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    2011 Proto-Semitic Language and Culture

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    Tabitha Sanders
    Proto-semitic

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    Ip AMERICAN HERITAGE’ puumd © of the = English os) Language bone FIFTH EDITION Houghton Mifflin Harcourt BOSTON NEW YORK Words are included in the dictionary onthe bass of thee usage. Words that are known to have erent rademark registrations are shown wih an inal capital and ae als identifd as trademarks No investigation hasbeen made «of common-law trademark right in any word, because such investigation is impracticable. The inclusion of any word inthis ditionay i not however, an expesion ofthe publishers opnion sto whether or not itis subject to proprietary rights. Indeed, no deition inthis detionary isto be regarded as aflectng the vality of any trademark. ‘American Heritage and the eagle logo are registered trademarks of American Heritage Inc. Their use is pursuant toa license agreement with American Heritage Inc. Copyright © 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any ‘means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by ‘any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission ‘of Houghton Miflin Harcourt unless such copying i exprestly permitted by federal copyright law. Addres inquiries to: Reference Permissions, Houghton Miflin Harcourt, 222 Berkeley Street, Boston, MA 02116. Visit our website at wwwahdictionary.com (or www-youareyourwords.com, Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data ‘The American Heritage dictionary ofthe English language. - 5th ed. pcm. Previous ed: 2000. ISBN 978-0-547-04101-8 1, English language--Dictionaries, PE1628.4623 2011 423--de22 . 2011004777 ‘Manufactured in the United States of America 123456789 10-QGV-15 141312 1 Introduction JOSEPH P. PICKETT Editorial and Production Staff Special Contributors and Consultants ‘The Usage Panel Variation and Change in Our Living Language JOHN R. RICKFORD Usage in The American Heritage Dictionary STEVEN PINKER, Guide to the Dictionary Pronunciation Key Indo-European Roots Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans CALVERT WATKINS Guide to Appendix I Indo-European Sound Correspondences APPENDIX I Indo-European Roots Semitic Roots Proto-Semitic Language and Culture JOHN HUEHNERGARD Guide to Appendix Il and Chart of the Semitic Family Tree APPENDIX II Semitic Roots Picture Credits adi 2023 2032 2034 2036 2066 2070 2072 2079 Charts and Tables Table of Alphabets 51 Development of the Alphabet 52 Books of the Bible 17 ‘Three Principal Calendars 262 Color 365 Currency 447 Geologic Time Scale 74 Mathematical Symbols 1083 Measurement 1091 Periodic Table of the Elements 1312-1313 Proofreader’s Marks 14 Planets of the Solar System 1665 ‘Thermodynamics 1807 Usage Steven Pinker, PhD Harvard College Professor and Johnstone Family Professor, Department of Psychology, Harvard University Indo-European Roots and Indo-European Languages Calvert Watkins, PRD Victor S. Thomas Professor of Linguisties and the Classics, Emeritus, Harvard University, and Professor- in-Residence, Department of Classics and Program in Indo- European Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. Semitic Roots and Semitic Languages John Huchnergard, PhD Professor, Department of ‘Studies, University of Texas at Austin idle Eastern Semitic Languages and Development of the Alphabet Jo Ann Hackett, PAD Professor, Department of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Texas at Austin Language Variation and Change John R. Rickford, PhD J.E. Wallace Sterling Professor in Lin- {uistics and the Humanities and Pritzker University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, Stanford University Special Consultants Astronomy. Luke D. Keller, PRD Associate Professor, Department of Physics, Ithaca College Biology ‘Rufus W. Burlingame, PhD Director of Technology & Develop- ment, INOVA Diagnostics, Inc., San Diego ‘Todd R. Disotell, PhD Professor, Center for the Study of Human Origins, Department of Anthropology, New York University Benjamin Minault Fitzpatrick, PhD Assistant Professor, Depart- ment of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Ten- nessee, Knoxville Douglas H. Goldman, PhD Herbarium Associate, Harvard Uni- versity Herbaria 'W. Matthew Sattley, PAD Associate Professor, Department of Biol- ogy, Indiana Wesleyan University Daniel Simberloff, PhD Nancy Gore Hunger Professor of Envi- ronmental Studies, University of Tennessee, Knoxville Cartography David Deis Staff Cartographer, Department of Geography, California State University, Northridge Chemistry ‘Linda C. Bush, PRD Computer Science and Technology Jeannine Mosely, PRD Condensed Matter Physics Jacob J. Krich, PhD Ziff Environmental Fellow, Harvard Univer- sity Center for the Environment Dance “Thomas “T-Bopper” Guzman-Sanchez Urban Dance Scholar, His- torian, and Anthropologist, Senior Director, International Urban Dance Masters Association, Los Angeles Janice E. Haws Roberts, MFA Professor and Chair, Department of Dance, St. Olaf College Egyptology David Lorton, PhD French ory Suzanne Desan, PhD Professor, Department of History, Univer- sity of Wisconsin-Madison General and Subatomic Physics ‘Stuart D. Anderson, PhD Lecturer, Department of Physics, tha College Law Michele Cotton, PhD, JD Assistant Professor and Graduate Program Director, Legal and Ethical Studies, University of Baltimore Mathematics Christopher D. Goff, PhD Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics, University of the Pacific ‘William I. Johnston Statistics Robert J. Rovetti PAD Assistant Professor, Department of Math- ‘matics, Loyola Marymount University Proto o-Semitic Language John Huehnergard hhe Appendix of Semitic Roots (Appendix 11) that fol: lows this essay is designed to allow the reader to trace English words derived from Semitic languages back to their fundamental components in Proto-Semitic, the parent language of all ancient and modern Semitic languages. This introduction to the ap: pendix provides some basic information about the structure and gram. ‘mar of Semitic languages as an aid to understanding the etymologies of these words. In the text below, terms in boldface are Semitic roots that appear as entries in Appendix IL. Words in small capitals are Modern English derivatives of Semitic roots. An asterisk (*) is used to signal a ‘word or form that is not preserved ia any written document but that can bbe reconstructed on the basis of ather evidence. ‘The Semitic Language Family ‘The Semitic language family has the longest recorded history of any lin guistic group. The Akkadian language is first attested in cuneiform weit- ig on clay tablets from ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) from the ‘mid-third millennium nc, and Semitic languages continue to be spoken inthe Middle East and in northeastern Africa today. “Modern Semitic languages include Arabic, spoken in a wide variety of dialects by nearly 200 million people asthe official language of over dozen nations, and in many other countries as well; Amharic, the of: ficial language of Ethiopia; Hebrew, one ofthe oficial languages of Israel, Tigrinya, the official language of Eritrea; Aramaic, the language of the Jewish Talmud and of Jesu, firs attested in inscriptions written three thousand years ago and still spoken by several hundred thousand people inthe Middle East and elsewhere Ancient Semitic languages include Akkadian, the language of the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians; Phoenician and its descendant Punic, the language of Carthage, the ancient enemy of Rome; the classical form of Hebrew as recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures and later fewish weit ings; the languages ofthe neighbors of the ancient Israelites, such as the Ammonites and Moabites; many early dialects of Aramaic; the classical Arabic of the Koran and other Muslim writings; Old Ethiopic texts of the Ethiopian Christian church; and South Arabian languages attested in inscriptions found in modern Yemen, such as Sabaean, the language of the ancient Sheba ofthe Bible. in the same way that English is a member of the sub-family of Ger: ‘manic languages within Indo-European, the Semitic languages constitute 1 sub-family ofa larger linguistic stock, formerly called Hamito-Semitic but now more often called Afro- Asiatic, Other branches of Afro-Asiatic include ancient Egyptian (and its descendant, Coptic) the Berber lan guages of north Africa, the Cushitic languages of northern East Africa (suchas Somali and Oromo), and the Chadic languages of western Africa (such as Hausa in Nigeria). Various significant linguistic features allow us to classify the many. Semitic languages in a way that shows the historical branching off of sub-groups, The ancient ancestor of ll the Semiticlanguages, lke Proto- Indo-European a prehistoric, unwritten language, is called Proto-Semitic ‘or Common Semitic. The earliest branching, which includes most of the ‘known Semitic languages, is called West Semitic; the part that remained afer this branching, East Semitic, includes only Akkadian and Eblate West Semitic comprises three branches: the modern South Arabian languages; the ancient and modern languages of Ethiopia; and Cen- tral Semitic. Central Semitic is further subdivided into the South Ara bian inscriptional languages: classical, medieval, and modera forms of Arabic;and the Northwest Semitic languages, which include Hebrew and ‘Aramaic. See the Semitic Family Tree on page 2071. Semitic Words, Roots, and Patterns A distinctive characteristic of the Semitic languages isthe formation of words by the combination of a “root” of consonants in a fixed order, ws ally three, and a “pattern” of vowels and, sometimes, affixes before andl afer the root. The root indicates a semantic field, while the pattern both narrows meaning and provides grammatical information. For example, if we represent the three root consonants abstractly as X's, in Arabic the pattern XaXaXa produces a verb form, called the perfect, in the thied person masculine singular. Applying this pattern to the Arabic root mn of "separating, banning, prohibiting” (see xFm), Arabic forms the perfect third person masculine singular harama, “he prohibited” Another pattern, XaXiX, yields a derived noun, in this case the word harim, “forbidden place.” the source of English HaReM, while the pattern 1XXAX yieldsa verbal noun, ‘ram, “prohibition,” the source of English 1st. The pattern muXaXXaX (with doubling of the middle root consonant) yields a passive participle, mubarram, English Mufiannaat. ‘This last pattern isalso found, for example, in the personal nname MuHamatan, Arabic malummad, from the Foot f-an-d, “to praise” (see md). In most Semitic languages, sound changes have obscured some ofthe underlying patterns. For example, Arabic héf the origin of English Kt is dialectal variant of classical Arabic kayf, form of the Arabic root ky-f with the patern XaXX. Hebrew tri (Toran) is historically an example of the pattern 1aXXaXat; the earlier form was *tawrawat, from the root that was originally w-r-w in Semitic "to. fide"; see wrw), and regular sound [Minaean inscription. In this fragment of an inscription from Baraqish, north- east of Sana'a, Yemen, in the Old South Arabian language Minaean, an individual consecrates his renovations to the temple of the god Nakrah, Proto-Semitic Language and Culture 2067 | “dental | estites| SEP8 3) bp diy face bp | ass face oi | oases fare oe | dae fare bp | ras fare bp | der fare skafebs| <6 h |morwy ska |oebo] - mnrw- ska [obo b h |morwy eka ]ebb/| ob hb |mnrwy Bka | bb b oh [morwy skq]sbb/] sb oh [mnrwy Notes: (1) n Akkadian, the Proto-Semitic consonants fh usualy, and sometines were lst, athough there is eence that they were sil presenti the est stages ofthe language (2) In Hebrew and Aramaic the non-emphatic tos 6p cg and become ficaties(gronaunced vf and respectively after vowels, unless they are doubled “wat the beginning of words became y shifts in the history of Hebrew changed *tawrawat-to tn “The prominence of the root-and:-pattern system makes it relatively «easy to determine both constituents of most Semitic words. This in turn allows the comparison of individual roots across languages. Thus, for ‘example, Arabic salam, “peace, well-being” (English sataas), from the Arabi root s-L-m, is clearly cognate with Hebrew Saldm, which has the same meaning (English staLox), from the Hebrew root -F-m; both re- flect the same Proto-Semitic root, Sm. The patterns, too, in this case are cognate; the Proto-Semitic pattern *XaXaX, sil seen in the Arabic form, regularly develops into XaX6X in Hebrew. For most words associated with verbal roots, however, the distribution and semantic function ofthe various possible patterns are specific to individual languages. The origi- nal patterns of specific words very often shifted to other patterns during the separate histories of the various languages after they branched off from their ancestral subgroups. For example, Arabic and Hebrew share «common root, h-k-m, “to be wise’; but the attested form of the adjec: tive meaning “wise” in Arabic has the pattern XaXiX, hakim (English takiat! see hk), while in Hebrew it has the pattern XaX@aX (a Hebrew development of Proto-Semitic"KaXaX), hakam, Because of these pattern shifts, it is usually not possible to reconstruct individual words back to Proto-Semitie, only individual roots. The appen- ix that follows is thecefore alist of Semitic roots rather than of individual words, An important group of exceptions to this generalization includes words that denote physical objects, such as “hand “rock and While such words may be associated with derived roots of verbs (as in English to house), the substantives are clearly primary, andi is often pos sible to reconstruct them back to Proto-Semitic, or at least to intermediate stages, such as Proto-Central Semitic or Proto- West Semitic structed forms are given inthe appendix where appropriatsto facilitate the arrangement ofthe appendix, they have been listed under the consonantal root that can be exteactd from the reconstruction, rather than as entries ‘unto themselves. Thus Proto-Semitic “bayt, “house” is sted under byt. Some ofthese words have only two consonants, or rarely only one, rather than the usual three consonants that make up verbal roots thus, Proto Semitic “i, ‘god” is listed under", Proto-Semitic *yad, "hand? under yd, and Proto-Semitic *pi- or *pa-, “mouth,” under p. Proto-Semitic Sounds and Their Development in the Languages ‘The Proto-Semitic sound system had three short vowels, af and three corresponding long vowel, di i these vowels are preserved essentially unchanged in classical Arabi but have undergone numerous develop- ‘ments in most of the other Semitic languages, both ancient and modern, roto-Semitic had 30 consonants, These are shown as the frst row of sounds inthe table of Proto-Semitic Sound Correspondences above. ‘There were six triads of homorganic consonants (pronounced in the same area ofthe mouth); each triad consisted ofa voiced, voiceless, and ‘emphatic consonant. The emphatic consonants are characteristic of Se ili; in Proto-Semitic they were probably glottalized, that is, produced with a simultaneous closing ofthe glotis in the throat; this is how they are still pronounced inthe Ethiopian Semitic languages. (In Arabic, how- ever, the corresponding emphatic consonants are pharyngealized, that i, pronounced with a constriction ofthe pharynx and a raising ofthe back ofthe tongue) The six triads were: (1) the interdental fricatives df, and $ (with d and ¢ pronounced as th in English then and thin, respectively); (2) the dental stops d, and ¢ (with ¢ and das in English, and, glottal {aed 1, represented phonetically as (t); (3) the alveolar ffiate sz 5 ‘which were pronounced (ts), (dz), and glotialized (ts), respectively: (4) the laterals and (ith pronounced as in English ight, asa voice less like the Welsh sound writen l, and § asa glotalized version of 3) (6) the velar stops g, kg (with g as in English go, kas in kis, and the q as an emphatic) and (6) the velar fricative ,, andx (with g pronounced like a French r, like the ch in Scottish fach or German Bach, and xa {lottalized version of the latter. In addition to these triads, there were a few pairs of consonants tht lacked an emphatic counterpart: two labial stops voiced band un voiced p (the latter becoming fin Arabic, Ethiopian Semitic languages, and sometimes in Hebrew and Aramaic); two distinctively Semitic pha ryngeals, voiced “ayin” indicated by the raised symbol ‘ and unvoiced 1, both somewhat lke h but formed by constricting the pharynx; and two glottal consonants, the glottal stop "(like the catch inthe voice in the middle of English uh-oh), and glota fictive, h, Finally there was a sibilant, which is transcibed 5 (reflecting the development of the sound in Hebrevs, in which st came tobe pronounced as sh) but was pronounced 4s simple + in Proto-Semitic (and still pronounced as such in Arabic); and five additional resonants besides m,n, rw, and y. One ofthe original Proto-Semitic consonants, x, isnot preserved in any of the descendant languages. All of the other 29 Proto-Semitic consonants are preserved as distinct sounds in the Old South Arabian Tanguages (such as Sabaean and Minaean), but in most Semitic lan guages various mergers ofthe original consonants have occurred. Thus “Akkadian, the eslistatested Semitic language, has ony 18 consonants. The outcomes of the Proto-Semitic consonants in Akkadian, Ethiopic, Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic ae illustrated inthe table above, Grammatical Forms and Syntax Semitic nouns exhibit two grammatical genders, masculine and femi- nine. Masculine nouns have no special marker, whereas the majority of feminine nouns have an ending after the masculine stem, usually either ~at ort, illustrated by the pairs *ba‘, “owner, lord” (as in BaaL and Hawsteat) versus “bala, “owner, lady” (see b*, and “bin, “son” (as in Bexjasn) versus “bint, “daughter” (as in var arrzvast; see bry. ‘A few feminine nouns have no such marker, however, such as *imm “mother” and *ayn-, “eye” (see‘'yn).. “The declension of the noun in early Semitic is relatively uncompli- ‘cated. There were three cases, a nominative for subjects of sentences and for predicates of verbless sentences), genitive (or possession and afer all prepositions), and accusative (forthe direct object ofthe verb and for sundry adverbial forms). A characteristic feature of Semitic nouns isthe so-called bound form or construct form, an endingless form taken by a ‘noun when it is followed directly by a possessor noun or by a possessive pronoun suffix. For example, the Arabic word danabun means “tail” but the ending -n is dropped inthe possessive phrases danabu Yasadin, “lion tai” and danabu-hu, “his tail” Several English words derived from Se- mitic phrases, such asthe star names DENEBOLA and FOMALHAU', come from a word in the bound form. Both Arabic and Hebrew have a definite article (but no indefinite ar- ticle in both, the article is prefixed to its noun. In Hebrew the form of the article i ha, usualy with doubling ofthe first consonant of the noun, as in ha-Snd, “the year" (Rost HasHANaH), from Sand, “year” (see Sn). In “Arabic the form ofthe article is al thea of al-is omitted when a preced- ing word ends in a vowel, and the [assimilates to many ofthe consonants it precedes. The article also causes the final of forms such as danabun, “tail? and “asadun, “lion? to be omitted: ad-danabu, “the tail” al-"asadu, “the lion” When a construct phrase such as danabu ‘asad, “lions tll” is made definite, the article appears only on the second member of the phrase: danabu asad, “the lions tail” Many Arabic nouns were bor rowed together with the article into European languages, especially into Spanish this isthe source of the al-in a number of English words of Arabic origin such as ALCOHOL, ALEMBIC, and ALGEBRA, a5 well as other words where the article has been altered, such as ARTICHOKE and AUBERGINE. ‘Most Semitic languages exhibit two types of finite verbs. One type, which i usually called the perfect and is used for completed action, has «set of endings to indicate the person, gender, and number of the sub- ject, as in Arabic daras-a, “he studied” daras-a, “she studied daras-tu, “I studied” and Hebrew dara, “he studied” (with no ending), darssd, “she studied’ drat,“ studied” (see dr). In the other type, the subject is indicated by prefixes (and, for some forms, endings as well), and the verbal root hasa different pattern of vowels from the perfect, asin Arabic yordrus-u,“he studies” ta-drus-u “she studies” 'a-drus-u, “I study” and Hebrew yindrds “he studies” t-drds “she studies. *-dr, “I study” The third person masculine singular form of the perfect is customarily used asthe citation form ofa verb; traditionally, however, its English tranla tion is given as an infinitive, and this practice is followed in Appendix IL Thus under hgr, the Arabic verb hajara is glossed as “to depart” al though the actual meaning of that form is “he departed: In addition to the two forms just noted, Semitic verbs also have a rich variety of derived stems that variously modify the basic meaning ‘of the verbal root. Thus the Arabic root k-i-b, expressing the notion of “writing” (see kt) forms a verb whose basic (perfect) form is kataba, “to write’; with along vowel in the frst syllable, kazaba, it means “to cor- respond (with someone)”; with in- prefixed, itis a passive, inkataba, “it ‘was written’; and with "a prefixed, itis causative, “aktaba, “to cause to write, to dictate” For simplicity’ sake, such derived forms of the verbal root are labeled in the appendix as “derived str Lexicon and Culture ‘Asin the case of Indo-European, the reconstruction of Proto-Semitic words and roots offers us a glimpse ofthe world and the culture ofits speakers. ‘Several kinship terms can be reconstructed, a number of which sug- {gest that Proto-Semitic society was patriarchal. Although the words for “father? "Jab- (), and “mother” “imm- (mm), ae distinc, the word for “daughter” “bint, is the grammatical feminine of “son *bin- (bn), and ‘sistey” Pabat, i likewise a feminine of the word for “brother” * Proto-Semitic Language and Culture (¢b). Separate words for “husband’ father” *ham-, and “father’s kinsman, clan’ *Cammn- ‘mm, are found, but the feminine equivalents are simply

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