Biblical Hebrew Forum

[John Leake <jesleake AT yahoo.co.uk>]

Ishinan:  Dear John, you said: Historically in Arabic  (Arabic /madīna) it doesn't really mean 'city'.

 

I hope you are not insinuating that Arabic 'madiynah' is from the trilateral root dyn. Are you?

 

As it's an Aramaic loan-word, Ishinan, just as it is in Hebrew, the Arabs seem to have been justifiably unsure whether the root is mdn or dyn, often a sign of a loan-word even without other evidence.  

In Aramaic, of course, mdīnā has the dual meaning of 'district' and 'city', while Arabic seems to have initially borrowed it more narrowly to mean a 'citadel' or 'walled city district'; it alternatively means a miSr, or 'capital', at least in former Sasanian territory where it perhaps signifies the shahrestān (provincial capital) of a district (shahr), what in New Persian becomes itself a shahr. Or so I gather. Interestingly, shahrestān is itself spelled מדינא in Middle Persian's Aramaizing orthography. 

Hebrew, of course, took the other course and borrowed מדינא for its administrative meaning of 'district'.

I was myself surprised to hear this distinction a few months ago on a discussion on the learned Sogdian-L from scholars whose opinion I respect. Still, treat it with a grain of caution.

Actually, Arabic 'madiynah' is from a quite different trilateral root which is 'mdn'  meaning to dwell/to settle (*see definition below). The cardinal mistake often made, is to confuse it with B. Hebrew  'mdiynah', root of dyn' (as in Ezr 2:1) which is a cognate with Arabic 'dyn'.

 

Sorry, Ishinan, I don't buy that. The root mdn is a denominal root from madīna, not the other way round. In Aramaic, of course, the root is dwn.

John Leake

Open University