Bibliotheca Polyglotta

♦ Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (acc. to BAH2008): ‘mud, clay, to be muddy, to coat with mud; nature, disposition; specific character’. – Some scholars attribute the word ṭīn to an early borrowing from either Syr or Aram.

▪ From among the two values attributed to the Sem √ṬYN in DRS, only one is represented in Ar. The basic meaning of this latter is ‘clay, mud’ (ṬYN_1). Sources differ, however, as to whether it is of Sem or Iranian origin.
▪ ṬYN_2 : obscure; related to ṬYN_1 ?

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▪ DRS 10 (2012)#ṬYN-1 EmpAram ṭyn, BiblAram ṭīn, JP Syr ṭīnā, Ar ṭīn, ṭīnaẗ, Mhr Ḥrs ṭayn, Jib ṭun ‘glaise, argile, boue’, Ar ṭāna ‘enduire de boue’, Te ṭəṭäyyänä ‘s’ensabler, devenir désertique; devenir calme (temps)’. -2 Gur ṭanä, ṭānä ‘selle, charge, fardeau’.
▪ ṬYN_1 – Kogan2011: Akk ṭīṭu, ṭiṭṭu, Hbr ṭīṭ, Syr ṭīnā, Ar ṭīn, Mhr ṭayn, Jib ṭun, Te (tə)ṭäyyänä ‘to be filled with sand’.

▪ ṬYN_1 ṭīn ‘clay, mud, etc.’ : Although there is a Sem word *ṭīn- ‘clay, mud, etc.’ (Kogan2011), Ar ṭīn has often been regarded as a borrowing, either from Aram (Syr) ṭīnā or from Pers tīna. For details cf. ↗s.v.
▪ ṬYN_2 ṭayyūn ‘Linula viscosa (bot.) ’ : etymology obscure. Related to ṬYN_1 ‘clay, mud’ ?

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ṭīn طِين , pl. ʔaṭyān

√ṬYN

1 clay, potter’s clay, argil; 2 soil; 3 mud; 4 slime; 5 pl. ʔaṭyān, farm lands, fields, estates – WehrCowan1979.

▪ Although there is a protSem *ṭīn‑ ‘wet, glutinous earth (mud, clay)’ (Kogan2011), sources differ as to whether Ar ṭīn is directly from there, or an inner-Sem loan (from NSem, from Syr), or of Iranian origin (mPers < a Mesopotamian source).

▪ eC7 1 (clay, mud) Q 23:12 wa-laqad ḫalaqnā ’l-ʔinsāna min sulālaẗin min ṭīnin ‘We created man from an essence of clay’; 2 (mud bricks) Q 28:38 fa-ʔawqid lī yā Hāmānu ʕalà ’l-ṭīni fa-’ǧʕal lī ṣarḥan ‘so. light a fire for me, Hāmān, on [bricks of] clay, then build me a tall building’. – Cf. also Q 3:46, 5:110, 6:2, 7:12, 17:61, 32:7, 37:11, 38:71,76, 51:33.

▪ DRS 10 (2012)#ṬYN-1 EmpAram ṭyn, BiblAram ṭīn, JP Syr ṭīnā, Ar ṭīn, ṭīnaẗ, Mhr Ḥrs ṭayn, Jib ṭun ‘glaise, argile, boue’, Ar ṭāna ‘enduire de boue’, Te ṭəṭäyyänä ‘s’ensabler, devenir désertique; devenir calme (temps)’.
▪ Kogan2011: Akk ṭīṭu, ṭiṭṭu, Hbr ṭīṭ, Syr ṭīnā, Ar ṭīn, Mhr ṭayn, Jib ṭun, Te (tə)ṭäyyänä ‘to be filled with sand’.

▪ Although there is a Sem word *ṭīn- ‘clay, mud, etc.’ (Kogan2011), Ar ṭīn has often been regarded as a borrowing, either from Aram (Syr) ṭīnā or from mPers tīna. Here is a sample of previous opinions:

Jeffery1938: »The Qurʔān uses it particularly for the clay out of which man was created. / Ǧawharī and others take it to be from ṭāna, but this vb. is clearly denominative, and Fraenkel, Fremdw, 8, is doubtless correct in thinking it a loan-word from NSem. – We find ṭynʔ ‘clay’ in JudAram but not commonly used. The Syr ṭīnā was much more widely used. From some source in the Mesopotamian area the word passed into Iranian, where we find the Phlv ideogram tīna, meaning ‘clay’ or ‘mud’ (PPGJ, 219; Frahang, Glossary, p. 119), and it was probably from the same source that it came as an early borrowing into Ar, where we find it used in a general sense in the old poetry, e.g. Ḥamāsa, 712, 1. 14.
BAH2008: »Some scholars attribute the word ṭīn to an early borrowing from either Syr or Aram.«
Kogan2011 reconstructs protSem *ṭīn- ‘wet, glutinous earth (mud, clay)’, adding that some of the Sem words have been treated as inner-Sem borrowings: Hbr ṭīṭ < Akk ṭīṭ (Mankowski2000: 57-8), Ar ṭīn < Syr ṭīnā (Jeffery1938: 208).¹
Rolland2014a: ṭīn, from mPers tīna ‘id.’, which seems to be of Mesopotamian origin.²

▪ Pennacchio2014 (probably the most correct reading of previous research and the most convincing conclusion from it): »Pour A. Jeffery, il s’agirait d’un emprunt ancien à la Mésopotamie, tandis que Fraenkel estime que l’Ar ṭīn pourrait être soit commun au Sem, soit un emprunt à Dn (2-41). Le mot est ancien car il est utilisé dans la poésie ancienne. […] Pour Moshe Bar-Asher, ṭīṭ et ṭīn en Hbr sont deux mots différents. Ils sont interchangeables, mais ils ons deux racines différentes. La proximité phonologique de ṭīn et ṭīṭ nous laisse supposer une origine commune. HALOT explique ainsi la transformation de l’Akk en attestant d’un affixe -t, ṭin-tu > ṭittu (ṭiddu ?) > ṭiṭṭu > ṭīṭu. Le -t serait probable puisqu’en Ug on a ṭt n.f. Il semblerait qu’il y ait une coexistence de deux formes: ṭīṭ et ṭīn. Soit l’Ar vient de l’Aram, soit d’une forme commune.«

1. Kogan seems to have slightly misread Jeffery here. 2. Is also this a misreading of Jeffery?

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► ṭayyana, vb. II, to daub or coat with clay: D-stem, denom., applic.

► ṭīnaẗ, n.f., 1 clay, potter’s clay, argil: parallel f. form; 2 (Eg.) a piece or plot of ground: specialisation; 3 stuff, material, substance (of which s.th. is made): generalisation; 4 specific character, disposition, constitution, nature: fig. use.
► ṭīnī, adj., 1 made of clay; 2 argillaceous, clayey: nsb-adj.
► ṭayyān, n., mortar carrier, hod carrier: quasi-PA, quasi-n.prof., ints.
► ṭayyūn, n., Linula viscosa (bot.): belonging here?

ṭayyūn طَيُّون

√ṬYN

Linula viscosa (bot.) – WehrCowan1979.

▪ Etymology obscure. Related in any way to ↗ṭīn ‘clay, argil; soil; mud’?

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For other items of √ṬYN, cf. ↗ṭīn and, for the general picture, ↗ṬYN.

ẓāʔ ظاء

√

R₁

The letter ẓ of the Arabic alphabet.

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