Sirocco/scirocco etymology

[Linnets]

I've read a lot of sources in Italian and English and I'm pretty sure the etymon of that wind name is Arabic, but what Arabic word?

• Arabic شروق šurūq;
• Arabic شرقية šarqiyya;
• Tunisian Arabic شلوق šilūk (widely considerd in Italy the etymon of the wind, could be a loan from Italian scirocco);
• Moroccan Arabic شرقي šarqiyy.

The weirdest is the Wiktionary which postulates a derivation from Marseille Greek ἐξαλώτης 'out of the sea'.

 

[elroy]

Arabic شروق šurūq 'sunrise' and شرقية šarqiyya 'eastern [fem.]' are related; the former is the word for "sunrise" because the sun rises in the east. Between the two, the latter seems to be a far more plausible origin since an "easterly wind" would be a ريح شرقية rīħ šarqiyya. The Moroccan Arabic word you cite is simply the masculine version of شرقية šarqiyya. The feminine word is more plausible because ريح rīħ is feminine. I don't know what the Tunisian Arabic word means, but how can it be the etymon of scirocco if it is itself a loan derived from scirocco?

 

[Circunflejo]

If you read Spanish, take a look at the suggestion of F. Corriente quoted at: SIROCO. If you don't read Spanish, let me know.

 

[Linnets]

I don't know what the Tunisian Arabic word means, but how can it be the etymon of scirocco if it is itself a loan derived from scirocco?

Well, Italian sources consider it the etymon of scirocco, while English sources consider it a loan from scirocco.

 

[elroy]

I’m tagging @djara, a native speaker of Tunisian Arabic who is very interested in and knowledgeable about etymology.

 

[djara]

I don't know what the Tunisian Arabic word means, but how can it be the etymon of scirocco if it is itself a loan derived from scirocco?

In Tunisian Arabic and, more specifically, in the language of seamen, ريح شلوق rīḥ šlūq is a south-easterly wind. According to Dozy's Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes (see screenshot below) it could be a re-borrowing from Spanish xaloque [or catalan xaloc] itself probably a borrowing from Arabic شرقي šarqi [شروق šuruq sounds more likely]
The word can also be found in the Maltese toponym Marsaxlokk (literally the South Eastern Harbour), "a small, traditional fishing village in the South Eastern Region of Malta".

El xaloc és el vent calent que ve del sud-est.[1] El nom podria provenir de l'àrab shaluq forma romanitzada de l'arrel suruq, sortida del sol o sud-est.[2] Source

Edit: Being an easterly wind, the Tunisian ريح شلوق rīḥ šlūq is a fresh and damp wind and therefore does not correspond meteorologically to scirocco, a hot dry wind, whose equivalent in Tunisian is شهيلي šhiili.

 

[apmoy70]

Prof. Babiniotis (emeritus professor of Linguistics, Capodistrian Athens University), gives «Σιρόκος» [s̠iˈɾo̞ko̞s̠] and «Σορόκος» [s̠o̞ˈɾo̞ko̞s̠] (masc.) as loans from the Italian Scirocco < شروق (shuruq), risinɡ < شرقي (sharqi), eastern < شرق (sharq), east.

...
The weirdest is the Wiktionary which postulates a derivation from Marseille Greek ἐξαλώτης 'out of the sea'.

The wind's native Greek name is «Εὖρος» Eûrŏs* (masc.) and not «Ἐξαλώτης». The latter is a dialectal Massalian Greek name, what's the odds, that a random name from a city at the fringes of the Greek speaking world, to be so widespread?

*From the adjective «εὐρύς» eurús.

 

[fenakhay]

The feminine word is more plausible because ريح rīħ is feminine.

It is both masculine and feminine in Morocco (with masculine being more common).

 

[pollohispanizado]

The Real Academia Española gives this etymology for the word siroco:

Del it. sirocco, var. de scirocco, este del ár. hisp. šaláwq 'viento de la marina', y este del lat. salum 'agitación del mar

"From It. sirocco, variant of scirocco, this from Hispanic Arabic šaláwq 'coastal wind', and this is from Lat. salum 'stirring of the sea'"

Though it seems highly weird that Hispanic Arabic would have influenced any Italian language...

 

[Circunflejo]

Though it seems highly weird that Hispanic Arabic would have influenced any Italian language...

Well, the Kingdoms of Sardinia, Sicily and Naples were part of the Crown of Aragon.

P.S.: More info about the RAE's etymology can be found in the link that I provided in 3.

 

[pollohispanizado]

Well, the Kingdoms of Sardinia, Sicily and Naples were part of the Crown of Aragon

But that would mean that some Arabic speakers from Hispania went to the Italian península (at a time when they were not very well liked in Christian Europe) and brought their word, which was then adopted by "Italian" speakers, transformed over time, then brought back to Spain... Not to suggest that that would be impossible, but it is certainly a circuitous route for a loanword, and in a relatively short period of time (Naples was only conquered by the Crown of Aragon in the 1400s, not too long before the Moors were expelled from Iberia).

 

[Circunflejo]

But that would mean that some Arabic speakers from Hispania went to the Italian península (at a time when they were not very well liked in Christian Europe) and brought their word, which was then adopted by "Italian" speakers, transformed over time, then brought back to Spain...

I see your point. It could have arrived through Catalan though. Another option would be that a common Arabic word originated the Spanish Arabic one and influenced the Italian and Maltese ones but it seems there are problems to document that Arabic word.

 

[Penyafort]

The Catalan-Valencian-Balearic Dictionary says about xaloc:

Etim.: de l'àrab xalūk, mat. sign.; i la forma aixaloc o eixaloc representa el mateix mot precedit de l'article aràbic: axxalūk. Per a l'estudi detallat de les formes romàniques del mot, cf. Vidos Storia 571-575.​

For those who have access to Corominas' Diccionario Crítico Etimológico, I recommend reading the four columns about the word jaloque in Spanish.

But that would mean that some Arabic speakers from Hispania went to the Italian península (at a time when they were not very well liked in Christian Europe) and brought their word, which was then adopted by "Italian" speakers, transformed over time, then brought back to Spain... Not to suggest that that would be impossible, but it is certainly a circuitous route for a loanword, and in a relatively short period of time (Naples was only conquered by the Crown of Aragon in the 1400s, not too long before the Moors were expelled from Iberia).

Sardinian and, to a certain extent, Sicilian and Neapolitan, were influenced by Catalan first and Spanish later in their vocabulary. In Sardinia, the influence was particularly high.

 

[pollohispanizado]

Sardinian and, to a certain extent, Sicilian and Neapolitan, were influenced by Catalan first and Spanish later in their vocabulary. In Sardinia, the influence was particularly high.

Interesting. I wonder if this would necessitate a Sardinian or other intermediates: "Italian" was certainly not a language when this word arrived, even though it us cited as the source language for the Castilian word. Even still, Arabic > Catalán/Occitan > Sardinian(?) > Italian (Neapolitan?) > Spanish... ¡Cuántas vueltas ha dado esta palabra!

 

[Penyafort]

Interesting. I wonder if this would necessitate a Sardinian or other intermediates: "Italian" was certainly not a language when this word arrived, even though it us cited as the source language for the Castilian word. Even still, Arabic > Catalán/Occitan > Sardinian(?) > Italian (Neapolitan?) > Spanish... ¡Cuántas vueltas ha dado esta palabra!

Well, my mentioning the influence was a general aspect. I don't think that, regarding the word, this has been the journey of the word, because it is an old word in Tuscan too.

Following Corominas:

Even if jaloque appears in the DRAE, after reading about it, it is clear to me that it is not Castilian, but Aragonese. The attestation for xaloque/jaloque is late and mainly in writings from the Crown of Aragon or territories influenced by it, and its use in modern Spanish is rare (Castilian sailors used 'sureste' for the wind).

In other words, the version of the word in Spanish is the siroco loanword. Xaloque is Aragonese, taken from the Catalan xaloc, where the word exists already in the first Chronicles (James I, 1270s) and in Llull (1280s).

In Occitan, (e)issalot would come from Catalan eixaloc, while eissiroc, in Provence, would rather come from Italian.

Scilocco in Italian (that is, in Tuscan) is as old as xaloc in Catalan. Scirocco apparently can be found in Dante.

In Arabic, shalûq for the SE wind can be found in a text from 1365, but it must have been seen as a foreign word, as no medieval Arabic authors used it. Nowadays, shloq in the Maghreb and shalûk in Egypt are used, and hesitation in the vowels seems to point to the word being taken from a Romance source. But even if the Arabic word comes from Romance, the Romance word itself must have come in turn from Arabic too, most likely from shurûq 'sunrise', Southern European sailors understanding it as the East. Once in Iberia, it wouldn't be the East as in North Africa, but logically the South-East.

Colin's etymology, deriving SALÚC- from Latin SAL, with the meaning of 'salty wind, wind from the sea', is unacceptable by Corominas, since there's no such -UC- suffix, the Ú wouldn't explain the Romance o's, and semantically it wouldn't fit the use in parts of Italy.


My personal impression is that there could have been two branches, depending on the origin of the Mediterranean sailors: the Catalan one (Crown of Aragon) or 'shalok' one, and the North Italian one (including Tuscany) or 'shirok' one, both coming from Arabic shuruq. And from those two branches the rest would have come, most languages taking it from the Italian scirocco.