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Help[Facts] Re: Seeking Name Meaning Unexpected/Surprise
in reply to a message by la-petite-rachel
I honestly did not know why I, being a native speaker of Hindi (I am trilingual from childhood: I speak the standard Calcutta dialect of Bengali, the Delhi dialect of Hindusthani and the North Indian dialect of English as my native tongues) and a fluent speaker in Sanskrit, and who has actually enjoyed a lot of the old literature in each of these languages, have not come across the word karishmaa. May be because it did not exist in these languages?
So, I looked up the one language that is not in the list above, but which is often confused with it. And, yes, it does exist in Urdu. The word کرشمه derives from Farsi, and is properly kirishma, but karashma and karishma are folk pronunciations for it, and it is glossed as "Wink, nod, glance; looking languishingly through half-shut eyes, amorous look or gesture, side-glance, ogling, blandishment, coquetry (cf. kaṭāksha);—a phenomenon, a wonder, a miracle; a talisman, a charm". A Farsi dictionary says "A wink, nod, glance; looking languishingly through half-shut eyes, an amorous gesture or blandishment, coquetry; consenting, agreeing with a look of love or benignity; also refusing with an oblique or side-glance; a phenomenon, a wonder, a miracle; a talisman, a charm" and another glosses the word as "ogling amorous gesture , nod , wink". I did not follow it back to its Indoeuropean roots.
Karisma Kapoor was born with this name and changed it to Karisma (which she consciously linked to the Greek word in interviews, and which she wants to pronounce as karizmaa, not karishmaa), probably for numerological reasons.
Also the Greek kharisma (divine gift) derives from the kharis (grace, etc.) which is related to khairein (to rejoice at) which comes from ProtoIndoEuropean gher (to desire). English greed comes from Old English graedig (voracious/covetous) which comes from proto-Germanic graedagaz, from graeduz, which also comes from gher. Obviously, we could argue at length about each of these transitions, and whether the two gher's are the same root, but which of these were you doubting in the first place so that I can focus on that?
And, I do not trust the baby name sites for meanings and etymologies of Indian words or names: few of them are correct, and far fewer are accurate for things I am sure of. There is no word that is a feminine suffixed form of vismaya in either Sanskrit, Hindi or Bengali, and I would like to see some solid evidence before accepting such a form in any Indian language. vismaya is an abstract common noun, and such nouns typically do not take any semantic gender suffix (i.e., some words will have a feminine suffix because of grammatical morphological rules, but not because of any semantic reason). These feminine suffixes are typically added only to make names, at which point it ceases to be an abstract common noun, but equally so it cannot change its meaning. So, the difference you quote between vismaYa and vismaYA was probably not meant as a distinction.
So, I looked up the one language that is not in the list above, but which is often confused with it. And, yes, it does exist in Urdu. The word کرشمه derives from Farsi, and is properly kirishma, but karashma and karishma are folk pronunciations for it, and it is glossed as "Wink, nod, glance; looking languishingly through half-shut eyes, amorous look or gesture, side-glance, ogling, blandishment, coquetry (cf. kaṭāksha);—a phenomenon, a wonder, a miracle; a talisman, a charm". A Farsi dictionary says "A wink, nod, glance; looking languishingly through half-shut eyes, an amorous gesture or blandishment, coquetry; consenting, agreeing with a look of love or benignity; also refusing with an oblique or side-glance; a phenomenon, a wonder, a miracle; a talisman, a charm" and another glosses the word as "ogling amorous gesture , nod , wink". I did not follow it back to its Indoeuropean roots.
Karisma Kapoor was born with this name and changed it to Karisma (which she consciously linked to the Greek word in interviews, and which she wants to pronounce as karizmaa, not karishmaa), probably for numerological reasons.
Also the Greek kharisma (divine gift) derives from the kharis (grace, etc.) which is related to khairein (to rejoice at) which comes from ProtoIndoEuropean gher (to desire). English greed comes from Old English graedig (voracious/covetous) which comes from proto-Germanic graedagaz, from graeduz, which also comes from gher. Obviously, we could argue at length about each of these transitions, and whether the two gher's are the same root, but which of these were you doubting in the first place so that I can focus on that?
And, I do not trust the baby name sites for meanings and etymologies of Indian words or names: few of them are correct, and far fewer are accurate for things I am sure of. There is no word that is a feminine suffixed form of vismaya in either Sanskrit, Hindi or Bengali, and I would like to see some solid evidence before accepting such a form in any Indian language. vismaya is an abstract common noun, and such nouns typically do not take any semantic gender suffix (i.e., some words will have a feminine suffix because of grammatical morphological rules, but not because of any semantic reason). These feminine suffixes are typically added only to make names, at which point it ceases to be an abstract common noun, but equally so it cannot change its meaning. So, the difference you quote between vismaYa and vismaYA was probably not meant as a distinction.
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