deb ther

annal, chronicle, records, documents, records, catalogues, registers, lists, books [RY]

annals, chronicle, records, documents, records, catalogues, registers, lists, books [IW]

register, documents, catalogues, anything recorded in writing or stitched together [JV]

historical book, annals [RY]

1) annals, historical annals, recorded annals, chronicles, historical chronicles, recorded chronicles, records, historical records; 2) record books, documents, historical documents, catalogs, historical catalogs, catalog of records, registers, historical registers, recorded registers, listings, historical listings, recorded listings; 3) books, scrolls. Borrowed from Middle or Early New Persian دفتر‎ (daftar), meaning "register", "account book" or "notebook" (usually meaning "notebook" in Modern Persian), from Aramaic דפתרא‎ / ܕܦܬܪܐ‎, ultimately from Ancient Greek διφθέρᾱ (diphthérā, “parchment”, "scrolls" or "pages"); which itself is possibly from Proto-Hellenic dipʰtʰérā, related to διψάρα (dipsára, “writing-tablet; piece of leather”) and Mycenaean Greek 𐀇𐁇𐀨 (di-pte-ra), and possibly connected with δέφω (déphō) or δέψω (dépsō, “to soften (with the hand)”). Compare also Old Persian 𐎮𐎡𐎱𐎡 (dipi), Akkadian 𒁾 (ṭuppu, “tablet, document, letter”), Sumerian 𒁾 (dub, “tablet”) and even Arabic كِتَاب (kitāb, "book", "message", "scripture", "recorded accounts" etc.). The word also exists as a Persian loanword in Arabic as دَفْتَر (daftar). There is also an irregular spelling with གཏེར (deb gter) based on a Tibetan 'folk etymology' connecting it to the meaning "treasure", due to the accidental similarity of the Persian-Greek -tar/-thérā with the Tibetan word. Thus it appears that this Greco-Persian etymology is also the ultimate origin of deb, the main Tibetan word for "book", as the monosyllabic deb is derived from the longer word deb ther. [Erick Tsiknopoulos]