Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Hmm, Nir, I'm not sure that I'd want to try and draw too many conclusions from biliteral roots myself. I agree that they are possible, and indeed the biliteral root is supposed to be the origin of the triliteral root, but that's in the deeply obscure pre-history of the Semitic languages. To really systematicaly get to grips with biliteral roots I suspect you'd need a wide knowledge of the earliest Semitic languages and of the other Afro-Asiatic languages too, at least Egyptian. It would be a fascinating study, I agree, but the material is likely to be too vague and to early to be of any demonstrable help in understanding Hebrew as we know it. On the other hand, identifying the mechanisms for root production would be interesting where a root seems to exist in Hebrew alone.  שחה in our recent discussion is a good case in point, where we can see where the one root transforms into - or is read as - another and a new root comes ino existence. Naturally, if biliteral proto-roots catch your interest, however, that's likely to be personally helpful, so don't be put off by me.

 

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: Nir cohen - Prof. Mat. <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br>
To: J. Leake <john.leake AT yahoo.co.uk>; David Kolinsky <hadeesh AT sbcglobal.net>; K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
Cc: B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, 22 June 2013, 4:19
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] ($ (job 4:19)

john, david

considering the hebrew ($$ (get dark?) and ($N (smoke), i would associate ($ with black/dark.
i think i made a similar remark a year or two ago in connection with ESAU.

nir cohen

On Sat, 22 Jun 2013 01:49:38 +0100 (BST), J. Leake wrote
> 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: David Kolinsky <hadeesh AT sbcglobal.net>
> 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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