Blighty
Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2005 3:28 am
In honour of the Best in Show garden at the Chelsea Flower Show, the "A Soldier’s Dream of Blighty", complete with a pub and Chelsea pensioners, I suggest "Bligthy".
For copyright reasons, I just refer to this summary on the origin of the name. For more, you can try Hobson-Jobson: "BILAYUT, BILLAIT (p. 93) , &c. n. p. Europe. The word is properly Ar. Wilāyat, 'a kingdom, a province,' variously used with specific denotation, as the Afghans term their own country [p. 94] often by this name; and in India again it has come to be employed for distant Europe. In Sicily Il Regno is used for the interior of the island, as we use Mofussil in India. Wilāyat is the usual form in Bombay."
and its next entry.
Wikipedia takes only the first step for blighty etymology: "It derives from the Hindustani language, meaning either ´home´ or ´foreigner´".
Other sources may try Turkish for an origin, referring to Turkish vilayet ´province´ from the above-mentioned Ar. wilāyat.
A modern Hindi dictionary has, vilāyat: a province, realm; 1. hist. the Mughal province of Afghanistan; 2. a realm beyond India; England; Britain; Europe; the West.
For copyright reasons, I just refer to this summary on the origin of the name. For more, you can try Hobson-Jobson: "BILAYUT, BILLAIT (p. 93) , &c. n. p. Europe. The word is properly Ar. Wilāyat, 'a kingdom, a province,' variously used with specific denotation, as the Afghans term their own country [p. 94] often by this name; and in India again it has come to be employed for distant Europe. In Sicily Il Regno is used for the interior of the island, as we use Mofussil in India. Wilāyat is the usual form in Bombay."
and its next entry.
Wikipedia takes only the first step for blighty etymology: "It derives from the Hindustani language, meaning either ´home´ or ´foreigner´".
Other sources may try Turkish for an origin, referring to Turkish vilayet ´province´ from the above-mentioned Ar. wilāyat.
A modern Hindi dictionary has, vilāyat: a province, realm; 1. hist. the Mughal province of Afghanistan; 2. a realm beyond India; England; Britain; Europe; the West.