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WonderWord origin

English 'salary' comes from Latin salarium, a word built on sal, 'salt'. The popular story that Roman soldiers were paid in salt has no good evidence behind it: they received a regular wage in coin.

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LanguageHistory

The story behind the card

The only ancient writer to connect the two words is Pliny the Elder. In his Natural History, from the AD 70s, he says that salt played a part in public offices and military service and that this is where salarium comes from; he never says soldiers were paid in salt. Roman soldiers received a regular wage in coin, the stipendium, and the Greek historian Polybius records a foot soldier's daily pay in the 2nd century BC. Salt mattered to Rome, as the name of the ancient Via Salaria, the 'salt road', shows, but it was cheap. The 'paid in salt' story seems to have grown out of Latin dictionaries of the 1700s and 1800s, which guessed at a 'salt money' allowance that no ancient text mentions. Nor is 'worth one's salt' Roman: the phrase is first recorded in English in 1830.

Türkçe oku
İngilizcedeki “salary” (maaş), Latincede “tuz” demek olan sal'dan türemiş salarium sözcüğünden gelir. Roma askerlerine maaşlarının tuzla ödendiği hikâyesi çok yaygındır, ama bunu destekleyen sağlam bir kanıt yok: Askerler düzenli ücretlerini madenî parayla alırdı.

Bu iki sözcüğü birbirine bağlayan tek antik yazar Yaşlı Plinius'tur. MS 70'lerde yazdığı Doğa Tarihi'nde tuzun resmî görevlerde ve askerlikte de yeri olduğunu, salarium sözcüğünün de buradan geldiğini söyler; ama askerlere maaşın tuzla ödendiğinden hiç söz etmez. Roma askerleri stipendium denen düzenli ücreti madenî parayla alırdı; Yunan tarihçi Polybios, MÖ 2. yüzyılda bir piyadenin günlük ücretini kaydetmiştir. Tuz Roma için önemliydi, nitekim eski Via Salaria, yani “Tuz Yolu”, adını tuzdan alır; ama ucuzdu. “Tuzla maaş” hikâyesi 18. ve 19. yüzyıl Latince sözlüklerinden doğmuş görünüyor: Bu sözlükler, hiçbir antik metinde geçmeyen bir “tuz parası” ödeneği varsaymıştı. İngilizcedeki “worth one's salt” (tuzunu hak eden, yani işinin ehli) deyimi de Roma'dan kalma değildir; ilk kez 1830'da kayda geçmiştir. Türkçedeki “maaş” ise Arapçada “geçim” anlamına gelen bir sözcükten gelir.

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