Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 21/06/2004 04:45, Dora Smith wrote:

> If yim is a Hebrew innovation, why does Arabic have it too?    Or atleast it
> has alot of "yim"'s in it.   or 'im's.   I haven't analysed it to learn if
> that is the way to make a plural.
>  

I meant only that the regular -yim suffix on the words for "water" and 
"sky" is a Hebrew innovation. These are not of course true plurals. Here 
are the forms in some other Semitic languages (taken from Patrick 
Bennett "Comparative Semitic Linguistics" with a simplified 
transcription), covering every known major branch of the Semitic family:

Akkadian: shamu, mu
Ugaritic: shamuma, my
Phoenician: shmm, mym
Achaemenid Aramaic: shmin, myn
Syriac: shmayya, mayya
Classical Arabic: sama', ma'
Ge`ez (Ethiopic): samay, may
Sabaean: shmy, mw
Jibbali: sieh (with a nasalised e), mih

Aramaic and Phoenician also show the plural suffix, but the other forms 
do not. This suggests that the innovation is a bit more widespread than 
just Hebrew, but still localised to a small part of NW Semitic.


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