<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">------------------------------------------------------------------------</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Arabic-L: Fri 18 Apr 2008</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <<a href="mailto:dilworth_parkinson@byu.edu">dilworth_parkinson@byu.edu</a>></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">[To post messages to the list, send them to <a href="mailto:arabic-l@byu.edu">arabic-l@byu.edu</a>]</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">[To unsubscribe, send message from same address you subscribed from to</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><a href="mailto:listserv@byu.edu">listserv@byu.edu</a> with first line reading:</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "> unsubscribe arabic-l ]</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">-------------------------Directory------------------------------------</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">1) Subject:'hair' etymology</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">-------------------------Messages-----------------------------------</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">1)</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Date: 18 Apr 2008</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">From:"Almog Kasher" <<a href="mailto:almogk@gmail.com">almogk@gmail.com</a>></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Subject:'hair' etymology</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; ">As Uri Horesh mentioned, Arabic sh normally corresponds to Hebrew s',<br>whereas Arabic s corresponds to Hebrew sh (or s).<br>Yet, the sh in the Arabic word shams does not correspond to the (first token<br>of) sh in the Hebrew word shemesh, but is rather<br>explained by Semitists as a case of dissimilation. That is, we cannot simply<br>explain away the two meanings of the Arabic root<br>sh-3-r by merely stating that one of these sh's corresponds to Hebrew sh.<br>The studies I have consulted (I admit, very few) hold that Arabic sh-3-r, in<br>the sense of knowledge, corresponds to the (Biblical) Hebrew<br>root s'-3-r, which appears, as far as I know, only once in a verb conveying<br>(probably) this meaning (in Deut. 32, 17).<br>Arabic sh-3-r, in the sense of hair, also, as Uri Horesh has already<br>mentioned, corresponds to Hebrew root s'-3-r.<br>On the other hand, the Hebrew root sh-3-r corresponds to Arabic s-3-r (in<br>the sense of estimating).<br>I haven't encountered any suggestion concerning the alleged etymological<br>connection between these two meanings<br>of Arabic sh-3-r (and Hebrew s'-3-r).<br><br>Remark: Adherents of the Proto-Semitic theory reconstruct the triad s' - sh<br>- s for PS (the exact actualization is not certain).<br>They claim that in Arabic, s' was shifted to sh, whether sh - to s. Luckily,<br>Sibawayhi, the famous grammarian from the 8th century,<br>provides us with a phonetic description of Arabic as pronounced in the 8th<br>century. This enables us to reconstruct an intermediary<br>stage between PS and the Arabic as we know it. According to his description,<br>the phoneme actualized today as sh was pronounced<br>at his time as the consonant at the end of the German word ich (or as<br>something similar). The exact 8th century's actualization of<br>the phoneme pronounced today as s is disputable, but is might be<br>reconstructed as sh or as something similar.<br>Therefore we can reconstruct the following shifts in Arabic:<br>PS s' -> 8th cent. ch? -> today sh.<br>PS sh -> 8th cent. sh? -> today s.<br><br>I will be happy to receive any comment.<br><br>Almog Kasher<br>Bar-Ilan University<br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">--------------------------------------------------------------------------</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">End of Arabic-L: 18 Apr 2008</div></div></div></div></body></html>