Bibliotheca Polyglotta

Jeffery1938 suggests an origin in Hbr bᵉhēmā ‘animal’, but the word may well stem directly from AfrAs *bahīmat‑ ‘animal, cattle’ (which is also the Hbr word’s ancestor). The value ‘animal, cattle’ is probably connected to the value ‘unable to speak, dumb, mute’ of BHM_1 (Huehnergard2011: WSem *√BHM ‘to be dumb’).

▪ eC7 Q 5:1, 22:28, 27:34 ‘animal’.

▪ DRS 2 (1994)#BHM-2: Ug bhmt ‘bétail, vaches’, Hbr bᵉhēmā ‘animal’, EmpAram bhmyth (?), bhmth (?) ‘bétail’, Mand bʔhymʔ ‘âne’, Ar bahmaẗ ‘agneau, chevreau, veau’, bahīmaẗ ‘bête, animal’, Tham bhm (pl.) ‘agneaux’, MġrAr bhīm ‘âne’; Ar buhmaẗ ‘obscurité, ténèbres; bloc de pierre’.

▪ Jeffery1938, 84-85: »A very late word, occurring only in material from towards the very end of the Madina period, and used only in connection with legislation about lawful and unlawful meats. It is well known that these food regulations were formed under Jewish influence,¹ so that it is significant that the word in the Jewish legislation (Lev. xi) is bᵉhēmā. The root of the word is probably a form BHM which we find in Eth [Gz] bəhəma ‘to be dumb’, connected with Ar ʔabham and ĭstabhama [↗BHM_1 ] ] both of which refer to incoherence or ambiguity of speech. The Lexicons, however, are troubled about the word (cf. LA, xiv, 323), and there is little doubt that it was a direct borrowing from the Jewish bᵉhēmā.² «
▪ Cf. also ↗√BHM.
▪ DRS 2 (1994) reconstructs Sem *bahīmat‑ ‘animal, cattle’ and says that this value probably depends on BHM_1 ‘(to be) unable to speak, mute’. – It is not clear, however, why DRS groups Ar value buhmaẗ ‘obscurité, ténèbres; bloc de pierre’ to BHM_2 ‘animal, cattle’ rather than under BHM_1 ‘(to be) unable to speak, mute’.

1. Rudolph, Abhängigkeit, 61; Horovitz, JPN, 193. 2. Addai Sher, 30, suggests that it is from the Pers bahīmān, which is absurd.

–

► ‏‎ bahīmī, adj., animal, bestial, brutish: nsb-adj.
► bahīmiyyaẗ, n.f., brutishness, bestiality, brutality: abstr. formation in ‑iyyaẗ.

Cf. also
► ‏‎ bahmaẗ, n.f., lamb, sheep.

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