Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ Although the root QRY exists in Ar, the common opinion is that qaryaẗ, like other administrative terms (cf., e.g., ↗bāb, ↗madīnaẗ, ↗ḥiṣn, ↗sulṭān), is borrowed from Aram/Syr. The word is found also in other WSem langs where it signified a fortified settlement as opposed to a ‘village’ in the countryside (ComSem *kapar‑, see Ar ↗kafr).
▪ According to Huehnergard2011, the WSem root *QR(Y) to which the etymon of Ar qaryaẗ belongs, meant ‘to meet’, so that the proper meaning of the WSem n. *qart‑, *qary(at)‑, *qiryat‑ ‘village, town’ probably was *‘meeting place’ (as suggested in BDB1906 as possible etymology of Hbr qiryāh).
▪ The question whether or not qaryaẗ is in any way akin to ‘hospitality’ (QRY_1) and/or the nautical term ‘yard’ (QRY_3) is not completely clear yet and needs further research, though it seems likely that, ultimately, all three go back to the same WSem ‘to meet’, cf. ↗QRY.
▪ Meanwhile, Orel&Stolbova reconstructed Sem *ḳary‑ ‘town, village’ and suggested a derivation of the latter from AfrAs *ḳer‑ ‘dwelling’ ~ *ḳor‑ ‘house, place’.

hist

▪ eC7 ‘settlement’ (селение) ▪ eC7 Ḥuṭayʔa 38,1 raʔà ʔanna ʔaryāfa ’l-qurà muniʕat; 72,4 nuqātilu ʕan qurà Ġaṭafāna lammā ḫašīnā ʔan taḏilla wa-ʔan tubāḥā
▪▪ eC7 Occurs some fifty-seven times in the Q, both in sg. and pl. forms, all meaning ‘town, city, township, village, dwelling’, e.g., 16:112 wa-ḍaraba ’ḷḷāhu maṯalan qaryatan kānat ʔāminatan muṭmaʔinnatan ‘God presents the parable of a city that was secure and at ease’.
▪ Cf. also Fück1950: 110 fn4.
▪▪ …

cogn

▪ Jeffery1938: 236 : Hbr qiryāh, Syr qerīṯā ‘town, city’; cf. also Hbr qǟrǟṯ, Phn qrt, Ras Shamra qr, qrt, Moab qr. – To this, Pennacchio2014: 90-1 adds also Ug qr and JA qiryā.
▪ Orel&Stolbova1994#1568: Ug qr-t, qry-t, Hbr qiryā, JudAram qurəyātā, Syr qerī-t‑ ‘town’, Ar qary-at‑ ‘village’, SAr qr, Jib ṣ-írɛ́-t ‘town’. – Outside Sem: kerī ‘house’ in 1 ECh lang; ḳera ‘house, dwelling’ in 1 Omot lang. In StarLing2007 the authors add also [Berb] Ghad ta-ɣurǝmt ‘lieu-dit’, Ayr a-ɣrǝm, pl. i-ɣǝrm-an, Ahag a-ɣrem, pl. i-ɣerm-ân, Taw a-ɣrǝm, pl. i-ɣǝrm-an ‘town’. – Cognates outside Sem to the Ar pl. qur-an ‘villages’: kwaro ‘hut’ in 1 WCh lang,¹ kwókwár (partial redupl.) ‘world, region’ in 1 CCh lang; kūr, kɔrr ‘place’ in ECh langs; Or qoroo ‘block’; qoori ‘brick house’ in 1 Rift lang.
▪ Cohen1969 #240 viewed (Sem) Hbr qiryā(h) ‘ville’ and Ar qiryaẗ ‘hameau, bourg’ (and also modSAr qaʕər ‘maison’) together with (Cush) Ag Bil Sa qaʕrat, Bed gaʔra ‘enclos, cour’, Som gūri ‘maison, hutte’ (gār ‘maison’ in some SEth languages), as well as (Chad) Ha gari ‘ville’.
▪ Wellnhofer (pers. communication, Feb. 2016) suggests to add also Tña qäräyä / Amh qärrä ‘to stay, to remain, (to sojourn)’ as cognates.
▪ Cf. also ↗QRY and ↗qarà ‘to receive hospitably’.

1. StarLing2007 adds: Ha ḳwaryar (ḳīra) ‘cosmopolitan town’, kwàrò ‘hut’, kúur ‘foundation of a house’, kóro ‘abode, world, life’ in 3 langs.

disc

▪ Jeffery1938: 236 : » Hbr qiryāh is a poetical synonym for ʕīr, a ‘town’ or ‘city’, and it is a question whether it and the related qǟrǟṯ; Phoen qrt (cf. Carthage); Ras Shamra qr, qrt; and Moab qr (Mesha Inscription, 11, 12, 24) are not really related to the Hbr ʕīr and derived from the Sumerian uru, a ‘state’.¹ In any case the Hbr qiryāh is parallel with the Syr qerīṯā, a ‘town’ or ‘village’, and from the Syr came the Ar qaryaẗ, as Zimmern, Akk Fremdw, 9, notes. (Cf. Nöldeke, Beiträge, 61 ff., and Neue Beiträge, 131.)«
▪ Orel&Stolbova1994#1568 reconstruct Sem *ḳʷary‑ ‘town, village’, Berb a-ɣaram, ECh *kyar‑, Omot *ḳer‑ ‘house, dwelling’), all from AfrAs *ḳer‑ ‘dwelling’. The latter, the authors say, is a morphophonological variant of (#1589) AfrAs *ḳor‑ ‘house, place’ [StarLing2007: *ḳʷar‑ ‘block of houses, settlement, town’] which appears as Sem *ḳur-an‑ ‘villages’ (pl., with suffix ‑an‑), WCh *ḳwar‑ ‘hut’, CCh *kwa-kwar‑ (partial redupl.) ‘town’), ECh *kwaru‑ ‘place’, LEC *ḳor‑ ‘block’, Rift *ḳor‑ ‘brick house’.
▪ Is the ‘settlement’ (town, village) connected to the notion of ‘hospitality’ so that ‘to receive hospitably’ (↗qarà) could be seen as denominative, properly *‘to grant the protection (and comfort) of a (fortified) settlement’?
▪ ClassAr has also ^†qāriyaẗ (the PA I f. of ↗qarà) with the meaning ‘settlement’ and this is explained as al-miṣr al-jāmiʕ ‘the (fortified) settlement that brings together, collects, unites (sc. people)’, i.e., derived from QRY_6. Should this be, against all previous assumptions, the proper etymon of qaryaẗ (qāriyaẗ > *qā̆ryaẗ > qaryaẗ)? The same would of course be thinkable if qāriyaẗ was not *‘the one (sc. settlement) that brings together’ but (from QRY_1) *‘the hospitable one, (settlement) that receives strangers hospitably’.

1. In contrast, Wellnhofer thinks Hbr ʕīr ‘town’ etc. is related to Ar ↗GYR ‘to protect, envy, (differ)’ – personal communication, 02Feb2016.

west

▪ Not from Ar but from the related Pun word is the name of the capital Carthage < Lat Carthāgō < Pun *qart-ḥadašt ‘new town’.

deriv

► al-qaryatān, n.du., Mecca and Taif; Mecca and Medina.
► ʔumm al-qurà, n., Mecca.

► qarawī, adj., village-, country- (in compounds), rustic, rural; peasant (adj.): nsb-adj; (pl. ‑ūn) villager, rustic, countryman, inhabitant of the country: nominalized nisba.
► qarawiyyaẗ, n.f., countrywoman, peasant woman: nominalized nisba.

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