"Book" Etymology in Different Languages

[vec]

How do different languages come up with a word for "book"?

Nordic languages seem to have adopted the Old English word bōc which is related to the root for the wood type beech and Mainland Germanic languages have a similar derivation.

Latin caudex means block of wood.

Romance languages use derivatives of liber from an older form *luber and cognate to Old Church Slavonic lubŭ, “bark of a tree”.

So writing surface is one. Are there more?

[sangi39]

Finnish kirja, Russian kniga and Latvian grāmata all (depending on how you look at kniga) derive from words roughly meaning symbol, sign or carving. Hebrew sefer and Arabic kitāb similarly derive from roots relating to writing.

Greek byblos refers to the writing material, i.e. papyrus, but comes from a place name, Byblos, where the papyrus came from.

Navajo naaltsoos roughly means "the flat flexible object that is carried around".

Sanskrit grantha also means binding, tying and the like, so in this sense "book" could be seen as "that which is bound".

Mongolian nom derives from Ancient Greek nomos, "law, custom, ordinance" which comes from a verb meaning "to distribute". I guess in this sense nomos means something like "that which is handed out, passed around" or possibly "that which is shared (by people as "good" or "right")".

It does seem though, that if the word for book isn't borrowed, it most often refers back to writing or the material.

[clawgrip]

Japanese 本 hon "book" comes from the Chinese word for root, origin, or source.

Partially related:

Japanese 巻物 makimono "scroll" literally means "rolled-up thing"

[finlay]

Yeah it also refers to sushi rolls. Hon is also the counter for long things, which I guess comes from its origin as scrolls.

[Astraios]

Hebrew sefer ...

... actually comes from a root meaning saying/telling/relating.

Lakota wówapi means anything that's written or drawn, including books. Literally it's something like "draw things noun", so it refers to the act and not the writing surface.

Persian nâme (I assume) comes from the older form nām- (name, word), plus the derivational suffix -ag.

[Cedh]

The following examples are from conlangs in the collaborative world of Akana, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a natlang derive its word for "book" along the same path:
- Namɨdu kuz 'book' is a reflex of Fáralo kuz 'records, archives', which in turn is a reflex of Ndak Ta [luk] susi 'those [facts] which have been recorded'
- Adāta khīrala 'book' was borrowed from Gezoro khiŋrala 'poem, composition', which is built on the Proto-Western root *kʰiña- 'together' (i.e. 'that which has been put together')

(Ndak Ta was created by Radius Solis, Fáralo by Zompist, and Namɨdu by Dunomapuka. Both Adāta and Proto-Western were created by Dewrad. Gezoro has not been worked out in detail, but the relevant etymology was also introduced by Dewrad.)

[sangi39]

Hebrew sefer ...

... actually comes from a root meaning saying/telling/relating.

My mistake

[WeepingElf]

The following examples are from conlangs in the collaborative world of Akana, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a natlang derive its word for "book" along the same path:
- Namɨdu kuz 'book' is a reflex of Fáralo kuz 'records, archives', which in turn is a reflex of Ndak Ta [luk] susi 'those [facts] which have been recorded'
- Adāta khīrala 'book' was borrowed from Gezoro khiŋrala 'poem, composition', which is built on the Proto-Western root *kʰiña- 'together' (i.e. 'that which has been put together')

(Ndak Ta was created by Radius Solis, Fáralo by Zompist, and Namɨdu by Dunomapuka. Both Adāta and Proto-Western were created by Dewrad. Gezoro has not been worked out in detail, but the relevant etymology was also introduced by Dewrad.)

The Old Albic word for book is vabas, which also means 'fabric'. There are two reasons for this: 1. A text is considered a "fabric of words". 2. The traditional material for writing on is linen.

[din]

My conlang Tormiott uses mittgi /ˈmit:ʁɪ/, which comes from tgi, white birch, combined with the prefix mick-, bundle, stack, collection. When combined with prefixes it's better translated as paper, which in its full form is niatgi - sheet of paper (nia-, piece, single unit).

So at the time the word for 'book' came around it basically meant 'bundle of sheets'

[----]

The Yoruba word is ìwé, apparently composed as follows: NMLZ-curl/twist, which leads me to believe that it too originally referred to scrolls.

[Šọ̈́gala]

The case of Mongolian ном, mentioned above, is interesting. The semantic development seems to have been "to divide" -> "law, regulation, custom" -> "dharma" (calque of the Sanskrit term of art meaning custom, phenomenon, or religious teaching) -> "scripture" -> "book"

[Rui]

Hon is also the counter for long things, which I guess comes from its origin as scrolls.

Whoa, that's interesting, 本 is the measure word for books (of all kinds), 条 is the measure word for long (skinny) things in Mandarin.

The Mandarin word for book is 书 shu1, which is the simplified form of 書. According to zhongwen.com, this comes from the phonetic portion 者 zhe3 and semantic radical 聿 yu4 which means "pen"

[clawgrip]

Hon is also the counter for long things, which I guess comes from its origin as scrolls.

Whoa, that's interesting, 本 is the measure word for books (of all kinds), 条 is the measure word for long (skinny) things in Mandarin.

The Mandarin word for book is 书 shu1, which is the simplified form of 書. According to zhongwen.com, this comes from the phonetic portion 者 zhe3 and semantic radical 聿 yu4 which means "pen"

In Japanese, the counter word for books is 冊 satsu, which is a Japanese simplification of 册. 書 is used for the verb "write" (書く kaku, though the verb kaku also means "draw" and when used in this sense is written 描く ), but it is also used as a suffix for various kinds of documents, e.g. 領収書 ryōshūsho "receipt", 証明書, shōmeisho "certificate", 願書 gansho "application form", 教科書 kyōkasho "textbook", 聖書 seisho "Bible, scripture" etc.

Like Chinese, it's also used for styles of calligraphy, e.g. 隷書 reisho, 楷書 kaisho, 草書 sōsho, etc.

[Ser]

The Mandarin word for book is 书 shu1, which is the simplified form of 書. According to zhongwen.com, this comes from the phonetic portion 者 zhe3 and semantic radical 聿 yu4 which means "pen"

Schuessler's ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese says 書 originally meant "writing" which then changed to, or expanded in any case to, "book" (it says so in the abbreviated form "writing > book").

[linguoboy]

In Japanese, the counter word for books is 冊 satsu, which is a Japanese simplification of 册.

Which, in turn, furnishes the usual Modern Korean word for "book, 책 /chayk/ (< MC /tsrhɛk/ [Baxter]).

Osage, IIRC, has waléze, which is valence reducer wa- plus léze "be striped", i.e. "striped stuff". The term covers anything written (letters, documents, etc.) in addition to books as such.

Sanskrit has ग्रन्थ grantha "knot; tying together" and पुस्तक pustaka, a Middle Iranian borrowing now used in Hindi as well. (Cf. Old Persian pavastā- "clay tablet", Mod. Persian پوسته pusteh "membrane".) There's something of a parallel to the first of these in Literary Chinese 經 (MC /keng/ [Baxter]) which combines the phonetic 巠 "underground stream" with the string radical 糸. (The oldest Chinese books were written on bamboo slats sewn together at their edges.)

[kodé]

More boring etymologies stemming from "write:"

Western Armenian /ki4k/, from the root /ki4-/ "write" plus the Classical Armenian plural suffix /-k_h/, which is no longer productive, and appears fossilized on many nouns that used to refer to collective things, which are now analyzed as single in Modern (Western and Eastern) Armenian. In Eastern, this is /gi4k_h/.

Saisiyat /kina:at/, from the root /ka:at/ "write" plus the infix /-in-/ that makes result nouns.

(Ndak Ta was created by Radius Solis, Fáralo by Zompist, and Namɨdu by Dunomapuka. Both Adāta and Proto-Western were created by Dewrad. Gezoro has not been worked out in detail, but the relevant etymology was also introduced by Dewrad.)

Crap. Yeah, I had actually been assigned to work on Gezoro, about six-ish years ago if I remember correctly. I ended up making a bunch of sound changes, but I didn't flesh it out into a real language. I have no idea where my notes are...

[Pole, the]

[..] Russian kniga [..] (depending on how you look at kniga)

Isn't kniga from PGm *kuningaz?

[Astraios]

Not *kuningaz, but something to do with *kunnanan.

[Hakaku]

書物 "book" is used in various southern Japanese dialects and Ryukyuan languages (e.g. Kagoshima [ɕomoʔ]~[somoʔ]; Amami [-mut^hu]; Okinawan [sumut͡ɕi]; Miyako [-mutu]; Ogami [simuks]). It stems from a compound of 書 "writing" and 物 "thing" and takes on a Sinitic reading, though I don't think it was ever used in Chinese.

[hwhatting]

Not *kuningaz, but something to do with *kunnanan.

Well, it being a loan from Germanic is only one of the etymologies, and e.g. Vasmer dismisses that one. He supports the etymology tracing it back to a Chinese word meaning "bundle" via Turkic.

[Astraios]

I know it's just a guess, I was just correcting what was said about it. :p

[Genome]

My conlang Kahitujunti uses tititiuhi'ia /tititiuhiʔiɑ/ which is from tititiui /tititiui/ meaning many and hi'ia /hiʔiɑ/ meaning leaf or paper, this is an odd case because it ignores hi'ia in its plural form and uses its singular form.