PLAIT PaTahL Pey-Tahf-Lamed
Pah-TULL פתל [P -T-L àPLT]
ROOTS: A
PLAIT or BRAID of
hair, like a PLEAT or fold in clothing, is traced to Old French pleit, fold. Then comes the usual
twisting by the Latin Lovers, as the PLT word is then credited to Latin plicāre (to fold). This new fiction is then given the
make-believe Indo-European (IE) “root” plek (to plait), linked to
כפל
KaPHahL (to fold) at entries like “COUPLE.”
PLAIT and
PLEAT should be gently re-folded via an M132 metathesis to פתל PaTahL , to twist, but not mangled to PLK. In Biblical Hebrew the
adjectival form is reduplicated to פתלתל
P’TaL’ToaL (twisted, perverted -- Deuteronomy 32:5).
For the noun of
twisted fibers, פתיל , see “FUSE.” In New Hebrew
פתל PeTeL is a spiral-shaped bacteria. In Aramaic-Syriac פתל PiTaL means “he twisted.”
The son
of Jacob and tribe of נפתלי NAFTALI (Genesis
30:8) is named for wrestling, contesting (same verse)… which involves twisted,
intertwined limbs.
Designed opposites: פצל PaTSeL, to
divide, split [SPLIT
פתל PaTeL, to twist together, braid or plait
To INTERPRET (see
“INTERPRET”) a dream or foreign
word is פתר PaTahR; an INTERPRETATION is a פתרון PiTaROAN (both Genesis 40:8). Untangling and tangling is bilabial-dental-liquid.
A further
bilabial-liquid-dental opposite of entwining is פרד PaRaD, to separate, divide --
see “PART.”
BRANCHES: Arabic fatala means he twisted together or PLAITED. The
Ethiopic is identical, while Akkadian patālu means “to wind.”
BRAID, the same twisted bilabial-liquid-dental, is traced to Old English bregdan (to weave).
An old-fashioned twisting or
rolling on the dance floor may be a labial-liquid-dental form of פתל PaTahL that became German and English WALTZ. Polish falda is to PLEAT or FOLD. Polish plątać (tangle, to entangle) is a
post-Tower of Babel tangled or twisted PTL. There is little risk in considering
TWIRL (spin) as
a possible derivative (M213), since TWIRL is from “origin unknown.”
SLAVIC languages will help the historical linguists to untwist the pigtail:
פתיל P’TeeYL, a wick or twisted cord (the noun)
(In almost
all below: twist the root with an M132 metathesis, bilabial-dental-liquid to bilabial-liquid-dental)
FiTiLj (wick,
fuse) -- Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian
FiTiL' (wick) --
Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian фитиль
PẹTLa (noose) -- Polish
oPLeTka (braid) --
Russian оплетка
oPLieTka (braid) --
Belarusian
PLeTenec (plait,
braid) -- Czech, Slovak (string, twist, rope)
PLeTenica (a braid,
plait, twist) -- Bosnian, Czech, Serbian
PLeTenka (braid) --
Macedonian
PLiTka (a plait, braid, pigtail, rope) -- Bulgarian M132, Macedonian (a plait)
sPLeSTi (a plait)
-- Slovene
sPLeŤ (a tangle)
-- Slovak
sPLeTinnya (a tangle) -- Ukrainian
פתל PaTahL, to twist, braid, plait (the verb)
(All these verb forms of PLAIT twist PTL to bilabial-liquid-dental.)
PLąTać
(to entangle) -- Polish
PLéST (to twist, plait, hand-weave) -- Czech
PLeSTi (to spin, braid, twine, plait) -- Russian плести ,
Serbian
PLeSTi (to entwine, weave, plait, weave) -- Ukrainian
PLiTka (to plait) -- Macedonian
prePLeTať (to
entwine, twist) -- Slovak
sPLaTać (to braid, splice, entwine,
interlace) -- Polish
sPLiTam (to entwine, knit, plait, braid,
wreathe) -- Bulgarian
uPETLjati (to entangle)
-- Bosnian
uPLeSTi (to twist, entwine, enmesh, weave, wreathe)
-- Croatian
uPReSTi (to entwine, twist) -- Bosnian
vPLITam (to entangle)
-- Bulgarian
zaPLiTaty (to
plait) -- Ukrainian
zaPLéST (to entangle, to
entwine) -- Czech
zaPLeSTi (to braid) --
Bosnian
zaPLeTať (to braid, to
plait) or zaPLiaTać (to
plait) -- Russian заплетать,
Belarusian, Slovene, Slovak (+ to tangle)
zaPLuTaty (to entangle)
-- Ukrainian
See “PYTHON” and
“PUZZLE.”