

Note:
  • Indo-European There is a hypothesis of "*urdho-" for "rose". In harmony with this, Greek "rodon" is considered to have come from an earlier "*wrodon". Obviously the vowel "U" and the consonant "W" are two phenomena that belong to that so flexible group "W V U O" that is present in Semitic and Indo-European, playing a very important role in language development. We would not consider the pronunciation of "D" as "DH" as a fundamental characteristic, but rather as a variation of speech by individuals or groups. So Indo-European probably has been "*WU/O R D-, pronounced with the addition of a final "A".

     

    Latin "rosa" is usually considered a loanword from Greek. One reasoning is that there would have been hypothetical intermediate forms, others that the loan would have been from a dialectal form, another again that the plural "roda" would be at the base of "rosa". The odd thing is that the Romans usually were very precise in their loaning from Greek, specifically Greek. From other languages they loaned very freely, changing grossly names and words. As to Greek, a "Greek "R" was transcribed as "RH" (as in the island "Rhodos") and this was carried on in English. The loanword theory leaves its question marks.

     

    In our table we mentioned English "red" as related. This might mean that the Indo-European word for "rose" has been derived from that for "red", with a prefix "WU" or "WO" and a shortening of the existing vowel. "Red" may have come from Indo-European "*R Ū D-". This finds support in Greek "erüthros", Russian dialect "rudyj", Lithuanian "raudas", Old Irish "rúad" and Old Indian "rudhira".

 

 

 

 

 
Created: Tuesday 6 November 2007 at 22.30.54 Updated: 15/12/2012 at 12.18.51