Bibliotheca Polyglotta

♦ Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (acc. to BAH2008): ‘sleep, to sleep, lie down; sleeping place, bedding; grave, resting place; to be lazy, be phlegmatic; to settle in one place; to become tattered’

▪ …

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RQM رقم

√RQM

“root”

▪ RQM_1 ‘to mark, brand, imprint; to stripe (a fabric); to provide with points (a text)’ ↗raqama
▪ RQM_2 ‘numeral, number’ ↗raqm
▪ RQM_3 ‘inscription tablet; letter, message’ ↗¹raqīm

Other values, now obsolete, include (Lane iii 1867, Hava1899):

▪ ^†RQM_4 ‘calamity, misfortune, thing that one cannot accomplish or manage’: (bint al-) ^†raqim (var. ^†raqam, ^†raqm)
▪ ^†RQM_5 ‘meadow; side of a valley; reservoir; mellow’: ^†raqmaẗ
▪ ^†RQM_6 ‘plant of the class pentandria’: ^†raqamaẗ
▪ ^†RQM_7 ‘remaining, staying, dwelling, abiding, remaining fixed’ (as a f. epithet): ^†raqūm
▪ ^†RQM_8 ‘a certain serpent’: ^†ʔarqamᵘ
▪ ^†RQM_9 ‘(name of a beek?, or a mountain?, near Mecca?)’: ^†al-Raqam
▪ ^†RQM_ ‘...’: ^†...

♦ Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (acc. to BAH2008): ‘speckles, speckled snake, markings, stripes, writings, dotting, to mark, dot, write; a great number; side of the valley, place where flood waters gather’.

▪ [v1] : According to Landberg1923, the basic value of ClassAr raqama is ‘to mark’, hence also raqm ‘marking, mark, chiffre’. When Kogan2015: 121 #24 reconstructs protSem *rḳm ‘to embroider’ he seems to give the evidence of the non-Ar cognates (Hbr, Pun, Aram Syr, Gz) prominence over the more general Ar ‘marking’. But we should prob. not exclude the possibility that Ar may have preserved the more original meaning, so that one could assume a protSem *‘to mark, brand’ from which several more specific notions (‘to variegate, embroider’, ‘to stripe’, ‘to put dots on s.th., provide a text with points’, ‘to mark with a price label’, etc.) then would derive.
▪ [v2] : The meaning ‘numeral, number’ of Ar raqm seems to be a specialisation from the more general [v1] ‘to mark’: *‘… > to put a mark (on a garment, or piece cloth) specifying its price, put a price-mark on s.th. > price-mark > number’. One may also think of derivation from ‘to inscribe’ (see [v3]).
▪ [v3] : Like [v2], also [v3] ‘inscription tablet; letter, message’ may be derived, as a specialisation, from the more general [v1] ‘marking’, along a hypothetical line of development *‘(to mark, make distinct ↔ to embroider) > to variegate, weave in colour > to paint figures on a tissue, or parchment > to make incisions, write on a clay/lead tablet > inscription tablet > message, letter’. However, the word al-raqīm is first attested not earlier than in the Qur’ān and may be a borrowing or a misreading there. – The meaning ‘to write’ of the vb. I raqama may be secondary, based on the interpretation of al-raqīm as ‘writing, inscription’.
▪ ^†[v4] : According to DHDA, the value ‘calamity, misfortune’ is first attested (as ^†raqam) in a verse by the pre-Isl poet al-ʔAʕšà in which he describes the intensity with which his poetry affects the audience. If akin to [v1], a ‘calamity, misfortune’ brought about by sharp verses may originally have been a *‘decisive mark’ left on the public. Or is a ‘calamity, misfortune’ a ‘predetermined destiny’, *‘inscribed’ in the heavenly document where all events ever to happen in the world are listed? In this case, the closest value would be [v3] ‘inscription’. One may, however, also think of ‘calamity, misfortune’ as s.th. as poisonous as the ^†[v8] ʔarqamᵘ type of snake. An argument in favour of an association with [v3] ‘inscription’ is the expression dāhiyaẗᵘⁿ raqīmᵘⁿ where raqīm is not an adj., but a noun, coming as apposition qualifying the type of dāhiyaẗ as ‘…of the type of / equal to (that of) a raqīm’, i.e., as a predetermined destiny. raqīm can, however, also be used as an adj., as the f. form ^†²raqīmaẗ ‘intelligent (woman)’ shows. Is the meaning ‘intelligent’ from ‘calamity’ or from ‘snake’, intelligence in a woman seen as ‘misfortune’, or as ‘poison’?
▪ ^†[v5] : Morphologically, the term ^†raqmaẗ for ‘meadow; side of a valley; reservoir’ (Hava1899) is the f. of raqm and can therefore be suspected to depend on the latter and thus, ultimately, on [v1]. But how exactly? The more detailed and complex definition found in Lane iii 1867¹ does not help to clarify the term’s origin. Could the ‘side of a valley’ have been regarded as an *‘embroidery’? Or did the ‘place where water collects’ look like *‘speckles’ or *‘stripes’?
▪ ^†[v6] : The ‘plant of the class pentandria’ (Hava1899) called ^†raqamaẗ seems to have gotten this name because the five stamens in each flower may have looked like dots or speckles; if this is correct, the term is a development from [v1] *‘to mark, make look distinct’.
▪ ^†[v7] : The FaʕūL pattern of the adj. ^†raqūm implies the strong presence of a certain quality associated with √RQM in the woman who is described as raqūm, but it remains unclear to which of the other values attached to √RQM the meaning ‘remaining, staying, dwelling, abiding, remaining fixed’ should be connected.
▪ ^†[v8] : The type of snake labelled with the el. adj. ^†ʔarqamᵘ is prob. so called after its dotted or two-coloured skin’, cf. the value ‘speckled snake’ given in BAH2008 as one of the values attached to the root in ClassAr (DHDA has ‘male black-white-coloured snake’). – Cf. also ^†[v4].
▪ ^†[v9] : ^†al-Raqam , as in ^†yawm al-Raqam ‘the Battle of al-Raqam’, is said by ClassAr lexicographers to mean a ‘water’ (or possibly a mountain?) close to Mecca, in the lands of the Ġaṭafān tribe. The origin of the name is obscure.

1. ‘small quantity of herbage; a herb, or leguminous plant, … inclining to bitterness, and having a small red flower; a meadow is sometimes thus termed; (also) side of a valley, or place where its water collects’.

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▪ [v1] BDB1906, Zammit2002, Leslau2008 (CDG), Kogan2015: 121 #24 : Hbr rāqam ‘to variegate, weave in colour’, riqmāʰ ‘variegated stuff (woven or embroidered)’, rōqēm ‘variegator, worker\weaver in colours’, Pun rqm ‘to embroider’, Aram riqmᵊṯâ, riqmāṯâ ‘variegated cloth or skin, checks, spots’, Syr tarqᵊmāṯā ‘freckles’, Ar raqama ‘to embroider’, Gz raqama ‘to embroider, paint figures on parchment, (T.Y.M.) make incisions, write’¹
▪ [v2] : ↗[v1] (or ↗[v3])
▪ [v3] : ↗[v1] (unless borrowed from an obscure source, or a misreading in the Qurʔān)
▪ ^†[v4] : < [v1]? (or perh. [v3], or ^†[v8]?)
▪ ^†[v5] : < [v1]?
▪ ^†[v6] : < [v1]?
▪ ^†[v7] : ?
▪ ^†[v8] : < [v1]
▪ ^†[v9] : ?

1. Syr raqmā ‘embroidered robe’ and Gz raqama ‘acu pingere, figuris pingere (vestem)’ are marked as borrowings from Ar in Zammit2002, following the view of the sources used by the author. However, the common opinion of the more recent studies, as well as some older ones, sees the Aram and Gz forms as genuine.

▪ See above, section CONC.
▪ For more details about values [v1], [v2] and [v3], see ↗raqama, ↗raqm, and al-raqīm
▪ ...

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