How to say "century" in Arabic
Shifted meaningMeaningcentury
Arabic · Modern Standard Arabic
qarnקרן
قرن
Hebrew · Modern Hebrew
me'a (shana)مِئَا (شَانَا)
How the two words are related
Same root as a Hebrew word, but the meaning drifted over the centuries.
Arabic root
ق-ر-نHebrew root
ק-ר-ןSame root as Hebrew קרן, 'horn' — qarn means 'horn' too, but Arabic stretched it to 'the foremost of a generation' and then simply 'century, era'. Hebrew קרן went a different direction into modern life: a 'horn' of light becomes a ray (קרן אור), and a 'horn' set aside becomes a fund (קרן פנסיה) — both languages turning one animal horn into abstract new coinages.
Related Hebrew word:קרןkerenكِيرِن
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On the street
How people actually say it in the spoken dialects, where it differs from the standard word.
Levantine · Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria
Urban Levantine turns word-initial ق into a glottal stop: arn.
Egyptian · Cairo and the Nile Delta
Cairo, too: ʾarn.
Moroccan · Morocco — Casablanca, Rabat, Fes
Darija keeps the q: qern.
In a phrase
in the twentieth century
Plural
broken plural CuCūC.