Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Will Parsons <wbparsons AT alum.mit.edu>]

Hello Nir,

On Wed, 19 Sep 2012 16:39:46 -0200, "Nir cohen - Prof. Mat." 
<nir AT ccet.ufrn.br> wrote:
> ...
> the arabic situation is somewhat similar: MY) for water and SM) and
> SM)) (sing/pl?) for sky.
>
> the common NWS form seems to be $M)=sky. but we may conjecture
> $M=air, $WM=emptyness, $MYM=the great emptyness, $MMH=empty terrain
> (desert, destruction), N$M=breath. in this case, the sky-water
> linguistic similarity would be merely accidental.
>
> now is the most intriguing: $M$=sun. if we interpret $M$ as $MY-)$
> or sky-fire or fire-of-the-great-emptyness we may, opposite to
> peter's opinion, conclude that the ancients did associate the sky
> light with the sun.
>
> of course, this is conjectural, and also problematic since $M$ is
> sun also in babylonian, where sky (as far as i know) is AN and nor
> $M).

I'm not an expert on Babylonian, but I think that AN is the Sumerian
word for the sky god, and that the regular Babylonian word for "sky"
is "shamû" [/šamu:/] (plural, contracted from "*shamāū" [*/šama:u:/]).

-- 
Will Parsons
μη φαινεσθαι, αλλ' ειναι.