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Skip to contentقرت بابليthe city of the Gate-of-God
We make working tools, and we keep them working.
They run without a network, in French, English and Arabic. Your data stays on your device.
Start with the nameI · Origin
morning
qart · babili
Our name joins two very old words. The joining is recent.
First root
the city
In Phoenician, qrt means “city”. Carthage was Qart-Ḥadašt, “the new city”: qart is its first word, as it is in our name. The root is Semitic, and other languages have kept it.
Relatives Aramaic qarta; Arabic qarya (قرية), a village.
Second root
the gate of God
In Akkadian, Bābili was heard as Bāb-ilim, “gate of God”. Scribes wrote it in Sumerian as KÁ.DIĜIR.RAKI, a translation of the Semitic word rather than its origin. It is the name of Babylon, which Greek made Babylōn; scholars today see an older name reread as “gate of God”, and we take it as the Babylonians understood it.
Relatives Greek Babylōn; in Arabic, bāb (باب) still means “door”.
The joined word
the city of Babili, the Gate-of-God a coinage
qartbabili is a compound we coined: qart, “city” in Phoenician, and Babili, the name of Babylon, which the Babylonians read as “gate of God”. It follows the pattern of Qart-Ḥadašt (qart followed by a second word) and reads “the city of Babili”, that is “the city of the Gate-of-God”: a city whose name is a gate. No ancient text uses it. We chose it for what it describes: a place where work is done, with a gate where you decide what comes in and what goes out. In Arabic we write it قرت بابلي, and بابلي also means “Babylonian”.
We claim no more for this name than the sources support. Both roots are attested; joining them is our doing.
Caveat: “gate of God” is how the Babylonians themselves read the name; specialists lean towards a folk etymology grafted onto an older name of unknown origin. The plural “gate of the gods” (Bāb-ilāni) is a later variant.
Sources: C. R. Krahmalkov, Phoenician-Punic Dictionary (Peeters, 2000), s.v. qrt; The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, vol. B (bābu) and vol. I/J (ilu); I. J. Gelb, “The Name of Babylon”, Journal of the Institute of Asian Studies 1 (1955).
II · Work
noon
method · works
We make tools for trades that are practised far from a desk, and often out of signal.
Three rules
Step I
We begin by watching a working day where it happens. The tool follows that day; it does not reorganise it.
Step II
Each tool serves one trade. We do not add features to please everyone.
Step III
Simple foundations, a history that is never rewritten, data that can be exported. What you enter today should still read clearly in ten years.
First work
First work
anidash
AniDash is a livestock logbook: the record of a farm’s animals, batches, care and stocks. It works entirely on the phone, with no network.
not yet announced
not yet announced
The next tools will each have their own door in the same wall: name.qartbabili.com. We do not announce them before they are ready.
III · Future
dusk
Six vows
Tools will come one at a time. These vows hold for every one of them, and each can be checked.
Our tools work without a network.
Everything is saved on your device first. Sync is a choice, never a condition.
Your data stays yours.
You can export everything, free, at any time. If a tool must one day stop, you leave with all of it.
Your attention is not for sale.
No ads, no ad trackers, no data sold. What we measure to fix errors is written plainly, and any change is announced beforehand.
Three languages, as equals.
French, English and Arabic are designed from the first screen; Arabic reads right to left. No language is a paid option.
Few tools, maintained for long.
We publish little so that we can maintain: every tool is designed to stay usable for ten years.
A small studio you can reach.
You write to the people who make the tools, and they are the ones who answer.
A question, an idea, a trade that lacks a tool: write to us, in French, English or Arabic.
Or directly: support@qartbabili.com
