Show tinnis tinnia gave Us tennis debut in century s in a name take for example tennis for a long time it was thought that tennis was rooted in the french receive but with dr philip it hittl hitti pro fessor of semitic literature in princeton university this derivation did not click such an alleged origin he reasoned f felt elt did violence to certain linguistic principles also it ignored a most important factor the history of the game itself for study had revealed to him that tennis had made its debut in europe about the beginning of the fourteenth century and the players who introduced it had brought it back with them from the east professor hitti knew of course that our word racket with which tennis is played today was traceable to the arabic dahah palm of the hand and further digging turned up the illuminating fact that when tennis was first played the ball was not struck with a racket but with the flat palm now this bell ball was made of light llight cloth professor hittl had a hunch where could such a cloth have been manufactured in the east research brought to right light that in the nile delta there was a town that was famed for being the hub of an area that manufactured textiles and other fabrics a town which incidentally was once the capital of one of the egyptian dynasties he isn ran this town down found that its name was tinnis 4 |