Biblical Hebrew Forum

["J. Leake" <jesleake AT yahoo.co.uk>]

David, to help your search, be aware that the second/third root letter of עש 'aš - 'moth' - is from the proto-Semitic θ /th/ which becomes t in Aramaic, s in Ethiopic (and doubtless Amharic from there) and š in Canaanite and Akkadian. What a pleasing conceit that the moth should fall into the fire...

 

Akkadian has ašašu according to CAD which appears in a lexical list with the common word for moth, sassu/sāsu, as a gloss. And Hebrew sas סס is a synonym for עש, isn't it? The case is looking strong for moth, isn't it!

 

John Leake

 

'inna SâHiba Hayâtin hanî'atin lâ yudawwinuhâ: 'innamâ, yaHyâhâ.
(He who lives a comfortable life doesn't write about it - he lives it.)
Tawfiq al-Hakim, Yawmiyyât Nâ'ib fil-'Aryâf.

From: To: Nir cohen - Prof. Mat. <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br>; K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
Cc: B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, 22 June 2013, 1:57
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] ($ (job 4:19)

Nir / Karl etc:

I quickly checked (while my 14 month old was screaming for me to pick her up)
my simple dictionaries for Akkadian, Syriac, Sabaic and Amharic.

Only Amharic had moth under the same heading as fire ?S(sibilant)(I don't remember if it was S or Sh).
Clearly I am no expert -  but my understanding is that Amharic has lost its distinction between aleph, ayin, heh, and chaet.
Hence it was with its equivalent of AeSh = fire.


My understanding for the base meaning for \S - \Sh is "to perform / persist at something"
Caterpillar's seem to be insatiable consumers, perhaps it has something to do with that?

David Kolinsky,
Monterey, CA

From: Nir cohen - Prof. Mat. <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br>
To: K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
Cc: B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, June 21, 2013 2:03 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] ($ (job 4:19)

karl,

really, looking a bit closer into the problem, i discovered that moth is indeed considered the
main destroyer of cloths. the difficulty in assessing the termites in this respect is that
today's clothes and houses are different than the BH standard.

in general, termites eat cellulose: lumber, doors, furniture, cardboard, paper, wallpaper etc.
but as garments used to be made from cotton and linen mostly, i imagine that they would 
destroy them too. to do this, they build thin tunnels along the house walls,
until they find cellulose.

http://laundry.about.com/od/laundrybasics/ss/Insects-That-Destroy-Clothes-Insect-Clothes-Pests_8.htm

what they excel at is the other property you mentioned: building houses.

nir cohen

ps is ($ used in other semitic languages?


On Thu, 20 Jun 2013 08:49:08 -0700, K Randolph wrote
> Nir:
>
> On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 8:14 AM, Nir cohen - Prof. Mat. <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br> wrote:
>

karl,
>
> >>>This is an animal that eats clothing Isaiah 50:9, and builds houses Job
> 27:18. This description fits a caterpillar that becomes a moth.
>
> how about termites?
>
> nir cohen
>
>

> I’ll have to admit that I never considered termites.
>
> 1) because the dictionaries I worked from all mentioned “moth” and caterpillars are immature moths (even in English we talk about “moth eaten” when in reality it’s the caterpillars, not the adult moths, that do the damage).
>
> 2) Do termites have a reputation for eating cloth? I haven’t heard of it.
>
> Karl W. Randolph.


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