Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 19/06/2004 16:07, Rasmus Underbjerg Pinnerup wrote:

> On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 02:36:44 -0700, Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org> wrote:
>  
>
> > So it is possible that "sky" goes back to something like "there
> > water", but if so the naming must go back at least to proto-Semitic
> > times - perhaps even to Adam in the garden!
> >    
>
> I thought the standard etymology for »shamayim« was »mayim« (waters)
> plus the causative prefix »sha-« known from related Semitic languages.
> Has this etymology been rejected?
>  

No, only pushed back to proto-Semitic. This indeed seems more likely 
that sham + ma (the -yim is a Hebrew innovation). It is also possible 
that shamayim received its -yim suffix by analogy and false etymology 
with mayim.

I'm not sure where you get "standard etymology" from. It is not 
mentioned by Strong, BDB or TWOT.

> It seems to me, that if the etymology was »sham« + »mayim«, there
> would be a problem in explaining why »shamayim« only has one m.
>
>  
Indeed.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/