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This message has been edited. Last edited by: Nathanael,

I will let some of our more "esteemed" members do that for you...but in the meantime, Welcome to Wordcraft! See your PMs (private messages).

Hi, Nathanael,

If I knew "lubu fara" was an expression derived from a Latin-related language, I'd guess it meant "wild wolf."

However, your friend is Iranian... I found her myspace.com right away ("irani fashionista" etc)-- no elucidation there! A little scouting around on google, & I learned that "farah" means "joyful" in Arabic. That made me doubt my Latin-dialect translation. I'd love to look up the expression in Farsi/ Parsi, but couldn't find an online dictionary which translated phonetically (I mean, using an alphabet like ours).

We have one or two middle-eastern scholars on board, and more than one who are highly educated in linguistics. I hope one of them chimes in!

Lubu might be a Farsi word (or a form thereof) related to Sanskrit lubhyati 'to desire', English love, Russian любить (ljubit') 'to love', Latin libet 'to be dear, pleasing', all of which go back to PIE *leubh - 'to care, desire, love'.

I found two sites which indicate that lubu means love: Iranian Words Which Made Their Way Into English and Loving the "L" words. And I found one site that says the English meaning of Fara is "traveler," and another which says that Fara is a variant of Farrah and means "good-looking" in English and "charisma, joy, grand" in Persian.

quote:

Originally posted by tinman:
Iranian Words Which Made Their Way Into English

wow, that list is full of errors. Just because two words have a similar sound and meaning doesn't mean that one is derived from the other.

I'm glad you told me. If you have time I would like to know what the errors are.

Looking at it quickly, brother, cow, eyebrow, band, bad, better, best, door, far, further, lip, love, ounce, papa, prize, reach, star are not from Persian. They might resemble their Persian counterparts due to the fact that the Persian is an Indo-European language. Some of the others, like algorithm, orange, and candy can be traced to Sanskrit or Arabic but might have passed through an Iranian language. When I have time I'll go thru them all.

The other page is also suspect, saying things like

quote:

I think the Latin “delicium” may well have come from the Persian del (heart) and suffix lys (lick), referring to something that soothed the soul

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

This thread is getting strangely similar to the "IRANO-ARYAN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY: WORDMARKS & COPY" one.

quote:

Originally posted by arnie:
This thread is getting strangely similar to the "IRANO-ARYAN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY: WORDMARKS & COPY" one.

Yes, unfortunately I get a bit bothered when I see one of those wrong "English words from such-and-such language" lists.

see one of those wrong "English words from such-and-such language" lists.

Yeah, me, too, but what can you do? The Web, as well as life, is rife with this kind of stuff. "Don't confuse me with the facts; everything is connected, in intertwingularity, Amon Ra." & FAQin' cetera.