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  • From: berlant AT advanced-studies.org
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] PTR
  • Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:10:05 -0400

Thanks for the discussion, as it helped me refine my etymology. I kind of suspected that Isaac's etymology was "idiosyncratic" and I agree that the arguments and evidence he presented to support it are not very convincing. So I still think that my etymology is the best one, notwithstanding George’s objections.

To wit, at 01:20 PM 3/9/2010, George wrote:

>The word for ‘open’ in Hebrew is tri-consonantal Pe-Tav-Het

However, if one can accept the postulates that (1) tri-consonantal roots were probably derived by extending bi-consonantal roots, and (2) Tet is probably a reflex of Tav, it is very possible, if not highly probable, that the root Pe-Tav of Pe-Tav-Het ‘to open, free, loosen’ was a variant of the root Pe-Tet of the Heb. verb for opening Pe-Tet-Resh ‘to open, free, escape.’ So, it is equally probable that Pe-Tav-Het was derived simply by affixing Het to Pe-Tav, while Pe-Tav-Resh ‘to interpret’ was derived simply by affixing Resh to Pe-Tav. Hence these words for opening and interpreting are as cognate as they clearly reveal they are.

I therefore have to agree here with Isaac, who wrote:

> Pe-Tet-Resh is 'solved', which in English means 'loosened', and so is Pe-Tav-Resh.

At 01:20 PM 3/9/2010, George also wrote:

> a good case can be made for the word ‘see’ being biconsonantal (Resh-Aleph).

However, if one can also accept the postulate that bi-consonantal roots were probably derived by extending mono-consonantal roots, it is also probable that Resh- Aleph was a vowelized form of Resh, and Resh-Aleph-Heh was an extended form of Resh-Aleph — for reasons I will discuss more below and in response to the recent question regarding the names of Egyptian deities.

At 01:20 PM 3/9/2010, George Athas also wrote:
>The kind of verbal compounding you’ve suggested does not really take place

OTOH, in view of this objection, I’m amending my etymology slightly to read that Pe-Tav-Resh 'to interpret' was derived from (1) the widespread, bi-consonsontal Afro-Asiatic (AA) root PT that came into Heb as the roots Pe-Tav and Pe-Tet of the aforementioned verbs for opening, and (2) the equally widespread, mono-consonantal AA root R that yielded (a) Aleph-Vov-Resh ‘light’ and (b) Resh-Aleph-Heh ‘to see’ as well as (c) the latter’s defective form which referred to a ‘prophet or prophetic vision’.

Pe-Tet-Resh ‘to interpret’ is therefore also transparently cognate with, for instance, Empire Aramaic PTR ‘to detach,’ Jewish Aramaic PTR ‘to dismiss or free’, Acadian “pataru” ‘to loosen, draw out’, and Mandaic “PTR” ‘to open up, separate’ — all of which pertain directly or indirectly to opening up and, thus, exposing things to light or shedding light on them.
So, there are reasons for believing that Pe-Tav-Resh ‘to interpret’ was coined to imply that interpreting was originally(a) what my grandmother used to call "Opening the light!," when she wanted to see; (b) what some Biblical passages refer to metaphorically as opening the eyes, and (c) what other Biblical passages refer to as prophetic visions.

This etymology can be supported, first, by noting that interpreting is a synonym for enlightening, and Aleph-Vov-Resh was deducibly a vowelized form of Resh ‘light’ that was used to refer to enlightenment in 1 Sam 14:27 — when Johnathan eats the prohibited honey, and “his eyes were enlightened (Aleph-Vov-Resh)” — and again in 1 Sam 14:29, when Johnathan exclaims “how mine eyes have been enlightened (Aleph-Vov-Resh) because I tasted a little of this honey.” Accordingly, it would have been more than reasonable to derive Pe-Tav- Resh ‘to interpret’ from Pe-Tav ‘to open’ + Resh ‘light’, to imply that interpreting was en-lightening.

The use of Aleph-Vov-Resh ‘light’ with ayin to express “enlightenment” in the preceding passages is therefore fully equivalent to the use of Pe-Tav-Het ‘to open’ with ayin to express enlightenment in Gen 3:5, wherein the serpent tells Eve that if she eats the forbidden fruit “your eyes shall be opened (Pe-Tav-Het),” and again in Gen 3:7, which explains that the “the eyes of them both were opened.”

As I mentioned above, this analysis agrees with Isaac’s suggestion that interpreting is synonymous with solving, but not because Heb. Resh referred to grazing. On the contrary, just as Heb. PTR ‘ to interpret’ reveals it was derived from Pe-Tet “to open + Resh ‘light,” Latin (L.) “solvere,” “to solve” clearly reveals it was derived from L. “sol” ‘sun’ + the root ver- of L. words for truth, evidently to imply that solving was bringing the truth to light. It is deducibly for the same reason that Germanic (Gc.) words for loosening reveal that they are terminally palatalized derivatives of the Proto-Indo-European *leuk- that yielded scores of IE words for light, though a fuller discussion of these words is well beyond this list’s scope.


Regards,

Steve Berlant




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