Nabeul

The story

1. Ancient Greek · derived fromνέᾱ́“new”
2. Medieval Greek · derived fromΝεάπολις
3. Tunisian Arabic · derived fromنِابِل
4. Arabic · derived fromنَابِل
5. French · borrowed fromNabeul
6. English todayNabeul

From French Nabeul, from Arabic نَابِل (nābil) (Tunisian Arabic نِابِل (Nēbel)), from Medieval Greek Νεάπολις (Neápolis), from Ancient Greek νέᾱ́ (néā́, “new”) + πόλῐς (pólĭs, “city, city-state”). Doublet of Nablus, Naples, Napoli, Neapoli, and Neapolis. French spelling "eu" probably comes down to Tunisian phoneme [ɘ] that colonists might have likened to French phoneme /œ ~ ø/. The component survives in several place names and personal names for the same phonetic reason but are gradually becoming compromised for 'e'. In fact, the lemma is often re-spelled "Nebel" or "Neebel".

Words from the same roots