Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ BḤR_1 ‘sea, ocean; river; generous person; great knowledge’ : ↗baḥr
▪ BḤR_2 (TunAr) ‘vegetable garden, truck garden’ : ↗buḥayraẗ
▪ BḤR_3 ‘(poet.) meter’ : ↗baḥr (v4)
▪ BḤR_4 ^†‘to pierce (the ear of a she-camel destined to be sacrificed); she-camel having her ear slit, chosen to be sacrificed’ : obs.
▪ BḤR_5 ‘to be startled, bewildered (with fright)’ ↗baḥira
▪ BḤR_6 ‘crisis (of an illness); climax, culmination (also, e.g., of ecstasy)’ ↗buḥrān
▪ BḤR_7 ^†‘vehemence of heat in mid-summer; moon’ : obs.
▪ BḤR_8 ^†‘bottom of the womb; pure, intense red (blood)’ : obs.
▪ BḤR_9 ^†‘lyer’ : obs.

♦ Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (acc. to BAH2008): ‘ocean, sea, great river, great expanse of water, lake; generous person; great knowledge; to slit an animal’s ear in ritual’

▪ …

–

▪ DRS 2 (1994) #BḤR-1 Syr baḥrā, Ar baḥr, SAr bḥr, Gz bāḥr, Te bäḥar, Tña baḥri, Amh bahər, bar ‘mer, lac’; SAr bḥrt ‘citerne’; h/šbḥr ‘aménager une citerne’; Gz bāḥrəy ‘perle’; (et Amh bahrəy ‘substance, qualité’); ? Akk bērt- (?) ‘cours d’eau’. -2 Ar baḥraẗ, SAr bḥr ‘sol’, mbḥr ‘tombeau’, Gz bəḥēr ‘pays, terre’; ? MġrAr baḥḥar ‘cultiver un jardin’, baḥīraẗ ‘potager, plaine basse’. -3 Akk bēru, beḫēru ‘choisir’; Hbr bāḥar, JP bᵊḥar ‘élire’; SAr bḥr ‘élire (?)’. -?4 Ar baḥara ‘fendre (l’oreille à une chamelle consacrée)’. -5 Hbr bāḥūr ‘jeune homme complètement développé’. -6 Ar baḥira ‘être très affaibli amaigri (par la phtisie); être effrayé’, baḥir ‘qui court jusqu’à épuisement (homme, monture)’; Gz ʔabāḥrara ‘effrayer’; Te bäḥarärä, Tña baḥrärä ‘être effrayé’; Har abäḥarä ‘s’arrêter de se convulser (bête égorgée)’. -7 Ar bāḥūr ‘forte chaleur du cœur de l’été’. -8 bāḥir ‘rouge vif (sang)’. -9 bāḥir ‘fieffé menteur’.
▪ BḤR_1: Outside Sem, Borg2021 #25 (b-ḥ-r¹) compares Eg bʕr (Pyr) ‘Wasserfülle, Überschwemmung; Name eines Gewässers in Unterägypten’; ‘sea (in toponym)’ (Calice 1936: 60; Wb I 447; Hoch 1994: 92).
▪ …

▪ …
▪ …

–

baḥr بَحْر , pl. biḥār , buḥūr , ʔabḥār , ʔabḥur

√BḤR

1 sea. – 2 large river. – 3 a noble, or great, man (whose magnanimity or knowledge is comparable to the sea). – 4 meter (poet.) – WehrCowan1979.

▪ Kogan2011: from SSem *baḥr- ‘sea’, replacing the main Sem term for ‘sea’, protSem *tiham(‑at)‑ (cf. Ar Tihāmaẗ).
▪ Cf., however, Huehnergard2011, who assumes protSem *baḥr‑ ‘sea, coast’.
▪ [v3] ‘noble, or great, man’ can be thought to be figurative use (WehrCowan: person »whose magnanimity or knowledge is comparable to the sea).
▪ v4 ‘(poetical) meter’ remains unexplained in the sources but is obviously a calque from Grk rhythmós ‘measured movement, harmonious flow’ (dance, speech, music,…) (from rhéō ‘to flow’).
▪ …

▪ Unless the idea ‘wideness’ was prior to that of ‘sea’, the latter can be assumed to have served as a metaphor for ‘wideness’ (and ‘depth’?), which then could be applied both to generosity and knowledge.
▪ The fact that Gz bāḥər means ‘sea’ while bəḥēr is ‘land’, and a similar "contradiction" within the root is to be found in Ar (cf. baḥr ‘sea’ vs. baḥraẗ ‘land’, and the dimin. of both, buḥayraẗ denotes ‘(little sea >) lake’ as well as ‘(little land >) Ländchen’), made Nöldeke_Gegensinn assume that there was a »Grundbedeutung« (basic meaning), common to both, which later must have split into two. »Vielleicht ‘Niederung, Senkung’? Schwerlich ‘Fläche’ (wie bei aequor ‘Land’ und ‘Meer’).« – See, however, DISC in entry ↗√BḤR for another picture.

▪ Orel&Stolbova1994#305: Syr baḥrā, SAr bḥr, Gz bāḥr, Te bähar, Tña baḥri, Amh bahǝr. – Outside Sem: WCh Sura voγor, Ang fwor ‘rivulet’, Grk vor, voor ‘pond; rivulet’, ECh Kera vor ‘sea, river’.
▪ Leslau_EDG: SAr bḥr, Gur bahǝr.
▪ Kogan2011: Ar baḥr, Sab Min bḥr, Gz bāḥr.
▪ Outside Sem, Borg2021#25 (b-ḥ-r¹) compares Eg bʕr (Pyr) ‘Wasserfülle, Überschwemmung; Name eines Gewässers in Unterägypten’; ‘sea (in toponym)’ (Calice 1936: 60; Wb I 447; Hoch 1994: 92).

▪ Kogan2011: From SSem *baḥr‑, which seems to be the most widespread replacement in the SSem area for what probably had been the main Sem term for ‘sea’ earlier, Sem *tihām(-at)‑ (traces of which in today’s Ar only in the name for the coastal region in W Yemen, the Tihāmaẗ). (In the NWSem area, Sem *tihām(-at)‑ was replaced by *yamm‑, which later was loaned from there into Ar as ↗yamm.)
▪ Orel&Stolbova1994#305: A hypothetical Sem *baḥr‑ ‘sea, lake’ is ‎probably the common ancestor of the Ar word as well as its Sem cognates. Together with reconstructed cognates outside Sem, ‎such as WCh *bʷaH˅r‑ ‘pond; rivulet’ and ECh *bʷar < *bʷaH˅r ‘sea, river’, the Sem word ‎may go back to AfrAs *boḥ˅r‑ ‘sea, lake’. – a in Sem *baḥr‑ may have developed from an ‎earlier Sem *u under the influence of the preceding labial.
▪ Huehnergard2011: from Sem *baḥr ‘sea, coast’.
▪ Ehret1995#9: Together with Cush ‎‎*bôoḥ‑ ‘to spill (intr.)’, Ar baḥr goes back to AfrAs *‑bôoḥ‑ ‘to flow’; the word is composed ‎of the AfrAs stem + an *‑r noun suffix.

–

► fī baḥri…, prep., in the course of, during (e.g., fī baḥr sanatayn in the course of two years, within two years).
► al‑ baḥr al‑ ʔabyaḍ al‑ mutawassiṭ, n., the Mediterranean (sometimes shortened to al-baḥr al-ʔabyaḍ).
► al‑ baḥr al‑ balṭīq, n., the Baltic Sea.
► al‑ baḥr al‑ ǧanūb, n., the South Seas.
► al‑ baḥr al‑ ʔaḥmar, n., the Red Sea (also baḥr al-qulzum).
► baḥr al‑ ḫazar and baḥr Qazwīn, n., the Caspian Sea (also al-baḥr al-kasbiyātī).
► baḥr al-rūm, n., the Mediterranean.
► al‑ baḥr al‑ ʔaswad, n., the Black Sea.
► baḥr al‑ ẓulumāt, n., the Atlantic.
► baḥr lūṭ and al-baḥr al-mayyit, n., the Dead Sea.
► baḥr al-nīl, n., (eg.) the Nile.
► baḥr al-hind, n., the Indian Ocean.

► baḥḥara, vb. II, to travel by sea, make a voyage: denom.
► ʔabḥara, vb. IV, to travel by sea, make a voyage; to embark, go on board; to put to sea, set sail, sail, depart (ship); to go downstream, be sea-bound (ship on the Nile): denom.
► tabaḥḥara, vb. V, to penetrate deeply, delve (fī into); to study thoroughly (fī a subject): denom., from baḥr in the sense of ‘person whose knowledge is comparable to the sea’, lit. *‘to delve into (a sea of knowledge)’? DRS suggests another etymology, unrelated to baḥr, see ↗ √BḤR.
► ĭstabḥara, vb. X, = V.

al-baḥrayn, n., the Bahrein Islands; (State of) Bahrein: n.loc.
^BP#3264baḥrānī, adj., of the Baḥrein Islands; al-baḥārinaẗ, the inhabitants of the Bahrein Islands: nsb-adj from (al)-baḥrayn.
► ^BP#1874baḥrī, adj., sea…, marine; maritime; nautical; naval; navigational; (in Eg.) northern, baḥriyyaẗ (with foll. genit.) north of: nsb-adj; (pl. ‑ūn, aẗ), n., sailor, seaman, mariner: nominalized nisba adj.
► ^BP#4032baḥriyyaẗ, n.f., marine; navy: abstr. in iyyaẗ.
► baḥraẗ, pond, pool: n.un. (?).
► baḥḥār, pl. ‑ūn, baḥḥāraẗ, n., seaman, mariner, sailor: n.prof.; pl. baḥḥāraẗ crew (of a ship, of an airplane).
► ^BP#3535buḥayraẗ, pl. ‑āt, baḥāʔirᵘ, n., lake: dimin.; (tun.) vegetable garden, truck garden: meaning transferred from ‘lake’ to *‘place with a small lake, pond = garden’? DRS suggests another etymology, unrelated to baḥr, see ↗ √BḤR.
► ʔibḥār, n., navigation, seafaring: vn. IV.
► tabaḥḥur, n., deep penetration, delving (fī into a subject), thorough study (fī of): vn. V.
► mutabaḥḥir, adj., thoroughly familiar (fī with); profound, erudite, searching, penetrating: PA V.

For other items from the root, cf. ↗√BḤR and ↗baḥira.

Permanent link

http://www2.hf.uio.no/common/apps/permlink/permlink.php?app=polyglotta&context=ctext&uid=d79335ae-06ff-11ee-937a-005056a97067

Choose languages

Choose images, etc.

Choose languages

Choose display