Re: Good/Beneficient (was: More Nyenya'a)

William Annis scripsit:

>         Of course, sometimes quite amazing things pop up in words with
> the same root in Arabic.  The most stunning realization was that
> 'salaam' "peace" is the same root as 'Muslim' and 'Islaam' where the
> primary meaning is "submission," specifically to the will of God.
This leads to a weird conlang question with a concultural twist.  Suppose
Muhammad had wound up converting the Jews instead of/in addition to
the Arabs and surrounding peoples.  What would the Hebrew words for
"Islam" and "Muslim" have been, based on "shalom"?  And of course,
this spawns a whole new conuniverse!

(Hey, no weirder than the idea of M. becoming a Christian monk,
writing a famous hymn with the refrain "There is no God but God,
and Jesus Christ is his Son", being evacuated from Syria during
a Sassanid Persian invasion, dying as Archbishop of Byzantine
Spain, and eventually being canonized as St. Mouamet, patron of
changes!)

--
John Cowan           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
Please leave your values        |       Check your assumptions.  In fact,
   at the front desk.           |          check your assumptions at the door.
     --sign in Paris hotel      |            --Miles Vorkosigan

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