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Originally Posted by rewboss  By the way, you can't do language research simply by looking at similar words in different languages and assuming they must be related. You have to go through all the literary works you can find and trace the meaning of the word backwards in time. Unless you can show a definite evolution through time from "shin-bet-tof" to "sabotage", you won't be able to prove anything. In this case, you'd have to show exactly when and how the vowels "a" and "o" were inserted into the consonant template you provide, and to produce documentary evidence that the word was in use with the meaning you claim some time before about the 13th century, when "sabot" first appeared in French.
However, there is evidence that "sabot" might be derived from an Arabic word for something like "old shoe". If so, that seems to be the only Semitic connection here. |
I do agree with you Rewboss. You have simply to be careful particularly when dealing with etymologies. BTW there is an old Arabic word Sbt which refers to sandals without hair (sbt: meaning tanned or hair removed). Another old Arabic word is sabT (t is emphatic) it has nothing to do with shoes because it means lank or extended....). Thus the Arabic origin is not convincing to me. It sounds far-fetched.