आज का शब्द / آج كا شبد / ਅੱਜ ਦਾ ਸ਼ਬਦ

[muckefuck]

I've still got election on the brain, so I thought I'd look at some terms for legislative bodies.

सभा / سبها / ਸਭਾ sabhaa (same in Sanskrit) is a venerable Indo-Aryan word believed to derive from the same PIE etymon *sebho- which yields English sib(ling) and German Sippe. The original meaning is something like "meeting, assembly, council". In modern India, it appears in the names of both the various unicameral state legislatures or विधानसभा / ਵਿਧਾਨ ਸਭਾ vidhaansabhaa and the two houses of the Parliament of India, the लोक सभा / ਲੋਕ ਸਭਾ lok sabhaa or "Popular Assembly" and the राज्य सभा raajya sabhaa / ਰਾਜ ਸਭਾ raaj sabhaa or "State Assembly". (No prizes for guessing which is the upper and which is the lower house.)

مجلس majlis / ਮਜਲਸ majlas is an Arabic loanword (from the root جلس "sit", so literally "session") that is ubiquitous in the names of legislatures and councils from Morocco to the Maldives. The bicameral assembly which governs Pakistan is known as the مجلس شوری majlis-e-shooraa or "Council of Consultation".

Comments

[lhn.livejournal.com]

Related question: what's the etymology of Arabic jamahirya/jamahurya/jamhurya/etc., translated (except in Libya's official name, where it's left untranslated) as "republic"?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

The root is Arabic جمهر j-m-h-r "collect together". A related root is جمع j-m-` "collect", which is the source of جُمُعَة jum`ua "[day of] congregation", the name for "Friday" in most Islamic countries.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

Thanks! That was probably my longest-standing etymological/linguistic question. (Dating back a quarter-century or so to my high school model UN days.)