आज का शब्द / آج كا شبد / ਅੱਜ ਦਾ ਸ਼ਬਦ

[muckefuck]

चाबी / چابي / ਚਾਬੀ chaabee "key"
कुंजी / کنجی / ਕੁੰਜੀ kuMjee "key"

Again, I'm left with intriguing questions about distribution of variants and no obvious place to seek answers. My dictionaries all list both words, but my grammar books list only one each--चाबी / چابي chaabee for Hindi/Urdu and ਕੁੰਜੀ kuMjee for Panjabi--so I can only assume from this that these are the more common variants in each language.

When I learned चाबी, my first reaction was That looks suspiciously like Portuguese, so I was quite chuffed to see that Platts agrees with me in deriving it from chave. That derivation would also explain the earlier Hindustani variant चाभी chaabhee, as I can't think of any other word that shows this sort of variation in medials.

Since, as mentioned before, Panjabi preserved the inherited contrast between /v/ and /b/, this would indicate that ਚਾਬੀ must be a borrowing from Hindustani. Still, that doesn't stop it from entering into a number of idioms. ਚਾਬੀ ਘੁਮਾਉਣਾ caabee ghumaauuNaa "turn[*] the key" means "tutor" and ਚਾਬੀ ਦੇਣਾ "give key" is to wind a watch or clock. (In Hindi, the latter is चाबी भरना chaabee bharnaa "fill key".)

Panjabi ਕੁੰਜੀ has the extended sense of "note, annotation" whereas its Hindi counterpart कुंजी is mapped to English "key" in its computer terminological uses, e.g. कुंजीपटल kuMjeepaTal "keyboard"[**] (with पटल "covering" apparently used as a kind of collective suffix) or आंकड़ा गूढ़लेखन कुंजी aaMkRaa guRhalekhan kuMjee "data encryption key". Again, if Platts is to be believed, the ultimate etymological root is the surprising कुञ्च kuñja "elephant tusk". I suppose we have a working hypothesis on what early Indian keys are made from!

[*] Causative of ਘੁੰਮਣਾ ghuMNaa "rotate".
[**] Beside borrwed कीबोर्ड keeborD, of course.

Comments

[wwidsith.livejournal.com]

You were "quite chuffed"? Just how much Buzzcocks are you watching, anyway?!

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Every new ep as it comes out! This season has been mixed, but the latest episode (guest capitain Frank Skinner) was pretty solid. Better than the Jack Dee episode at any rate. Of course, what I'm really looking forward to is Omid Djalili as guest captain (not to mention Russel Brand, if they ever release that one).

But, whatever--I've been saying "chuffed" for years and years now; just search the journal for proof. It's a part of my vocabulary like "knackered", "twee", and "slag".

[wwidsith.livejournal.com]

Hahaha. Love it

[wwidsith.livejournal.com]

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5o-bOEGIA9g