Is there a relationship between Arabic ka'b and Greek kybos?

Question

This is a complete layman's question. Online etymology dictionary says about kaaba:

1734, Caaba, cube-shaped building in the Great Mosque of Mecca, containing the Black Stone, the most sacred site of Islam, from Arabic ka'bah "square house," from ka'b "cube."

The etymology of cube is traced to ancient Greek in the same dictionary:

1550s, from Middle French cube (13c.) and directly from Latin cubus, from Greek kybos "a six-sided die,"

I don't have any training in linguistics. But I know that Greek is an Indo-European language while Arabic is a semitic one and the similarity of the word for cube is striking. Is it just a coincidence, or did one language borrow from the other?

Answer 1

The etymology of Greek kubos is unknown, but it is thought to be a loanword. A word like dice is of a kind that's easily borrowed, just like the game itself -- compare e.g. chess and its similar-sounding equivalents in many languages. So it's plausible, though not provable, that there's a borrowing relationship between the Greek and Arabic words. That said, it's less likely that one language borrowed directly from the other than that they both borrowed the word from some other source: this looks like a Wanderwort.

Answer 2

The translation of the geometrical shape cube into Arabic is mukka'ab. The vast majority of Arabic words come from a three letter simple past tense verb. Mukka'ab comes from the verb [ka'aba] which means 'set heel'. Al-Ka'ba, the Muslims holy srine is derived from that verb to mean 'the heel' of the community or 'fulcrum' where the community gathers and councils meet to discus public matters. It was where the statues of the gods were kept until Muhammed ordered knocking them off on conquering Mecca. The word mukka'ab to mean cube came later due to the similarity of the shape and the holy shrine. Saying the opposite is like saying that the citrus fruit orange was named after the colour with the same name. Maybe the similarity between the Arabic and the Greek words is just a coincidence!

Answer 3

Yes there is, the cubes were used in ancient Greece at holly sites long before Arabic came to be - and Arabic is a medieval coiné. Not even a real language. It's a conglomerate like Persian and other Mixtures which somehow became 'languages' and are erroneously being treated as such.

Therefore Ancient Greek could not and would not need to borrow such an expression from a language which came out after VII C. AD, or 12 centuries after it became a 'dead language'. Only the opposite is and can be true.