Excellent investigative work, DNM!

Submitted by Motke (Israel), Dec 17, 2012 at 09:40

Excellent investigative work, DNM!

It's a joy reading your posts!

BTW, I see that you write "يابني", as one word. There's no space between your "يا" and the word following it. I've seen it in other places on the internet that people don't type a space. Is this the way to write يا? My book doesn't tell. (BTW, is this related to people writing ماني as one word instead of ما أني ?)

As for Gaza: which language exactly this name originates in is a futile discussion. We find this root in Akkadian already: ezēzu, ezzu.

(I hope my links work in this post. The editing box here is cumbersome.)

However, there isn't any assurance the city's name indeed comes from this root, or from Semitic origin at all. If it's indeed the origin then the Arabs ought to have used ع instead of غ.

=

BTW, many, if not most, Palestinian towns/cities bear names that make absolutely no sense in Arabic. These names are sabotages of the Hebrew or Roman names. Few Palestinian towns (e.g. رام اﷲ) have Arabic origin to their names.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".