A while back, I was reading Destiny Unchain Online—the web novel, of course, the manga is too much like Only Sense Online, which is HSTS, and I liked DUO because it’s AGP1—the main character of which, per the tradition of Japanese gender bender series, has a typically feminine name: 紅 (Kou, “crimson”). The name is relevant beyond just being too girly for a “boy,” the meaning of it also comes into play both in that Kou is a vampire and that her in-game name, “Crim,” is a clipping of the English translation “crimson.” This had me thinking about the word “crimson” a lot, and I got this vibe that the word didn’t seem particularly European in origin, thinking that it was perhaps Turkic instead. While I was right that the word is borrowed from outside Europe, I was wrong on its actual origin, you see. “Wait, doesn’t the title say this article is about ‘algorithm?’” Shh, just ride it out.
In this case, Wiktionary gives a satisfactory etymology right off the bat: INE-PRO *kʷŕ̥mis (“worm”) > IIR-PRO *kŕ̥miš (“worm”) > FA-CLS/PAL کرمست (kirmist) > AR قِرْمِز (qirmiz, “kermes insect, crimson”) > OSP cremesín or FR cramoisin > ENM cremesyn > EN crimson. Oddly, however, the article for ENM cremsyn both asserts that the word is borrowed from Old Spanish (OSP) and that it is “ultimately from Sanskrit कृमिज (kṛmija),” which is not at all supported by the reference provided (which attributes the word to Medieval Latin (LA-MED)2 cremesinum/crimismus and says it’s ultimately from Arabic).3 Regardless, this all implies that “crimson” means something like “worm colored,” which I often joke about, much to my wife’s chagrin; however, it would be more accurate to say that it means “kermes colored,” as “kermes” are the insects from which the dye was extracted (even if the name for the insects essentially means “worm”).
So why did I think it was Turkic? That would likely be due to associating it with the Turkic word KK قىزىل (qyzyl, “red”)4 as in the Kyzylkum Desert, KK قىزىلقۇم (qyzylqūm, lit. “red desert”). Of course, the examples here are from Kazakh, which is only one of the Turkic languages, but it is true for Uyghur as well. On the other hand, in Azerbaijani, قِیزِیل (qızıl) has come to mean “gold,” though its Turkish equivalent kızıl still retains the meaning of “bright red, scarlet;” both languages, however, share their primary word for red in a cognate of “crimson.” Per Wiktionary, the etymology for that looks like FA-CLS کرمست (kirmist) > AR قِرْمِز (qirmiz) + ـِيّ (-iyy, nisba (adjective forming) suffix) > AR قِرْمِزِيّ (qirmiziyy, “crimson, scarlet, &c.”) > OTA قرمزی (kırmızı, “red”) > TR kırmızı (“red”) and AZ قیرمیزی (qırmızı, “red”). So, in a sense, I wasn’t that far off… at least I could argue such a thing had I not admitted associating it with Kyzylkum, which I obviously did because I always have the Amu Darya (or “Oxus”) on my mind.
You know what? Let’s just talk more about the Amu.5 My wife recently accosted me for not telling her about the Oxus Civilization given my interest in the Amu; however, the “Oxus Civilization” typically refers to the Bactria-Margiana Archeological Complex (BMAC), which evidence points to having been mostly centered around Margiana (from GRC Μαργιανή (Margianḗ)), the watershed of the Murghab River (FA مرو (marv, “Merv”) + آب (âb, “river”) > مرغاب (Morğâb))6 after which it was named, rather than Bactria (PEO 𐎲𐎠𐎧𐎫𐎼𐎡𐏁 (Bāxtriš) > GRC Βακτριανή (Baktrianḗ) >> EN Bactria),7 a region around the upper Amu between the Pamir and Hindu Kush mountains.8 Her reasoning for this, on the other hand, is actually more related to Bactria, specifically the Sapalli Culture which has been theorized to be one of the sources of Bronze Age tin in Mesopotamia.9 The problem with this is that I’ve never cared about Bactria myself, perhaps I have mentioned Transoxiana (which could be said to include Bactria depending on whether or not you equate it to the Persian Empire’s Sogdia) in the past, but what interested me previously10 was instead Khwarazm.
The Amu Darya’s delta as it merges into the Aral Sea forms a large oasis known as Khwarazm (PEO 𐎢𐎺𐎠𐎼 (*(h)uvāra, “dark”) + 𐏀𐎷𐎡 (*zmī, “land”)11 > 𐎢𐎺𐎠𐎼𐏀𐎷𐎡𐏁 ((H)uvārazmiš) or 𐎢𐎺𐎠𐎼𐏀𐎷𐎡𐎹 ((H)uvārazmīy) > FA-CLS خوارزم (Xwārazm) > FA خوارزم (Xārazm) > EN) or Chorasmia (PEO > GRC Χορασμία (Khorasmía) > LA Chorasmia > EN). The history of Khwarazm, like many regions of Central Asia, is rife with conquests from one group or another; however, as it isn’t the focus of this section, let’s speedrun this. In the Bronze Age, Khwarazm was an expansion of the BMAC, followed by its own Kelteminar (c. 3000 BCE), Suyarganovo (c. 2000 BCE), Tazabagyab (c. 1500 BCE), Amirabad (c. 1000 BCE), then Saka (c. 500 BCE) culture. Likely c. 530 BCE, Khwarazm was conquered by Cyrus the Great, and it was then held by the Achaemenid or Persian Empire until c. 525 BCE.12 The region was again invaded and became a satrapy of the Persians under Darius I (422-486 BCE) until the Macedonian Conquest led by Alexander the Great (c. 330 BCE). In the subsequent Hellenistic Period, Khwarazm became an independent kingdom, as Alexander never reached so far13 and only made peace with the Khwarazmian king Pharasmanes,14 seemingly never falling under control of its Seleucid (312-63 BCE) and Greco-Bactrian (256-120 BCE) neighbors.15 From the early first century CE,16 the native and semi-legendary Afrighids ruled the region, becoming vassals to the Sasanian Empire under Ardashir after an invasion c. 239/40 CE17 or under Shapur c. 243 CE,18 Hephtalites, Göktürk Khaganate, likely becoming an independent feudal kingdom again until the eighth century,19 then again vassal to the Umayyad Caliphate (very temporarily under occupation by Umayya ibn Abdallah, governor of Khorasan (693-697),20 then more permanently by Qutaiba ibn Muslim in 711/712),21 Abbasid Caliphate, and Samanid Empire (initially only the north was ruled as the south retained independence until 995).22 This dynasty ended when the last of the line, Abu ‘Abdallah Muhammad, was executed by Ma’mun ibn Muhammad in 995.23 The key point here is, somehow, the era of the Abassid Caliphate, specifically c. 780-850; thus, I’ll hop off this little tangent24 and move right along.
Al-Khwarizmi, more formally محمد بن موسى الخوارزميّ (Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi), was a notable mathematician, astronomer, and geographer who is thought to have been from the region of Khwarazm, as his name implies (and his name is really what we care about here). His most influential work, الجبر (Al-Jabr, “completion, rejoining”) or الكتاب المختصر في حساب الجبر والمقابلة (al-Kitāb al-Mukhtaṣar fī Ḥisāb al-Jabr wal-Muqābalah, “The Compendium on Calculation by Completion and Balancing”) written c. 820 CE, covers solutions to linear equations and thus has become the namesake of the field of algebra. More interestingly, if only etymologically, was his work in arithmetic. Particularly, al-Khwarizmi was instrumental to the adoption of Arabic numerals, adapted from the Hindu numerals of India, along with a method for computation using these numerals written out. When his works later spread through Europe in the 12th century, his arithmetic methodology largely superseded the abacus, with his Latinized name of Algorizmi becoming the name for the method as “algorismus.” This was then modified as OFR algorisme > FR algorithme > EN algorithm,25 giving us the titular word of this article (it’s actually way more fun to think about the development of OFR algorisme > ENM augrym > EN augrim). Yippee!26
This one only took me until a day after I intended to publish it, even though I started early and already had a full outline. There’s obviously a lot of interesting stuff I didn’t get into here, but I’ll just tell you the one stuck in my head. A lot of the archeological sources on Khwarazm focus heavily on numismatics where, they note, the region often did not have their own coinage and when they did it was in the form of facsimiles of coins from neighboring regions. This has the fun consequence of Khwarazmians copying coins with Greek legends without speaking or even understanding Greek themselves, thus the legends became increasingly fanciful decorative patterns. This momentarily brought to my mind the question of whether such occurrences have happened that entire peoples adopted another peoples’ script as decoration; only momentarily, as I immediately recalled the use of the Mongol ‘Phags-pa script in Medieval European art. While we’re talking about Greek, how did it take me until I was 27-years-old to realize the letters omicron (GRC ὂ μικρόν > EL όμικρον (ómicron)) and omega (GRC ὦ μέγα (ô méga) > EL ωμέγα (oméga)) are just “little o” and “big o?” Anyway, somebody buy me The Cambridge History of Iran. A complete set is only like $3,200.
My wife said that if I write this then I should kill myself.27 I am, of course, doubling down. I started reading DUO specifically because it was yuri, but instead of making out with Kou, Hijiri barely exists in the manga at all. Months of published chapters will go by without a single panel showing her face; but in the web novel, they’re girlfriends, going to aquariums and all that. Hell, to this day, Kou still hasn’t logged out of the game in the manga, which is when the real plot really starts to kick off, in my opinion. ↩︎
Random note, I’ve been using Wiktionary’s language codes to abbreviate language names and, hopefully, make some sections more legible. That list, however, excludes what they call “etymology only languages,” which are on a special page, such as Classical Persian and Medieval Latin. If all goes right, I’ll add HTML abbr tags in the final version so you can hover to see what these mean. ↩︎
“cremesin n. & adj.,” Middle English Compendium, Retrieved May 16, 2025. ↩︎
I would say my association with the word definitely comes from Kazakh (KK), but most stuff about it on-line seems to be from Uyghur (UG) instead. A funny consequence of this is the first page of search results for the word “قىزىل” being the Uyghur Wikipedia article for the social media platform RedNote or 小红书 (Xiǎohóngshū, lit. “little red book”). ↩︎
It was around this point when talking about writing this article that my wife asked me “so when’s the ‘crimson’ article,” and, readers, I’m here to inform you that this is the ‘crimson’ article… it just happens to be about ‘algorithm’ instead ^ ^ ↩︎
Wikipedia points out that “Murghab” could refer to another river, the Bartang, which it annoyingly calls a river “rising in central-western Afghanistan.” This is annoying given that the river flows almost entirely through Tajikistan, though it does, in fact, rise in Afghanistan. Furthermore, it has three names: “Aksu”/“Oksu” at its upper reaches (including the section in Afghanistan, of course), “Murghab” for the middle reaches (after passing the city Murghab), then “Bartang” after being joined by the Ghudara. ↩︎
This derivation is a bit of a mess, actually. I don’t know how it went from Ancient Greek to English, that doesn’t really happen, does it? Wikpedia gives another etymology: AE/PEO Bakhdi > PAL Bāxtriš > FA Baxl and GRC Βακτριανή (Baktrianē), which doesn’t really make sense. ↩︎
It’s hard to actually pin down the exact area that is “Bactria” because it’s more of a polity than a topographic feature. It could be considered to be south of the Amu Darya, north of the Hindu Kush mountains, extending west until Margiana. It could also be the entire basin(?) between the mountain ranges, as seen with the area north of the Amu being termed “North Bactria.” The inconsistency of terms and maps has been driving me crazy. ↩︎
Kai Kaniuth, “The Metallurgy of the Late Bronze Age Sapalli Culture (Southern Uzbekistan) and its Implications for the ‘Tin Question’,” Extrait d’Itanica Antiqua 42 (2007): 23-40. doi: 10.2143/IA.42.0.2017869 ↩︎
There’s no way I can talk this much about the BMAC without somehow gaining an interest. Even just etymologically, look at how much of a mess the derivations of Bactria and Margiana are! Where the hell do those names actually come from!? ↩︎
This is actually only one theory on the etymology, I for some reason didn’t want to focus too much on the alternatives here. These include خوار (khwar) + رزم (razm) meaning something to do with eating cooked fish; خور (xor, “sun”) + زم (zam, “earth, land”) meaning Nihon… I mean “land where the sun rises;” and ??? (kh(w)ar, “low”) + زم (zam, “earth, land”). ↩︎
Yuri Aleksanfrovich Rapoport, “CHORASMIA i. Archeology and pre-Islamic History,” Encyclopædia Iranica V: 511-516. Accessed May 24, 2025. ↩︎
E. V. Zeimal, “The Political History of Transoxiana,” in The Cambridge History of Iran 3(1), ed. Ehsan Yarshater (Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 235. ↩︎
Zeimal, “…Transoxiana,” p. 238. ↩︎
Zeimal, “…Transoxiana,” p. 239. ↩︎
E. E. Nerazik and P. G. Bulgakov, “Khwarizm,” in History of civilizations of Central Asia 3, ed. B. A. Litvinsky (UNESCO, 1996), p. 208. ↩︎
N. N. Chegini and A. V. Nikitin, “Sasanian Iran — Economy, Society, Arts and Crafts,” in History of civilizations of Central Asia 3, ed. B. A. Litvinsky (UNESCO, 1996), p. 38. ↩︎
R. N. Frye, “The Poltical History of Iran under the Sasanians,” in The Cambridge History of Iran 3(1), ed. Ehsan Yarshater (Cambridge University Press, 1983) p. 125. ↩︎
Nerazik and Bulgakov, “Khwarizm,” p. 210-213. ↩︎
Nerazik and Bulgakov, “Khwarizm,” p. 228. ↩︎
Nerazik and Bulgakov, “Khwarizm,” p. 229. ↩︎
R. N. Frye, “The Sāmānids,” in The Cambridge History of Iran 4, ed. R. N. Frye (Cambridge University Press, 1975), p. 138. ↩︎
C. E. Bosworth, “The Political and Dynastic History of the Iranian World (A.D. 1000-1217),” in The Cambridge History of Iran 5, ed. J. A. Boyle (Cambridge University Press, 1968), p. 8.
Nerazik and Bulgakov, “Khwarizm,” p. 231. ↩︎
There’s a million things more interesting about Khwarazm than just who invaded it when, but if I started going into the culture, religion (some theories have even placed Khwarazm as the origin of Zoroastrianism), art, &c. of the area there would simply be no end to it. ↩︎
“Algorithm,” Online Etymology Dictionary, Retrieved May 24, 2025. ↩︎
When I first started outlining this article, I rambled a bit about this section to my mother-in-law who then informed me that she already knew algorithm came from al-Khwarizmi because of The Big Bang Theory. Maybe I actually should kill myself. ↩︎
Then she started singing “She Told Me to Kill Myself” by smrtdth & lil aaron… and also told me to not actually kill myself, but that’s neither here nor there. ↩︎