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Okay, wow, I found a place where the #medieval #Syriac author Ishaq #Shbadnaya misinterpreted the dictionary of Bar Bahlul.

Shbadnaya uses the term Peutah (ܦܘܛܗ), which he glosses as "Matthew the Evangelist." The relationship between the two was opaque even after I looked up the entry in Bar Bahlul's dictionary (pictured).

In 1901 Robert Payne-Smith published a Syriac lexicon, based in part on Bar Bahlul's dictionary. Payne-Smith helpfully identified Greek words for as many of Bar Bahlul's entries as he could. Payne-Smith's entry is pictured as well.

So Bar Bahlul included the Greek word πότε in his dictionary, defined correctly as "when?" But Shbadnaya incorrectly interpreted the question "when?" as the name Matthew (one letter off in #Syriac, the exact same letters in #Arabic), and specified that he meant Matthew the Evangelist...

A misunderstanding over five hundred years ago.