Reconstructions Search

A difficult case. Meanings differ substantially, though all semantic shifts appear plausible, like ‘egg’ > ‘testicle’ in Hbr. pB. (cf. Rus. яичко meaning both ‘little egg’). and ‘testiculus’).

The semantic difference between MSA (“to throw”) and the rest of WS (“sling,” “to throw stones from a sling”) is noteworthy and requires an explanation. Shall one consider the semantic narrowing from “to throw” into “to sling” as a specific feature of Proto-CS/EthS? This hypothesis might be corroborated by the fact that another, perhaps more archaic, common designation of “sling” is preserved in Akk. waṣpu, Arb. waḍaf- and Gez. waṣ̂afa, moŝaf

Possible attestations of this root in Arabic are problematic. Many scholars accepted its connection with Arb. qnˀ ‘to be intensely red’, very tentatively mentioned in Brockelmann 1932:115, but this is semantically rather far-fetched. Perhaps more promising as a cognate would be Arb. qnˀ ‘to incite, to induce to kill someone’ = “to kill out of envy”?

While both standard Akkadian dictionaries display a verb ḳanû ‘to acquire’ (CAD Q 91, AHw. 898), there are weighty reasons to doubt that an autochthonous Akkadian lexeme with this meaning has ever existed. As for the numerous NA attestations (including the noun ḳinītu, Deller 1991), they are most probably to be explained by Aramaic influence