Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On 5/22/06, Peter Kirk wrote:

> I really think you are wasting your time looking for the doubled N in a
> Semitic language. The Greek form KANH was very probably the original
> form borrowed from Semitic, cf. also KANWN. The change from KANH to
> KANNA can be explained by processes internal to Greek.

Well, my attempt to look for an origin in Babylonian/Assyrian was based on
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=cane which views the term as
originating in Assyrian.  I think when one proposes a theory that a word was
borrowed into another language, all the phonetic discrepancies between the
original form and the borrowed form need to be explained.  So, a Greek
KANH > KANNA change needs to at least be shown to be plausible, with
similar examples.  Doing so ensures that there is at least some evidence
to explain every step of the etymological derivation.  There are also other
examples of words such as PS qarn "horn" (compared with the IE form) or
PS thawr "bull" (compared with Latin taurus), but simply similarity of sound,
and plausibility of borrowing occuring in history at a certain time and place
is not always sufficient evidence for borrowing to have occurred.

Yitzhak Sapir
http://toldot.blogspot.com