Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] English phonaesthetical cells in Hebrew
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2010 16:23:10 -0500
[VADIM CHERNY]: English sl- phonaesthetical cell may be related to Hebrew
samech-lamed which means "to push down".
Phonaesthesia is built into Hebrew where three-letter roots share their
two-letter root cell's meaning. In English, the origin of phonaesthesia are
obscure. Might not such roots enter the Romance and Germanic languages from
Semitic?
[ISHINAN]: Hi Vadim, Nothing new here, what is currently known in the West
as "Phonaesthesia" is a branch of linguistics developed a millennium earlier
(8th c.) in both Arabic Abdjad science and Jewish Kabbalah. The latter
directly influenced John Locke work's on phonosemantics.
For example, the cluster "qT" in Classical Arabic gives: qTT, q T`, qTm,
qTl and qTf - all expressing variants of the sense of cut. Note {T=
emphatic t}
Speaking of the devil, your proposition of English 'cluster' sl-
phonaesthetical cell, definitely shares something in common with Classical
Arabic.
The following examples are shared with Germanic languages:
(from root: sll) sla'l = long slices cut from a camel's hump.
(from root: slt) slt "slit" rent, cut off.
(from root: slkh) slkh {*1} = "slough", stripped off as in snake's skin
sloughs off. *1 (Kh = chet)
(from root slq) slq = hit hard, hard blow, flayed or simply "slugged" hard
with a whip .
(from root slT {*2} slyT-h = sharp cutting tongue, used in describing a
clamorous woman (cf. Ar. shalaq) or a women of ill repute, loose in morality
or simply a "slut". *2 {T= emphatic t}.
While the following examples are shared with Romance languages: