“Ur of the Chaldees” is a toponym mentioned in the Bible as the birthplace of biblical Abraham. The original Hebrew name of this place is: “אוּר כַּשְׂדִּים”, (Ūr Kašdīm).
In Septuagint, the earliest Greek translation of the Old Testament, “Ūr Kašdīm” is rendered as “χώρα τῶν Χαλδαίων”, (khôra ton Khaldion).
Ūr (אוּר) was translated as → Khôra (χώρα)
Kašdīm (כַּשְׂדִּים) was rendered as → Khaldaion (Χαλδαίων)
“Ūr Kašdīm” was translated into Latin as “Ur Caldeaium”, and from Latin into English as: “Ur of the Chaldees”. (or Chaldeans).
The Greek translators decided to “translate” “אוּר” as: “χώρα/Khôra”
The Latin translators decided to “transliterate” “אוּר” as: “Ūr”.
Translation: gives you the meaning of a word that’s written in Hebrew.
Fortunately, the corresponding Greek for “אוּר” is “χώρα/Khôra”.
Transliteration: doesn’t tell you the meaning of the word, but it gives you an idea of how this word is pronounced in Hebrew.
Unfortunately, the corresponding Latin for “אוּר” is NOT given.
Contrary to the popular belief, the real etymology and the exact location of Ūr Kašdīm is still debated by biblical scholars.
(ô) pronounced as: “o” in (horse)
(Ū) pronounced as: “oo” in (stool)
[Kh] is the Hebrew: (כ), Arabic: (خ), Akkadian (ḫ), Greek (x) or (ch) in Scottish English: “loch” and German: “Bauch”
[kh] can freely replace [k], and vise versa.
Contextual meaning
“Ūr Kašdīm” is composed of two elements: “General” and “Specific”. The generic element is: “Ūr” and the specific element is: “Kašdīm”.
The meaning of “Kašdīm” is agreed upon, but the contextual meaning of “Ūr” is still debated.
כַּשְׂדִּים (Kašdīm):
“Kašdīm” is a plural noun: (“Kašd” + plural suffix “-īm”). Most scholars believe that “Kašdīm” is an ethnonym, a name for a people known in history as “the Chaldees”. (or the Chaldeans)
Χαλδαίων (Khaldaion):
“Χαλδαίων” is believed to be a byform of “כַּשְׂדִּים/Kašdīm”, a variant form of the same name. It is the English: “Chaldeans”.
אוּר (Ūr):
“אוּר/Ūr”, in biblical Hebrew, means: illumination, luminary, bright, clear, day, light (-ning), morning, Sun, fire, region of light, or east. [1],[2].
However, the contextual meaning of “Ur” in “Ur of the Chaldeans” is still debated, is it “the light of the Chaldeans”? “the Sun of the Chaldeans”? “the fire of the Chaldeans”? or what?
Χώρα (Khôra)
“χώρα/Khôra” or “χώρας/Khôras”, is a lexical word. In Modern Greek it means: land, territory, region, tract and country.
In ancient Greek, “χώρα/Khôra” had several denotations, some of them can be found in specialized lexicons. One of these is the famous: “dictionnaire grec-français”, a Greek-French dictionary published in 1895.
“χώρα/Khôra”, according to this dictionary , means:
- espace, intervalle entre. (Space, space between two limits)
- pays, contree, region. (Country, countryside, region)
- territoire d’une ville. (territory of a city)
- campagne.
“Campagne” in French is defined as: “Grande étendue de pays plat, peu habitée, par opposition à la ville”.
This can be translated as: “Large expanse of flat country, sparsely populated, as opposed to the city”. In this sense, “χώρα/Khôra” may also be rendered: “desert” [3]
Semantic equivalents
As mentioned earlier, ancient Greeks translated “אוּר/ Ūr” as “χώρα/Khôra”. This has led some scholars to infer that these two words, (Ūr & Khôra), are close in meaning, or as.. Wikipedia put it: “The Septuagint translation of Genesis does not include the term (Ur); instead it describes the (Land of the Chaldees), (Greek χώρα Χαλδαίων, Khôra Khaldaion). Some scholars have held that biblical Ur was not a city at all, but simply a word for land.”
One of those scholars is (Shanks, 2000), who wrote the following: “Ur, as used in the Bible, (may) refer not to a city, but to a region. In Genesis 11:28 we are told that Abram’s brother died (in the land of his birth, Ur of the Chaldees.) The text says that Ur is the land of his birth, rather than the city of his birth. Moreover, in the early Greek translation of the Bible known as the Septuagint, instead of (Ur of the Chaldees), Genesis 11:28 says, (The land of the Chaldees.) If we retroject the Greek word for (land) into Hebrew, we get Eretz (as in Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel). In early consonantal Hebrew, Ur and Eretz begin with the same two letters (aleph, resh); the two words differ only in that Eretz has a third letter, a tsade. It is therefore possible that the Septuagint preserves the original tradition; the tsade somehow fell out in the Hebrew text that has come down to us. The Bible thus refers not to a city but to a country.” [4]
That’s to say:
1- “אוּר/Ūr” has an “obsolete sense” which is: “land”.
2- “אוּר/Ūr” and “χώρα/Khôra” share “semantic aspects”, and they could be “semantic equivalents”.
Semantic equivalents: are words in two different languages that have similar or practically identical meanings. They may be cognate, but usually they are not. For example, the German equivalent of the English word “cow” is “Kuh”, which is also cognate, but the French equivalent is “vache”, which is unrelated. [5]
Obsolete sense
To investigate more about this “obsolete sense” of “אוּר/Ūr”, we need to do some “cognate comparison”.
Hebrew “Ūr” has cognates in other Semitic languages, but ultimately Sumerian in origin.
It is worth noticing, here, that Sumerian and Akkadian words are characterized by their multiple “spelling variants”, and “many cuneiform signs can be pronounced in more than one way and often two or more signs share the same pronunciation” [6]
Akkadian: “urrû; urru; urra”: to shed light, daylight, morning, daytime. “ārā, aru; eru; erû; irû; eriu, uru”: land, empty, destitute, nakedness, naked, to strip bare, to clear out. [7],[8]
Syriac: (ܥܪܐ), (ܥܲܪܝܵܐ): (ᶜara), (ᶜaria): Lay bare, strip naked, kindled, started (fire), stripped, lacking covering, abraded.
(ܐܰܥܪܺܝ): (aᶜri): to light, to torch, to start fire, to lay bare.
(ܚܘܵܪܵܐ): (ḥura): white, a blank, a landscape, an extensive view.
(ܟܳܪ): (her): hot, burning, sultry, ardent. [9], [10]
Arabic: ḥar (حَر): heat, rural region, side.
ḥariah (حَرّية): sandy (said of land), (أرض حَريّة)
ḥarra (حَرّة): scorched land, lava field.
ᵓuar (أوار): heat of fire, flame.
ᶜaraᵓ (عراء): nakedness, nudity, barren land, desert.
ᶜara (عرا) or (عرى): side, piazza, suburb, province.
ᶜar (عر): side, rural region.
ᶜurian (العُريان): sand dune. [11]
Sumerian: “ara; ar; rà; ùru”: light, lustrous, bright, glowing, clear, polished, luminous object. watchfire, to shine; to blaze.
“aria; arua; éria”: desert, waste land, district.
“uru; iri; ri; iri”: immediate vicinity, adjacent place, village. [12].[13]
In these languages, words such as hot, blazed, bright, scorched, parched, naked, and blank, are used figuratively to denote: “exposed land”, “bare soil”, “barren desert”, “sands”, or simply: “land”.
Open spaces, plains, deserts and dunes are usually associated with clarity, light, heat or whiteness, in contrast with the dark, shady and cool dwellings or wooded areas.
Here are some examples:
– Sumerian: “Kur”: to light up, to burn, east, land, country.
– Mandaic language: “Ber”: Shine out, burn with anger, desert, vacant land.
– Latin word ‘harena’ or ‘arena’: sandy desert, another meaning of this Latin word is Fire or Lava.
– English word “shire” (suburb/country): derived from old English ‘Scir’ which means ‘bright’ or ‘clear’.
– English ‘plains’ refers to ‘treeless level expanses’, its literal meaning is: “clearly visible”.
Diachronically, the figurative sense, may become the general meaning of the word, or one of its lexical denotations. Some or one of these denotations may become archaic or obsolete, no longer used, no longer understood.
“Obsolete denotation” refers to the case of a word which had more than one meaning, but which, in the course of time ‘lost’ one of its meanings. [15] This “lost meaning” is called: “obsolete denotation” or “obsolete sense”.
All this leads to the conclusion that the Hebrew “אוּר/Ūr” has an obsolete sense, which is: “desert” or “sands”, and in, (sensu lato),: “land”.
Within Hebrew lexicography, there is “ערם/ᶜr-am” ( = naked, heap), which might be a doublet of “ער” and “אר”. In Semitic morphology “-m” is a ‘suffix’ or an ‘epithesis’
“ער-ם” has an Arabic cognate: “ᶜarma/عَرَمةُ” (pile, sand dune).
Cf. Greek: “ερημιά/erimiá”, ( = desert, privacy).
Cf. Ancient Greek: “χήρα/kherē”, ( = widow, derelict, deserted).
Semantically cf. English: bare, barren, poor, pure and barrow (= burial mound).
Sand is perceived as being pure, soft, clean, unspoiled, shiny, hot and reddish-white. This made the word “sand”, or its equivalents, synonymous with “lighted, glowing, heat, redness, whiteness, pure, bare, barren, stripped, without, empty, deprived, poor… etc.
Cf. Greek: “χωρίς”, (= barren of, without), obviously a doublet of “χωρας”.
– in “Republic 495c”, Plato used the word: “χώρα” to depict the “barren place” of philosophy resulting from the polluting of young minds by sycophants and flatterers in the Polis.[16]
– Arabic “khali/خالي”, (empty, without), derived from “khul/خُل/sand” (Hebrew חוֹל), and “khala/خلاء/desert”.
– Arabic “Jahr/جهر” (= very bright, dazzling light, clear) derived from “Jahrāᵓ/جهراء” (= sandy desert)
Khôra as “Coast”
In Septuagint, “אוּר/ur” is rendered as “χώρα” (Khora), or “χώρας” (Khoras). Septuagint, is the earliest Greek translation of the Old Testament from the original Hebrew.
The Septuagint was presumably made for the Jewish community in Ptolemaic Egypt when Greek was the common language throughout the region. [17] The official language of Ptolemaic Egypt was Greek but the vernacular language was Coptic.
Coptic language is written in Greek script and heavily influenced by the Hellenistic Culture. Up to 40% of the vocabulary of literary Coptic is drawn from Greek. There are instances of Coptic texts having passages that are almost entirely composed from Greek lexical roots. [18]
One of these Greek loanwords in Coptic language is: “χώρα/Khôra” or “χώρας/Khôras”.
In this case, Greek is the donor language, and Coptic is the recipient language.
The donor language: is the language from which the word was borrowed.
The recipient language: is the language into which the word was borrowed.
Loanwords often preserve features lost in the donor language, this includes pronunciations and meanings. [19]
In Coptic language “χώρα” (var. χωριον), means: Rural area, suburb, region, territory, side and coast.
This last denotation, (coast), is particularly interesting.
“Coast” as a lexical meaning of “χώρα”, is not found in ancient Greek lexicons.
However, it is listed in “Strong’s concordance”.
Strong’s #5561: χώρα (pronounced kho’-rah): “Feminine of a derivative of the base of 5490 through the idea of empty expanse; room, i.e. a space of territory (more or less extensive; often including its inhabitants):–coast, county, fields, ground, land, region.”.
“χώρα” with this meaning is found in Acts 26:20.
Acts 26:20, King James Bible:
“But shewed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judaea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance.”The original Greek:
ΠΡΑΞΕΙΣ 26:20 Greek NT: Stephanus Textus Receptus 1550:
“ἀλλὰ τοῖς ἐν Δαμασκῷ πρῶτόν καὶ Ἱεροσολύμοις εἰς πᾶσάν τε τὴν χώραν τῆς Ἰουδαίας καὶ τοῖς ἔθνεσιν ἀπαγγέλλων μετανοεῖν καὶ ἐπιστρέφειν ἐπὶ τὸν θεόν ἄξια τῆς μετανοίας ἔργα πράσσοντας”.
Here, the KJV translators translated “χώραν”, (plural of χώρα ), as: “coasts”!
In Coptic, “ χώρα”, (a loanword from Greek), means: “coast”!
In James Strong’s dictionary, “χώρα” (among other denotations) means: “Coast”.
It is interesting that: “Ora” in Latin means: “coast”.
In medieval Persian: “إيراه/irah” means: “coast”.
Sand and Coast
In many languages, the word “sand” is synonymous with “seaside” and “riverbank”.
1- English: ‘sand’.
According to “Merriam-Webster”:
Sand is a loose granular material that results from the disintegration of rocks.
Synonyms: beach beachfront, strand.
According to “Longman Dictionary”: Sand is:
– A substance consisting of very small pieces of rocks and minerals that forms beaches and deserts.
– An area of beach.
2- English ‘Beach’: From Middle English bache, bæcche (“bank, sandbank”),
3- Italian ‘piaggia’
-Stretch of flat terrain interrupting a slope.
-Alternative form of spiaggia (= beach).
(From Medieval Latin plagia, from Latin plaga, whence also French plage, Spanish playa).
3- Greek: ἄμμος:
Strong’s Definition: ἄμμος (ámmos), from G260 (ἅμα): sand (as heaped on the beach).
5- Arabic: ᶜadan (عدان).
-Coast or bank.
-Soft sand.
(Probably a doublet of dahan/دهن: sand or sandy area).
6- Arabic: Sahal (سهل).
-Soft land.
-Sea-sand
(Probably a doublet of Sahil/ساحل: shore, seaside).
The contextual meaning
This leads to the conclusion that the ‘contextual meaning’ of “χώρα” in “χώρα τῶν Χαλδαίων” is : Coast. Accordingly, this toponym can be translated as:
‘The Coast of the Chaldeans’
or in Hebrew: חוֹף כַּשְׂדִּים
But, what or who were these Chaldeans? and where is their coast?
The Chaldeans
According to the Jewish encyclopedia:
“The Chaldeans were a Semitic people and apparently of very pure blood. Their original seat may have been Arabia, whence they migrated at an unknown period into the country of the sea-lands about the head of the Persian gulf.” [20]
“Chaldea as the name of a country is used in two different senses. In the early period it was the name of a small territory in southern Babylonia extending along the northern and probably also the western shores of the Persian gulf. It is called in Assyrian: ‘mat Kaldi’, that is, ‘land of Chaldea’.” [20]
“But there is also used, apparently synonymously, the expression ‘mat Bit Yakin’ It would appear that Bit Yakin was the chief or capital city of the land; and the king of Chaldea is also called the king of Bit Yakin, just as the kings of Babylonia are regularly styled simply king of Babylon, the capital city. In the same way, the Persian gulf was sometimes called “the Sea of Bit Yakin, instead of ‘the Sea of the Land of Chaldea’.” [20] “Sargon II mentions ‘Bit Yakin’ as extending as far as Dilmun or ‘sea-land’ (littoral Eastern Arabia)” [21]
Evidence
“What is of great importance, is a dedicatory inscription (Fig. 01) carved on a rock face in Al-Hofuf oasis which represents that rare genre of texts variously called Old Arabic, Chaldean or, more commonly, Proto-Arabic, dated to between the 5th and 9th centuries B.C. While the actual dedicatory content of the text is of considerable interest, the mere fact of its existence in northeastern Arabia is of even greater significance, for it was W. F. Albright’s belief that such inscriptions, known also from Ur, Uruk, Abu, Salabikh, Nippur, and Anah on the Middle Euphrates , represented the earliest traces of the Chaldeans. [22]
“Fifteen years before Al-Hofuf inscription was known to the scholarly world, Albright suggested that the last dynasty to rule Babylonia before the Persian conquest, the dynasty which included the illustrious Nebuchadnezzar, had originated in “an undetermined part of east Arabia:’ Does this inscription then provide confirmation for Albright’s thesis?” [22]
Chaldean exiles
According to Encyclopædia Britannica:
“GERRHA (Arab. al-Jar ʽa), an ancient city of Arabia, on the west side of the Persian Gulf, described by Strabo (Bk. xvi.) as inhabited by Chaldean exiles from Babylon, who built their houses of salt and repaired them by the application of salt water. Pliny (Hist. Nat. vi. 32) says it was 5 m. in circumference with towers built of square blocks of salt. Various identifications of the site have been attempted, J. P. B. D’Anville choosing El Katif, C. Niebuhr preferring Kuwet and C. Forster suggesting the ruins at the head of the bay behind the islands of Bahrein”. [23]
Their coast
As mentioned above, the Chaldeans thrived on the Northern and the West-Northern shores of the Gulf. Every part of that long coast, can be called: “The coast of the Chaldeans”.
But, where is the intended location? (in the biblical narrative), Is there a clue?
Fortunately, yes! there is a clue.
Eupolemus, a Jewish historian who lived about 150 BC, tells us that “Ur Kasdim” has another name, which is: “Camarina”. Scholars usually explain the meaning of “Camarina” as derived from the Arabic word: “qamar/قمر”, which means: “Moon”. [24]
Foreigners, new-comers and immigrants, may adapt, translate, or replace toponyms.
This include early western cartographers & mapmakers.
-Adapted place-names are usually misspelled or mispronounced.
-A place-name, which is actually a translation of a local name, may become the only known name for that place.
-Sometimes it’s hard to determine whether or not the place-name is an Exonym (a foreign name), because it might be an adaptation of a lost Endonym (a native name).
Examples:
Qāhirah > Cairo. (adaptation)
Arrub-alkhāli > Empty Quarter. (translation)
Elláda > Greece. (different foreign name)
This is can be noticed in early European maps of Arabia, such as this one:
The language of this map is Latin, and there is a place named: “Luna”, obviously a “translation” of a native name.
“Luna” in Latin means: “Moon”, and thus the “translated native name” must be a local name for the Moon.
“Luna” according to this map, is situated between “Sar Tenora/Katife” (north), and “Catara” (south).
“Sar Tenora” is: modern-day “Ras Tanura”.
“Katife” is: “Al Qatif”.
“Catara” is: “Qatar peninsula”.
The “island” (shown in purple), is modern-day “Bahrain”.
Apparently, “Luna” corresponds to modern-day “Dhahran”.
“Carmo” or “Carmon”, on the other hand, seems to be another name for Dhahran area.
ẓahran
Classic Arabic has several names for the Moon, “qamar/قمر” is only one of them.
Another one is the Proto-Semitic: {*sr-}.
/s/ as a phone, belongs to a family called:“Sibilant phones”:
1- /s/: “voiceless alveolar fricative”, as the /s/ in English: “sink”.
3- /z/: “voiced alveolar fricative”, as the /z/ in English: “zoo”.
4- /š/: “voiceless palato-alveolar fricative”, as the /sh/ in English: “ship”.
5- /ṣ/: “velarized voiceless alveolar fricative”, (emphatic /s/), Biblical Hebrew: “צ” and Arabic: “ص”.
Diachronically, sibilant phones, may freely replace each other, without altering the meaning of the word.
“Sibilant phones” have phonetic relationship with “Interdental phones”:
1 – /ṯ/ “voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative”, as the ‘th’ in English: think.
2- /ḏ/ “voiced dental fricative”, as the ‘th’ in English: father.
3- /ẓ/ “velarized voiced dental fricative”, (emphatic /ḏ/), Arabic: “ظ”
“Interdentals” may replace “Sibilants”, without altering the meaning of the word.
Accordingly, the variants of {sr-}, can be: {sr-},{šr-},{zr-},{ṣr-},{ṯr-},{ḏr-} or {ẓr-}.
The “original seme” of {sr} is: “to be curved”, “to be arched”, or “hooked”, and by extension, anything that is: “circular in shape”.
{sr} used as a description of the “Crescent”, and then as a name for the “Crescent” (as well as the Moon). By analogy, {sr} may refer to any “crescent-shaped” object, organ or natural feature, such as dunes, sea bays and bulls, because bulls have crescent-shaped horns.
In Semitic languages:
1-Akkadian:
“săhāru” = “to turn, to go around, to move around, surround, encompass, circulate” (variants: sahiru, sahru, sehru)
“sarru” or “zarru” = crescent-shaped object or piece.
“saharatu” or “zaharatu” = month, evening.
2-Mandaic:
“săra” = Moon
“săhră” = crescent-shaped boat.
3-Arabic:
“ṣărrăh/صَّرَّة” = “a bend, a twist”. (عَطْفة)
“ṣăr/صر” = to tie, to tighten, to contract, to shrink, (a circular opening).
“siwār/سوار” = ring, bracelet
“sūr/سور” = “surrounding wall”, “wall”.
Sără: to travel at night, to walk away at night.
Sār: to travel, to walk away, to walk.
“ăsăr/” = to captivate.
“ẖāṣăr/” = to surround.
“ẖărăṣ/” = to hold firmly, to keep, to be circumspect. (after metatheses).
“ẖărăs/” = to guard. (after metatheses).
“ŭsrăh/” = band, group, family.
“ăšīrăh/” = clan.
“sāhira/سَاهِرَةُ” = “Moon halo”
“sāhūr/سَّاهُور” = “Moon, Moon halo”.
“sahar/سَّهَرُ” = “Moon”
“zăhrān/زهران” = “Moon”.
“săhrān/سهران” = “sleepless at night”.
“ăzhăr/” = Moon
“šăhăr/شهر” = “month, crescent”.
“ṣwār/صوار” = “cattle”. (bulls & cows).
“ṯăwr/ثور” = “bull”.
4-Hebrew:
“šôr/שׁוֹר” = “bull”.
“šūr/שׁוּר” = “wall”.
“Săhăr/סַהַר” “crescent”
Biblical “שׁוּר”, in “Isaiah 57:9”, according to Strong’s Concordance (7788):
“Travel about: a primitive root; properly, to turn”.
As mentioned earlier, “Eupolemus’ Camarina” is more likely to be “Van der Hagen’ Luna” and modern-day Dhahran (or in Arabic: ظهران).
“Dhahran” is an inaccurate transliteration of “ظهران”.
“ظهران”, is pronounced: ẓăhrān (in two syllables: ẓăh-rān).
(ă) is Arabic “short A”, close to English (u) in “Sun”.
(ā) is Arabic “long A”, close to English (a) in “Far”.
/ ẓ / (ظ) is the emphatic variant of / ḏ / (ذ).
Sound change
‘Sound Change’ is a change in the pronunciation of a word. This involves the replacement of one speech sound by a different one.
/ ẓ / and / ḏ /, in most cases, replace Semitic sibilant phones, such as: / ṣ /, / s / and / z /.
/ ṣ / is the emphatic variant of / s /
/ z / is the voiced variant of / s /
For example:
Akkadian:
- “ṣallamu” (Dark or darkness), in Arabic: “ẓalam/ظلام”.
- “ṣillu” (shadow), in Arabic: “ẓil/ظل”
- “uzun” (ear), in Arabic: “uḏun/أذن”
- “zakaru” (to mention), in Arabic: “ḏakar/ذكر”
Biblical Hebrew:
- “ṣama/צמא” (thirst), in Arabic: “ẓama/ظمأ”.
- “qaiṣ/קַיִץ” (Summer), In Arabic: “qaiẓ/قيظ”.
This may lead to the conclusion that “ẓahran/ظهران” is a ‘by-form’ of “zahran/زهران”. The ‘by-form’ is a parallel and sometimes less frequent form of a word, in a given language or dialect.
Semantic aspects
ẓăhrān:
The nasal-suffix, (-an/-in/-un,-am/-im/-um) in Semitic toponyms is a “grammatical element”. In most cases, this element can be: definite/indefinite article, plural/dual form, diminutive form, or an adjective suffix.
For example: “Amman”, “Qumran”, “Sidon”, “Yabrin”.
Ẓahran is no exception.
The root of “ẓahr-an” is: {ẓ-h-r}.
{ẓ-h-r} is a lexical root in Arabic denoting: “the glaring Sun shine”, “high noon”, “to be clear” “to become visible”.
ăzhăr:
“ăzhăr” is a name of the Moon.
“ăzhăr/أزهر” is the masculine form of “zăhra/زهراء”.
“zăhra” is derived from: “zăhăr/زهر”: “to sparkle”, “to be lit up”, “to be pale white”.
“Zuhra/زُهرة”, is the Arabic name for planet Venus, because of its “sparkling white light”.
Here, “ẓăhrān” and “ăzhăr” share “semantic aspects”, this can be an indication of being doublets.
Two or more words in the same language are called doublets when they have different phonological forms but the same etymological root.
Coast of Dhahran (ẓăhrān)
Dhahran city, was founded in 1938, the coastal area where it was built, is known by the name of “Dhahran” since medieval time.
The coast of that area is “crescent-shaped”, with dunes and a smooth coastal line. Its current name is: “Half Moon Beach” or “Half Moon Bay!! (شاطئ نصف القمر)
Folk etymology has it that “Half Moon Bay” is named, by American oil workers, after “Half Moon Bay, California”. But in “Van der Hagen’s Atlas”, published Cerca 1690, this coast is called: “Luna”.
Camarina again
Toponyms in the Philippines have been strongly influenced by the Spanish colonization era. Many places there have retained their Spanish names.
These crescent-shaped bays are called “San Miguel Bay” and “Lagonoy Gulf”. Their coasts and hinterlands are called: “Camarines Sur” and “Camarines Norte”. [25]
These coasts are still being described as: “crescent-shaped”. [26]
The language of these toponyms is “Classical Spanish” or “Golden Age Spanish” which is the variant of Spanish used between fifteenth century and eighteenth century, marked by a series of phonological and grammatical changes that transformed Old Spanish into Modern Spanish. [27] These changes usually involve loosing of some “lexical roots” or some of their “semantic aspects”.
This reminds us the celebrated Greek city of “Camarina” or “Kamarina”. Camarina, (Καμάρινα), was an ancient city on the southern coast of Sicily in Magna Graecia. [28]
Obviously, this coast is crescent-shaped.
According to Carrie (2015): “Kamarina was situated on a plateau, called ‘Cammarana hill’. (This plateau is) Surrounded by water on three sides, the slopes of the promontory descended toward the western sea” [29]
Other occurrences:
– “Camarina” in ‘Andalusian Spanish’, means: “Corema album”, a tree with many white moons.
– “Cameron” is a boy’s name of Scottish origin meaning:“crooked nose”.[30]
– “Camarón” in Spanish means: shrimp, (a description of its curved shape?). “Shrimps are known for their characteristic curved shape”.[31]
[1] – Strong’s Concordance: H216.
[2] – Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon.
[3] – Sahas, D. J. (2021): Byzantium and Islam. Netherlands: Brill.
[4] – Hershel Shanks, Biblical Archaeology Review 26:2, March/April 2000.
[5] – Wikipedia: cognate.
[6] – Sumerian Lexicon by John A. Halloran
[7] – Concise Dictionary of Akkadian, 2nd Printing.
[8] – The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (CAD).
[9] – Chaldean-Arabic Dictionary by: J.E.Manna. page: 563
[10] – Syriacdictionary.net
[11] – Lisan al-Arab by Ibn Manzur.
[12] – Sumerian Lexicon by John A. Halloran
[13] – The Electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary (ePSD)
[15] – Shivtiel, A. (2013). Obsolete Meanings and Words. In G. Khan (ed.)
[16] – Mikuriya, J. T. (2016). A History of Light. India: Bloomsbury Publishing.
[17] –Britannica.com/topic/Septuagint .
[18] – Girgis, WA (1963–64). Greek loan words in Coptic. Bulletin de la Société d’archéologie copte 17:63–73.
[19] – Etymology For Beginners. (n.d.). (n.p.): Nicky Huys.
[20] – jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/4213
[21] – Raymond Philip Dougherty, The Sealand of Ancient Arabia, Yale University Press, 1932, 66ff.
[22] – Potts, Daniel T. “Northeastern Arabia.” Expedition Magazine 26, no. 3 (March, 1984).
[23] – Encyclopædia Britannica/Gerrha
[24] – WACHOLDER, B. Z. (1963). PSEUDO-EUPOLEMUS’ TWO GREEK FRAGMENTS ON THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM. Hebrew Union College Annual, 34, 83–113.
{25] – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Miguel_Bay
[26] – islandsproperties.com/places/camarinesnorte.htm
[27] – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Modern_Spanish
[28] – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamarina,_Sicily
[29] – Sulosky Weaver, Carrie. (2015). Bioarchaeology of Classical Kamarina: Life and Death in Greek Sicily.
[30] – nameberry.com/b/boy-baby-name-cameron
[31] – alaskankingcrab.com/blogs/resources/prawn-vs-shrimp
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