Talk:msalaba

Etymon

The source does derive it from "salîb" directly, but the replacement of a long stressed /i:/ with /a/ strikes me as rather unusual. I would take into consideration that it may be from a related word, perhaps صَلْب (ṣalb, “crucifixion”) or مُصَلَّب (muṣallab, “crucified”). Both of these could easily become "msalaba" in Swahili, and it isn't that unlikely either because in Islam the root appears chiefly in the context of criminal punishment (Islamic crucifixion is a form of postmortal display of an executed person's body). The use for a sign such as "x" or "+" may be much younger and European-influenced. Of course I'm just guessing here, but a phonetic development "salîb" > "-salaba" is at any rate problematic. 2.203.201.41 04:08, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Maybe it's from the plural. Baldi says "ṣalīb, pl. ṣulbān, ṣulub cross".

Adding @Fenakhay and @Fay Freak. Unfortunately, @Metaknowledge, who added this, isn't active at the moment. tbm (talk) 15:27, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

@tbm, 2.203.201.41: Of course it is borrowed from a dialect form, in presumably Omani Arabic. In Yemeni Arabic we have مُصَلَابَة (muṣalāba, “impudence, cheek”) (without the first fatḥa) according to Piamenta, Moshe (1991) Dictionary of Post-Classical Yemeni Arabic, Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, page 285b, Landberg, Carlo, editor (1942), Glossaire daṯînois‎^[1] (in French), Leiden: Brill, page 2141, an illegal form in Standard Arabic grammar, which however would allow مَصْلَبَة (maṣlaba) as a variant of مَصْلَب (maṣlab, “crucifying spot”) mentioned in Piamenta after Dozy, Reinhart Pieter Anne (1881) “مَصْلَب”, in Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes‎^[2] (in French), volume 1, Leiden: E. J. Brill, page 841a, and indeed in Landberg already mentioned we have that transcribed mṣalbe (spelt identically without diacritics) and glossed Schandpfahl. Anyhow, as an ultimate origin, صَلِيب (ṣalīb) is correct given that all the terms in question are secondary to this Aramaism. Fay Freak (talk) 16:53, 29 November 2024 (UTC)