Talk:ʾsplys

@Vahagn_Petrosyan: according to Andronikashvili Hebrew ריס (ris) also means stadium(stadia? the unit of measure), ditto for Arameic, although I didn't find the form. I'm checking Hebrew wiktionary with google translate and it looks like that sense really exists. Also it looks like I created the talk page on the wrong page: this was meant for Middle Persian ʾsplys. :/ კვარია (talk) 21:54, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

It is found inside the Aramaic phrase byt rysˀ, but I don't know whether it preserves the Iranian simplex or if it was back-formed within Aramaic from asp-rēs. Vahag (talk) 22:56, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Jastrow, Marcus (1903) A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, London, New York: Luzac & Co., G.P. Putnam's Sons, page 1475 documents both the course-measure Mishnaic Hebrew רֽיס (rīs) and Jewish Literary Aramaic רֽיסָא (rīsā), רֵיסָא (rēsā), indeed the latter only within the phrase but the former also without. But as the meaning of an “eyelid” (otherwise in Aramaic תּֽמְרָא (timrā), so here you have the Hebraism) is of unknown origin, it is imaginable to be of the same origin. Fay Freak (talk) 11:58, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

That still leaves the question if those are inner-Semitic developments or reflect a lost Iranian noun. Vahag (talk) 13:16, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Inner-Semitic development of what? Only the question where the sense of an eyelid developed would be open unless found in Iranian, as you have shown the simplex in Kurdish. Semitic clipping a longer borrowing to then use it in a particular meaning, that basic, is never likely.

If I stick my neck out then I also wonder whether the derivation Persian ریسمان (rismân, “cord, string”), رشته (rešte, “thread, string”) is found metathesized in the now usual Arabic word for “eyelash” not mentioned in classical dictionaries رِمْش (rimš), while رَمْش (ramš, “fascicle of herbs”), رَمَش (ramaš, “luxuriant vegation; running or inflammation or redness of the eyes”) which are found are inner-Arabic derivatives (usual pattern for pathological excrescences, like كَلَب (kalab, “rabies”) and غَرَب (ḡarab, “lachrymal fistula”)), and رَمَشَ (ramaša, “to take with two fingers; to graze off a little”) and أَرْمَشَ (ʔarmaša, “to get covered in leaves; to not be able to regard due to weakness of the eyes”) are denominal, and in the now normal word for “rheum, sleep in the eyes” رَمَص (ramaṣ) of the same disease derivation type (also the verbal noun for any فَعِلَ (faʕila) verb, here رَمِصَ (ramiṣa, “to have sticky matter in the corners of the eyes”)) with the base word not found anymore in Arabic—basically in the Arabic as in Hebrew case a course covering the eyes. رَمَصَ (ramaṣa, “to compensate, to mend”) is instead augmented from native رَمَّ (ramma, “to mend”), confer ثَمَّ (ṯamma, “to mend”) (both in Bedouinic plant names, رَمْرَام (ramrām) and ثُمَام (ṯumām)). Fay Freak (talk) 13:56, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

I meant Semitic borrowing asprēs "horse racetrack" in whole (attested in Syriac), then back-forming rēs "racetrack" beside other words with asp- "horse". Armenian does that kind of stuff all the time․ Compare -ուհի (-uhi). The simplexes I found for երէզ (erēz) refer to "spun cord / thread", not "racetrack". As for the Semitic "eyelash / eyelid" words, what you propose sounds risky, but I know very little about Semitic. Its word-formation patterns are incomprehensible to me. But note Old Armenian կոպ (kop, “eyelid”) beside Georgian კოპი (ḳoṗi, “halbrunder mit Seide umnähter Reif, an den der Kopfschleier der g. Frauentracht befestigt wird; Lederriemen”), if related to each other. Vahag (talk) 14:35, 19 January 2022 (UTC)