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Ishinan wrote : Etymology of Bitumen "the Arabic word btm for bitumen appears to be a straightforward candidate, pointing to a definite Semitic source for the word."
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Arnaud responded :
LOL ! The root btm is an obvious recent loanword from French, that has less than a half century of existence in Arabic. It's not even listed in LArousse Dictionnaire an-nasil de l'arabe. You advised to look in Lisan al Arab in a previous mail, So why don't you go get B_t_m in Lisan ! B_t_m is described as being j_b_l : a mountain !! Arabic native word for bitumen is zift. Your Beat-Ruhlen score : 9 / 10.
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Ishinan's comments:
If you think you can debate by rambling nonsense, then here is an appropriate challenge thrown at you. Below is the following entry of the Lisan Vol. I, pp 227 along the English translation .
See the Lisan al-`Arab's entry in Arabic along the English translation at the bottom of the page :
http://www.theegyptianchronicles.com/ANEW/DRW.html
Just to let you know, I shared (off the list) the pertaining JPEG with members who are speakers of Arabic for arbitration. I would hope you have the common sense to admit how wrong you can be. Another response in (regular format) is also sent to the list.
BTW the C. Ar. :btm is written with the letter t, an emphatic Arabic letter Ta', a fact you seem to be confused about and is why you are in error. If you had properly read my original article and viewed the pertaining JPEG, you would have saved yourself this embarrassment.
Furthermore, unlike you, I am not LOL. Rather It pains me to say: I am really embarrassed for you.
For your own information, the native word in Arabic actually has many synonyms in Classical Arabic which you seem to be ignorant of.
For example, a synonym to bitumen which was directly borrowed into Old French is catran c. 1195. I am referring to the French goudron from Arabic qutran! ( see below , Empr. à l'ar. qat?ra?n, qit?ra?n « goudron ). The Classical Arabic word is half a millennium earlier than the Old French or the Medieval Latin catarannus (ca 1040) .
Quoted for your edification from the French source: "Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales:
Étymol. et Hist. 1. Ca 1195 catran « produit visqueux obtenu par distillation » (Ambroise, Guerre sainte, 3865 ds T.-L.); 1309 goutren (E. de Freville, Mém. sur le comm. mar. de Rouen, t. 2, p. 98 cité par R. Arveiller ds Fr. mod. t. 25, p. 307, s.v. brai); 1611 gouderon (Du Bartas, 2e semaine, Jonas, p. 398 ds Hug.); 1647 goudron (P. Parfouru, Dépenses de P. Botherel, p. 33 : goudron pour recalfeutrer le basteau); 2. 1745 méd. eau de goudron (D.R. Boullier, Recherches sur les vertus de l'eau de goudron [...] trad. de l'angl. du Dr G. Berkeley, Amsterdam ds Cioranescu 18e, no 13471), v. eau goudronnée, s.v. goudronner; 3. 1801 « goudron de houille » (Crèvecour, Voyage, t. 3, p. 54 : goudron de charbon de terre); 1803 goudron minéral (Boiste); 4. 1832 goudron minéral « sorte de bitume ou d'asphalte » (Raymond). Empr. à l'ar. qat?ra?n, qit?ra?n « goudron ». Cf. lat. médiév. catarannus (ca 1040, Eugesippe ds Du Cange), catranum (1160-70, Jean de Wurtzbourg ds Mittellat. W.). La forme avec gou- initial s'explique difficilement, peut-être par l'infl. de goutte (cf. Sain. Autour Sources, p. 290); pour les diverses formes prises par le mot, v. FEW t. 19, pp. 90-91. V. aussi S. Sguaitamatti-Bassi, Les empr. dir. faits par le fr. à l'ar. jusqu'à la fin du xiiie s., Zurich 1974, pp. 84-90.
Unlike you, who doesn't bother to name any sources for your assertions, I am always careful in providing my investigations with their sources and even JPEGs scanned from the dictionary entries for the edification of the reader.
Ishinan