How to say "pool, pond" in Arabic
CognateMeaningpool, pond
Arabic · Modern Standard Arabic
birkaברכה
بركة
Hebrew · Modern Hebrew
brekhaبْرِخَا
How the two words are related
Same Semitic root, same meaning — you already know this word.
Arabic root
ب-ر-كHebrew root
ב-ר-ךBirka and baraka ('blessing,' its own entry) are the identical Arabic letters ب-ر-ك-ة, told apart only by vowels nobody writes. Hebrew plays the same trick: בְּרֵכָה 'pool' and בְּרָכָה 'blessing' share the unvocalized spelling too, both traditionally traced to ברך 'knee' — the spot where an animal kneels to drink.
Learn it
In a phrase
a swimming pool
Plural
broken plural CiCaC
The root family
ب-ر-كב-ר-ך· blessing (and kneeling)
Blessing begins at the knee: Hebrew ברך is the knee itself, and Arabic keeps the kneeling verb (baraka — what a camel does at the well). From kneeling grew the blessing — ברכה and baraka — and, delightfully, the pool in both languages: בריכה and birka, originally the watering place where the camels knelt. Israeli slang has even borrowed מברוק back from Arabic mabrūk.
- بَرَكَة barakablessingבְּרָכָהblessing
- مَبْرُوك mabrūkcongratulations! ("blessed")מְבֹרָךְblessed
- بَارَكَ bārakahe blessedבֵּרַךְhe blessed
- بِرْكَة birkapool, pondבְּרֵכָהpool — the same word in both
- تَبَارَكَ tabārakablessed be (He) — as in tabāraka wa-taʿālāיִתְבָּרַךְmay He be blessed