Professor Halayqeh Publishes Study on Palestine Names of Early Tools

Professor Isam Halayqeh of the Birzeit University History Department has authored a book entitled "Agricultural and Household Tools in the Palestinian Arabic Dialect.”

Published by the University of Heidelberg in Germany, the 216-page book describes the ethnographic and lexical names of Palestinian agricultural tools and household utensils used in cities and villages, as well as rural and Bedouin settlements in Palestine, before the British Mandate.

The book reaches two conclusions: first, that the names of those tools were derived from the ancient Semitic languages, particularly Canaanite, Aramaic and Acadian (34.5%), Arabic (27.5%), and words borrowed from ancient Greek, Latin, Persian, Turkish, and Egyptian (26%). The second conclusion it reaches is that there are factors or motives that prompted the residents to give the tools such names, among them plant and animal names, names of body parts, and other names related to these tools.