Jump to content

Talk:Valley of Elah

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Terebinth

[edit]

"Valley of Elah ... so called after the large and shady terebinth trees (Pistacia atlantica) which are indigenous to its parts..." Pistacia palaestina surely? Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 10:30, 13 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That does seem odd that the article claims it gets its name from the terebinth tree under the name of the Atlas Pistachio tree (Pistacia atlantica) rather than the Elah/Terebinth tree (Pistacia palaestina/terebinthus), while at the same time all the later wikilinks link to the Elah/Terebinth. — al-Shimoni (talk) 20:51, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Here, we're running into English and Hebrew etymology. The name "Elah" is a Hebrew word, taken from the old Hebrew word for the tree Pistacia atlantica. In old Hebrew, there is only one word for both Pistacia terebinthus and Pistacia atlantica, and that is elah. Likewise, in Arabic there is only one word for these two species of tree, and that word is butm. It is only in modern taxonomic names that we find that they assign special names to these trees. By the way, the English word for this tree is NOT "elah," but rather "terebinth," which, in turn, is a loan word from the Greek, "terebinthos." Modern nomenclature, especially those used in modern taxonomy, often use extensions of these old names. There is nothing to worry about here.Davidbena (talk) 21:03, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Location

[edit]

Why is there no map or location information? Rskurat (talk) 11:57, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]