Bibliotheca Polyglotta

♦ Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (acc. to BAH2008): ‘shield, shackles, bondage, to shackle, to capture; captive; family, limbs, physique, body structure’

▪ [v2] ‘entirety, wholeness; family’ is dependent on [v1] as ‘what is bound/tied/held together’.
▪ Although in a way suggesting itself, research literature does not assume the vb. to be denominative from a n. meaning ‘strap, thong’.
▪ OrelStolb1994 reconstruct Sem *ʔ˅sir‑ ‘to bind, join; to hobble’ and, on account of some extra-Sem vb.s that may be cognate, see even an AfrAs dimension, reconstructed as AfrAs *ʔacir‑ ‘to bind, tie’.
▪ The other values listed in DRS are not relevant to MSA.

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▪ DRS 1 (1994)#ʔSR–1 ‘lier, enchaîner’: Akk esêru ‘enfermer’; asirt‑ ‘prisonnier’; Ug ʔasr, Hbr *ʔāsar ‘lier, capturer’, ʔēsūr ‘entraves, liens’; oEmpAram Palm ʔsr, JP ʔᵃsar, Syr ʔesar, Mand asar ‘lier capturer’; BiblAram ʔᵉsūr, JP ʔᵃsūrā, Mand wswrʔ, nSyr yisūra ‘lien, emprisonnement’; Ar ʔasara ‘lier, emmener captif’, Tham ʔsr, SAr ʔsr, Gz ʔasara, ʔašara, Te ʔasärä, Amh ʔassärä ‘lier’. –2 Palm ʔsr : monnaie. –3 Akk assar‑ : conducteur de véhicule(?).

▪ From the values listed in DRS, only ʔSR-1 is relevant to Ar/MSA. For ʔSR-1, Eg aṯira, for ʔSR-2 Grk assarion.

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ʔasar‑ أَسَرَ , i (ʔasr)

ID … • Sw –/171 • BP – • APD … • © SG | 15Feb2021

√ʔSR

vb., I

to bind, fetter, shackle, chain; to capture, take prisoner; to captivate, fascinate, hold spellbound, absorb, arrest (the attention) – WehrCowan1979.

▪ Although in a way suggesting itself, research literature does not assume the vb. to be denominative from a n. meaning ‘strap, thong’.
▪ The values ‘to take as captive, prisoner’ and ‘entirety, wholeness; family’ are dependent on the original meaning, giving ‘to bind/tie a person’ and ‘what is bound/tied/held together’, respectively.
▪ OrelStolb1994 reconstruct Sem *ʔ˅sir‑ ‘to bind, join; to hobble [an animal]’ and, on account of some extra-Sem vb.s that may be cognate, see even an AfrAs dimension, reconstructed as AfrAs *ʔacir‑ ‘to bind, tie’.

▪ eC7 Q 33:26 farīqan taqtulūna wa-taʔsirūna farīqan ‘Some ye slew, and ye made captive some’; – (ʔasr physique, build, bodily structure; constitution) Q 76:28 naḥnu ḫalaqnā-hum wa-šadadnā ʔasra-hum ‘We it is who have fashioned them and strengthened their constitution’

▪ BDB1906, Bennett1998, CAD, Zammit2002: Akk esēru ‘to shut in, enclose, confine; to make capitve’, Ug ʔasr ‘to bind; to make captive’, Hbr ʔāsar ‘to tie, bind, imprison’, Phn ʔsr ‘to bind’, oAram ʔsr ‘to imprison, restrain’, BiblAram ʔᵉsūr ‘band, bond’, Syr ʔᵉsar ‘to bind, make fast, fast, tie,…’, UrmiAram sara, Sab ʔsr ‘to bind, make a prisoner’, Gz ʔasara (BDB; also ʔaśara) ‘ligare, nectare, jungere’, Tña ʔasärä, Amh assärä, Arg hassära ‘to tie’.
▪ Orel&Stolbova1994#12: Akk esēru, Ug ʔsr, Hbr ʔsr ‘to bind, join’, Jib ʔesɔr, Ḥrs Mhr wesōr, Śḥ ʔɛsor ‘to hobble [an animal]’. – Outside Sem: CCh Mofu sasər ‘to plait, weave’, Mafa cacar ‘to tie’; ECh Tum hīr, Kbl saːrr, Lele saar; HEC Sid Kmb usur ‘to tie’.

▪ Orel&Stolbova1994#12 reconstruct Sem *ʔ˅sir‑ ‘to bind, join; to hobble’, CCh *ca-car‑ (with partial reduplication) ‘to plait, weave; to tie’, ECh *saʔir‑ (with metathesis) ‘to tie’ and HEC *ʔusur‑ (unexpected *‑s‑ and irregular vocalism) ‘to tie’, all ultimately from AfrAs *ʔacir‑ ‘to bind, tie’.

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► ĭstaʔsara, vb. X, to surrender, give o.s. up as prisoner: requestative.

► ʔasr, n., (leather) strap, thong; capture: perhaps the etymon proper; ^BP#2268captivity: vn. I | šiddat al-ʔasr, n., vigor, energy
► ^BP#664ʔusraẗ, pl. ʔusar, ‑āt, n., family; dynasty; clan, kinsfolk, relatives: see ↗s.v..
► ^BP#2268bi-ʔasrihī, adv., entirely, completely, altogether, ǧāʔū bi-ʔasrihim all of them came, they came one and all: lit., as a coherent body, held together by some bond; cf. also ↗ʔusraẗ.
► ʔisār, n., (leather) strap, thong: the etymon proper, or derived from ʔasara ?; captivity; captivation, enthrallment: vn. I | waqaʕa fī ʔisārih, vb., to be subjected to s.th., fall into the clutches of s.th.
► ^BP#1292ʔasīr, pl. ʔusarāʔᵘ, ʔasrà, ʔasārà, n., prisoner, captive, prisoner of war: pseudo-PP; see also ↗s.v..
► ʔasīraẗ, pl. ‑āt, female prisoner, slave girl: f. of ʔasīr, pseudo-PP.
► ʔāsir, adj., winning, captivating, fascinating: PA I; n., captor: nominalized PA I.
► maʔsūr, adj., captivated, fascinated, enthralled: PP I.

ʔasr أَسْر

√ʔSR

1 (leather) strap, thong. – 2 capture. – 3 ^†physique, build, bodily structure; constitution – survived into MSA only in the expression šiddat al-ʔasr, vigor, energy – WehrCowan1979.

▪ In the meaning [v2] ‘capture; captivity’, the word is a lexicalized vn. of vb. I, ↗ʔasara.
▪ [v1] ‘(leather) strap, thong’, however, may not be deverbative from ʔasara but perhaps the latter’s proper etymon.
▪ [v3] is properly a ‘coherent structure, held together by a strong inner bond’. The value is attested in the Qur'ān but survived into MSA only in the expression šiddat al-ʔasr , lit. ‘strength, solidity of constitution’, hence ‘vigor, energy’.

▪ …

Cf. ↗ʔSR, ↗ʔasara.

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If ʔasr itself is the etymon proper, all derivatives listed under the vb. ↗ʔasara should be grouped here.

ʔusraẗ أُسْرَة , pl. ʔusar , ‑āt

√ʔSR

n.f.

family; dynasty; clan, kinsfolk, relatives – WehrCowan1979.

The word depends on ʔasara ‘to bind, tie together’ and thus originally means a body that is held together by strong bonds. The idea of a coherent structure, a body, is also present in the adverbial structure bi-ʔasri-hī ‘entirely, completely, altogether’. For the wider context, cf. ↗ʔSR, ↗ʔasara, ↗ʔasr.

▪ eC7 (ʔasr physique, build, bodily structure; constitution) Q 76:28 naḥnu ḫalaqnā-hum wa-šadadnā ʔasra-hum ‘We it is who have fashioned them and strengthened their constitution’

↗ʔSR, ↗ʔasara

–

►

ʔasīr أسير , pl. ʔusarāʔᵘ , ʔasrà , ʔasārà

√ʔSR

prisoner, captive, prisoner of war – WehrCowan1979.

▪ A pseudo-PP from ʔasara ‘to tie, bind, imprison’, see ↗s.v..

▪ eC7 Q 8:70 qul li-man fī ʔaydī-kum mina ’l-ʔasrà ‘Say unto those captives who are in your hands’

The word has itself a number of cognates in other Sem languages, e.g. Hbr ʔāsîr, Syr ʔasīrā ‘bondman, prisoner’. – For the wider context cf. ↗ʔasara.

▪ ↗ʔasara.
▪ According to Kogan 2011, »Akk asīru ‘prisoner’, well documented already in oBab, is not to be treated as an internally Akk derivation from esēru ‘to enclose’, but rather as a loanword from an early WSem term continued by Hbr ʔāsīr‑ and Ar ʔasīr.«.
▪ Eg jṯr ‘captive’ is a Sem loan-word – ThesaurusLinguaeAegypticae.

▪ Lokotsch1927#118, Turek 2001: Ar ʔasīr gave Tu esir ¹ , dial. Tu yesir, whence the word spread into Slav langs, cf. Serb (dial.) jesir, Ukr jasyr ‘captive’, Pol jasyr (C17) ‘(being) captive of the Turks’, Russ (old and dial.) jasyr’, jesyr’ ‘slave’.

1. Kutadgu Bilig, 1069; ʕĀşıḳ Paşa, Ġarīb-nāme, 1330: göŋlümi ve cānumı kıldı esīr ‘took my heart and soul captive’ – NişanyanSözlük 22Apr2015.

► ĭstaʔsara, vb. X, to surrender, give o.s. up as prisoner: requestative; perhaps denom. from ʔasīr.

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