Noun: ala
Hyphenation:
Gender: Feminine
Declension:
Singular
| Nominative | ala |
| Accusative | alu |
| Genitive | alas |
| Dative | alai |
| Instrumental | alu |
| Locative | alā |
| Vocative | ala |
Plural
| Nominative | alas |
| Accusative | alas |
| Genitive | alu |
| Dative | alām |
| Instrumental | alām |
| Locative | alās |
| Vocative | alas |
Sample Sentences
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klinšu alas (rock caves)
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pazemes ala (subterranean cave)
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alu labirinti (cave labyrinths)
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alu cilvēks (caveman)
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alu zīmējumi (cave drawings, paintings)
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Abhāzijā atrodas ala, kuras labirinti ir vairāk nekā trīs kilometrus gari (in Abkhazia there is a cave with labyrinths longer than three kilometers)
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peles, lapsas alas (mice, fox holes)
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āpšu, trušu alas (badger, rabbit holes, burrows)
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rakt alu (to dig a hole, burrow)
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nekā sevišķa tur neredzēja, izņemot nelielu caurumu zemē... likās tā kā kurmja ala (there was nothing special to see there, except a small whole on the ground... it seemed to be a molehill (lit. hole))
Nouns inflected like ala
tulkošana,
secība,
sezona,
saruna,
sajūta,
samaņa,
smarža,
skudra,
sklēra,
muļķība,
pirmdiena,
bebrāda,
skaudība,
kaklarota,
psihiatrija,
vīksna,
vīnoga,
izmaksa,
sešpaka,
melnaugļu aronija, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
1. The usual theory considers ala to be borrowed from Middle Low German hol (“depth, hole, cave”), from Old Saxon hol, or maybe from the same form in Middle Dutch or German Low German (East Frisian); cf. German Höhle (“cave”), all from Proto-West Germanic *hol.
2. A different view suggests that ala could also be a reflex of an old Proto-Indo-European stem *h₁el-, *ol-, *al- (“to flow, to drain”) with various Baltic reflexes: dialectal alots, alogs, standard avots (“(water) source”), alksna, aluksna (“miry, swampy place”) (cf. place names like Alūksne, Alūkstes), Lithuanian alė́ti (“to flow, to drip”). The original meaning of ala would thus have been “(water) source”, from which “place (e.g., cave, rift, pit) from which water springs,” and finally simply “cave,” possibly under the influence of the aforementioned Germanic words. See: German Nouns '
Höhle'.
Translations