Levantyne

 We all know markets are unpredictable and don’t make sense. Well, Levantines knew this and have a saying for it: رزق الهبل عالمجانين Which translates to: idiots make a living profiting from crazy people  Kind of goes with Nassim’s aphorism: “The left holds that because markets are stupid models should be smart; the right believes that because models are stupid markets should be smart. Alas, it never hit both sides that both markets and models are very stupid” Anyways,  الله يرزق الجميع

 While reading the book “Palestine - A 4000 Year History”, I found out that the below words came from Europeans as they started having a constant presence in Palestine and Levant: اوتيل - hotel (otel) شوفير - chauffeur دوش - douche (dushe) موضة - mode (moda) بنزين - Benzina (banzin) كراج - garage (karaj) باطون - beton (baton) كنباي - canapé (canabai) صالون - salon بلكونة - balcon (balconeh) سوفينير - souvenir النصير - ascenseur دوسية - dossier (dusiyyeh)

 I was just reading "Liturgy and Byzantinization in Jerusalem", you know to know more about the Patriarchate that I belong to (and my ancestors have for the past 2000 years), when the author used the Greek word "τάξις" (taksis) to describe liturgy and I was like wait this sounds like the Levantine/Arabic word طقس and after digging deeper, it turns out that طقس comes from Ancient Greek τάξις.  Generated by AI: The scene captures the solemn and reverent atmosphere inside an ornately decorated church with priests performing the liturgy, while the dramatic Levantine landscape outside hints at an impending storm.

حكينا قبل هيك عن هالمصطلح وكيف ممكن استبدله بالعامية المشرقية بكلمة "اختصر". بس هديك المرة فكرت انه طيب في مثل مشرقي كتير بحبه يعبر عن هالمصطلح بطريقة احسن، والي هو: " الباب اللي بجيك منه ريح، سده واستريح". معبر، لا؟ لما تسد الباب وتستريح، وتروح تقرأ واشرب قهوة وتكزدر بهالحارات القديمة مش احسن؟

 I was reading the other day a book by Saint John of Damascus when I came across the word κανών (kanon) which meant law, so I looked the etymology of the Arabic word قانون (Kanoon) and it turns out it comes from Ancient Greek κανών, same for latin Canon. Generated by AI, prompt: Greek Law

 The last thing I would expect that بلغم/balgham comes from Ancient Greek! It does! It comes from φλέγμα (phlégma, “phlegm, a cold slimy humour of the body”). Generated by AI: better something Ancient Greek than balgham for a blogpost photo Source: wiktionary

 The word comes from Italian Comodino.  This is not the only Italian furniture word in Levantine.  Source: wiktionary.