Trade, money & letters

delta

Delta is the Semitic word for 'door'; Herodotus saw that the triangular mouth of the Nile looked like the letter Δ, and river deltas were named after it. Through Latin geography the word reached French, German, Russian and the Mississippi Delta — and came back to Egypt as Arabic ad-Diltā; the letter name itself lives on as Hebrew dalet and Arabic dāl.

Weakest linkCertain

The road to English

From Proto-Semitic to Ugaritic

From Phoenician to Mishnaic Hebrew

From Phoenician to Syriac, Arabic

From Ancient Greek to Latin, French, Arabic

From Latin to German

From Latin to Russian

From Ancient Greek to Modern Greek

From English to American English

From English to Japanese

From Mishnaic Hebrew to Modern Hebrew

3000 BCEProto-Semitic

Hops are evenly spaced; labels show the year each form is first attested.