The ancient Egyptian word for desert, as in the Sahara desert, is 'desret', red land, for the pale red sand, in contrast to the black land, 'kemet', Egypt itself, with its rich dark soil.
By the way, this is completely off topic, but if you are black, think of that- the color black associated with the dark, rich life-giving soil. Quite a relief from all the negative connotations of 'black', and much closer to the actual color of 'black' people, who are dark brown like the soil.
*anyway, back to the topic at hand*
Desret, which is almost identical to the English word, Desert.
Could the English word Desert come from ancient Egyptian?
The letter 'r' next to a vowel easily reverses, since the 'r' sound is so much like a vowel sound. 'Bird' was once 'brid', 'horse' was once 'hrose'.
I just looked up the etymology of Desert. It is from Latin, from the word 'Desertum', meaning an abandoned place, from 'Desero', I abandon.
Naturally, if Desert came from ancient Egyptian, I figured it would most likely be through Latin.
The word 'Desertum', meaning abandoned, is supposedly from the negation of a word meaning to fasten with a bolt, Sero. Add 'de-', probably the same 'de-' that English has, and you get 'desertum'.
I don't buy it. Abandoned from the reverse of to fasten with a bolt? A desert as a place we are not fastened to?
I don't buy it. I think it is much more likely that the Latin 'Desertum', an abandoned place, came from the Egyptian 'Desret', with the 're' reversed, and 'Desero' came from 'Desertum'. The Romans were trading with Egypt from far back in their history, the Romans and Etruscans were great sea-traders and Egypt was one of the most prominent places they would have traded with, and Egypt was surely the first place many Romans saw a desert. This is exactly how I imagine a word would come into English from ancient Egyptian, hypothetically: through Latin, Desret becoming Desertum, with the Romans flipping the 're' and adding their '-um' ending, and 'desertum' becoming 'desert'. (That or coming to Latin through the Greeks; but the Greek words for 'desert', at least the ones that gome up on Google, are quite different!) We even know exactly where the 're' got reversed- between Egypt and Rome!
And that means that the word 'desert', meaning to leave something, as in to desert the army, was from the ancient Egyptian 'desret' as well, since this 'desert' is also from the Latin 'desertum'!
(It came up as I searched for the etymology of 'desert' on Google.)
Well, this is just a theory, but one that makes more sense to me than a word for 'I abandon' coming from a word for 'to fasten with a bolt'. I get the logic- unfastened, thus leaving, thus abandoned. It just sounds more hairy and farfetched than the Romans picking up 'desret' in Egypt in the middle of their ancient trade with Egypt, perhaps even very early in the history of the Latin language potentially. (Depending on when 'desertum' and 'desero' were in use- naturally, the Romans could have picked it up even more easily when they ruled Egypt!) I imagine the Romans could have potentially picked up all kinds of cultural things in Egypt as they traded in Egypt, and even more as they ruled Egypt. Why should it be farfetched that the word 'desert' was one of them?
Otherwise we would have this grand cosmic coincidence of the same sounds, quite independently, just happening to have the exact same meaning in both ancient Egyptian and English. Only with the 're' reversed. In a word so associated with Egypt, no less.
And if 'desert' did come from ancient Egyptian, this is exactly how I had imagined it would have happened!
Anyway, who knows, but surely it is a possibility!
Anyway, have fun, because that's what it's all about!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson