Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ Jeffery1938: »The Commentators differ among themselves as to whether it stands for a Jewish, a Christian, or a Sabian place of worship. They agree, however, in deriving it from ṣamaʕa (cf. Ibn Durayd, 166), and Fraenkel agrees,¹ thinking that originally it must have meant a high tapering building.² The difficulty of deriving it from ṣamaʕa, however, is obvious, and al-Ḫafāǧī, 123, lists it as a borrowed word. / Its origin is apparently to be sought in SArabia, from the word that is behind the Eth [Gz] ṣomāʕt ‘a hermit’s cell’ (Nöldeke, Beiträge, 52),³ though we have as yet no SAr word with which to compare it.«

1. Fremdw, 269. 2. It certainly has the meaning of ‘minaret’ in such passages as Aġānī, xx, 85; Amālī, ii, 79; Ǧāḥiz, Maḥāsīn, 161, and Dozy, Supplément, i, 845. So the Judaeo-Tunisian ṣmʕʰ means ‘campanile’ (Nöldeke, Neue Beiträge, 52). Lammens, ROC, ix (1904), pp. 35, 33, suggests that originally ṣawmaʕaẗ meant the ‘pillar’ of a Stylite ascetic. 3. Rudolph, Abhängigkeit, 7 n.

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ṢWN صون

√ṢWN

“root”

▪ ṢWN_1 ‘to preserve, keep, protect, save, defend’ ↗ṣāna; ‘cupboard, case’ ↗ṣiwān
▪ ṢWN_2 ‘flint; granite’ ↗ṣawwān
▪ ṢWN_ ‘…’ ↗ṣwn

▪ [v1] : Scarcely attested in Sem. Huehnergard2011 nevertheless reconstructs WSem *√ṢWN ‘to protect’. – (?)Any relation with ^†²ṣinnāraẗ ‘leathern handle, kind of shield | ganse de cuir à l’aide de laquelle on tient ou l’on accroche le fouet’ (↗√ṢNR), ^†sanawwar ‘coat made of thongs, worn in war, like a coat of mail, any weapon (of iron) or arms’ (< Syr sanūrā ~ sanwartā ‘crown of the head; head-covering, headband, cap, helmet’) (↗√SNR), and/or Hbr ṣinnāʰ ‘shield’ (↗√ṢNː(ṢNN))?
▪ [v2] : Based on Ar and an alleged Hs cognate, OrelStolbova1994 reconstruct AfrAs *c̣awan‑ ‘flint, stone’.

▪ [v1] : …
▪ [v2] : …

▪ [v1] : ḤaḍrAr taṣawwana ‘to take shelter’, YemAr ṣawān ‘guarantor, surety’, Gz ṣawwana, ḍawwana ‘to protect, defend, preserve, shelter’, ṣawan ‘fortress, castle, stronghold; garrison, fortification; refuge, asylum, shelter, consolation’, Te mäč̣wan ‘black veil’, Amh ṣāwān (< Gz) ‘refuge’; rel. to Hbr ṣinnāʰ ‘shield’ – Leslau2006.
▪ [v2] : OrelStolbova1994 suggest (outside Sem:) Hs c̣auni ‘hill, pile’.

▪ [v1] : …
▪ [v2] : Based on only the Ar and Hs evidence, OrelStolbova1994 #428 reconstruct Sem *ṣawān‑ ‘flint, quartz’ and WCh *c̣aw(˅)n‑ ‘hill, pile’, both from a hypothetical AfrAs *c̣awan‑ ‘flint, stone’.

▪ (Huehnergard2011:) Engl Zion, see Ar ↗ṣāna.

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