malku - king (CAD M₁ 166, AHw. 595)

As rightly observed by M. Streck (2000:104), the standard dictionaries do not consider the possibility of Akk. malku, maliku being a WS loanword. However, contra Streck, such a hypothesis is certainly not unlikely in view of the word’s predominantly late attestation, its close connection with the West (particularly Mari) in the early periods and then specific meaning “foreign king” in a good part of the attested examples. In view of the extraordinary prominence of *mal(i)k- throughout the neighboring WS cultural and linguistic area, its comparatively massive infiltration into late Akkadian sources (notably the NA royal inscriptions) does not appear surprising. Within this approach, reliable attestation of mlk ‘to rule’ (and, probably, *malik- ‘king’) in the Ebla sources (for which see Krebernik 1983:38, Sanmartín 1991:194 and numerous other studies quoted in DUL 549‒550) should be attributed to WS influence (Kogan 2015: 91-92).