Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Qanat

en.wikipedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 70 posts

Re: Qanat

#11

Post by Kristine1975 »

ntumlin wrote: post #6
baghali wrote: post #3

There is also this video about Qanats in Iran: https://www.facebook.com/32848633159/videos/1015351116587816... Sorry for the fb link, could not find it in YouTube

The section of the wikipedia article on qanat's in Iran is huge (3700 words) in general, and especially compared to the sections about qanats in other countries. Between that and this video on qanats in Iran; what makes them so much more important/studied/etc.? Is it just that they were invented there?

Looking at the article's history it seems to have been a one-time contribution by an editor.

Re: Qanat

#12

Post by rtpg »

freshyill wrote: post #5

As a sometimes Scrabble player, I was familiar with the word and I knew it was some kind of aqueduct. It's nice to know more. Amazing that ancient people not only knew to make them, but that they could pull it off. This must have been no small engineering feat.

Hard mode in Scrabble is giving definitions to all those weird words you memorise just for Scrabble....

Re: Qanat

#13

Post by schoen »

karlb wrote: post #10
colanderman wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't answer the GP's question of whether there's an etymological link. That is, are the two words derived from the same root in some ancient language? It is a reasonable question since they are phonologically similar, but from different language families.

And just because two words sound similar doesn't mean they have similar roots. The word for “dog” in the Australian Aboriginal language Mbabaram happens to be “dog,” not because they have the same root but by coincidence. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=UtFqXQosVP0C&pg=PT283&lp...

There's a great list of these at

https://web.archive.org/web/20070227031854/http://members.ao...

Re: Qanat

#15

Post by siscia »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #2

Is there an etymological link between "qanāt" and "canal"?

I am not an expert by any means, so we should wait the opinion of someone more competent than me, however.

I will say that there are not any link.

Most words in English come from two different roots, the German one and the Latin one.

It actually happens than in Latin "canal" is "canalis", so I can believe that the English word "canal" comes from Latin.

Usually Latin and Greek are the two roots and you don't explore deeper than that, but, given my limited knowledge, I cannot exclude that "qanat" comes too from Latin.

Edit: For completeness, the intermediated step between the Latin "canalis" and the English "canal" could be the Italian "canale"

Edit2: Actually from this page [1] it looks like the Latin "canalis" comes from the Greek "ka na" perhaps from the Assyrian "qanu". So it may be that there is a common root.

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Qanat

Re: Qanat

#17

Post by panic »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #2

Is there an etymological link between "qanāt" and "canal"?

The answer appears to be yes. Both Arabic qanāt and Greek kánna are related to the Akkadian qanû, meaning "reed". The Greek word became latin canna for cane, then canalis for pipe or channel. See this entry in the Etymological Dictionary of Arabic for more: https://www2.hf.uio.no/polyglotta/index.php?page=record&view...

Re: Qanat

#18

Post by mehrzad »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #14
kranner wrote: post #8

Related technology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher

Those look a lot like Dune's wind traps. Coincidence?

Considering that Dune is a metaphor for the Middle East and borrows heavily on Islamic history, maybe not.

Re: Qanat

#20

Post by fit2rule »

colanderman wrote: post #7
mahmud wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the exact same thing. For example, Suez Canal is called "Qanat al-Suez" in Arabic.

That doesn't answer the GP's question of whether there's an etymological link. That is, are the two words derived from the same root in some ancient language? It is a reasonable question since they are phonologically similar, but from different language families.

canal deriv. : 1400-50; late Middle English: waterpipe, tubular passage < Latin canālis, perhaps equivalent to can (na) reed, pipe (see cane ) + -ālis -al1; def. 5 a mistranslation of Italian canali channels, term used by G. V. Schiaparelli
Post reply on HN