Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>]

It is not very clear to me what are the "cognate languages" you mention, but it obvious from the HB that the Hebrew לחם LEXEM refers to solid food in general. For societies of growers (or gatherers) that rely mainly on wheat products, their staple food LEXEM came to represent what we call today bread. As pointed out here, for meat eating societies, LEXEM came to denote meat, as in Arabic. 

It is interesting that in Arabic bread, or bread making, is from the root XBZ, which I think, is a variant of KABA$, 'pressed', or GABA$, 'solidify', so that your idea about LAXAM being 'compressed', is plausible.

I think that XALAM, 'realize, form, imagine', is related.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Apr 11, 2013, at 9:16 PM, Jonathan Mohler wrote:

Not really sure where you're going with that, other than that linguistically one is a metathesis of the other.  But as John Leake pointed out to me, my theory doesn't hold, since LXM is bread in all the cognate languages.

On Apr 11, 2013, at 5:14 PM, Isaac Fried wrote:

In other words, you are saying that לחם LAXAM is a variant of הלם HALAM, but what about חלם XALAM, 'dream, reverie'?

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Apr 11, 2013, at 5:42 PM, Jonathan Mohler wrote:

My theory is that there is only one root, להם.  This original root is "to beat," hence "to fight." The idea of beating dough or kneading leads to the noun, lechem, bread.