Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ KTB_1 ‘to write; book; to prescribe, determine; to subscribe’ ↗kataba
▪ KTB_2 ‘(esp. Qur’anic) school’ ↗kuttāb
▪ KTB_3 ‘squadron’ (from ClassAr ^†‘to bring together, bind, draw together’) ↗katībaẗ
▪ KTB_4 ‘…’ ↗…

♦ Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (acc. to BAH2008): ‘to gather together, layers of material; to put letters together (i.e. to write), to write down, book, letter, record; army regiment; to ordain, prescribed, decreed, to impose, to contract; a set amount’

As Kerr2014 rightly states, »writing is a relatively new phenomenon in human history. Its first beginnings hearken back to S Mesopotamia of the fourth millennium BC, and then somewhat later in Egypt. Our own alphabet developed under Egyptian influence and its origins are to be found among Sem miners in the Sinai during the first half of the second millennium BC. Consequently, the original meaning of this root cannot logically have been ‘to write’.« Rather, the ComSem √KTB seems to have carried a meaning like *‘to prick, cut’ (Huehnergard2011: WSem *√KTB ‘to prick, cut; later, to write’) or *‘to draw together, bring together, conjoin’, preserved in several ClassAr derivations as well as in MSA katībaẗ [v3]. This KTB is possibly based on a biconsonantal root *KT ‘to be/make tight, tie together, conjoin’ etc. or (Bohas) an etymon {b,k}. Whether the notion of ‘writing’ [v1] is derived from this *KTB, and if so, how, is still not clear (but cf. suggestions in DISC, below). In any case, it seems to be a NWSem innovation which later was borrowed into Ar and SSem. If it is not a development from ‘to draw, bind together’, one can think of Akk takāpu ‘to pierce, puncture, stich; to cover with dots, spots’ as its most likely ancestor. – [v2] ‘school’ is traditionally seen to be derived from [v1] ‘to write’, as a transfer from the pl. of the PA I (‘the writing ones’) to the place where pupils sit and are tought how to write. But this seems doubtful and a derivation from ‘to draw, bind together’ (as in the case of katībaẗ) should not be excluded beforehand.

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▪ For v1 ↗kataba
▪ For v3 ↗katībaẗ

▪ Nöldeke1905¹ thought that “KTB ist ursprünglich wohl ‘stechen’, daher [v1] ‘einritzen, schreiben’ (wie [Gr] gráphein); Syr maḵtəbā ‘Pfriem’ (noch heute im Ṭūr ʕAbdīn üblich, Priem-Socin 132). Von ‘Stechen’ kommt man zum [v3] ‘Nähen’; daher das maghrebinische maktūb ‘Tasche’ (s. Dozy).”
▪ In a similar vein, Huehnergard2011 thinks the meaning of *KTB, which he classifies as a WSem root, was ‘to prick, cut’, and from there [v1] ‘to write’.
▪ [v3] Fleischer1927² argues that a comparison of the roots KTː (KTT), KṮː (KṮṮ), KTB, KṮB, KTF, KṮF, KTM, KṮM, etc. unquestionably suggests, for the biconsonantal base KTː, KṮː, a basic meaning of ‘dicht sein und machen, anschließen, verbinden, zusammenhalten, zusammenbringen usw.’
▪ [v3] Bohas2012: ‘nouer et serrer fortement avec une ficelle ou une courroie l’orifice de l’outre; boucler une femelle, c.-à-d. lui mettre une boucle sur le derrière pour l’empêcher de recevoir le mâle’: from etymon {b,k}.
▪ On the question how [v1] ‘to write’ may have developed from [v3] ‘to draw together, bring together, conjoin’—Jeffery1938 mentions that already Buhl tried to connect the two values³ —, Rolland2014 suggests that it was »[p]robablement par un glissement de sens comparable à celui que nous avons relevé plus haut pour le latin lego et le grec λεγω [legô]. / Hasardons une explication: l’acte d’écrire se caractérise par le fait qu’il consiste à relier des lettres les unes aux autres, des mots les uns aux autres, des phrases les unes aux autres, pour constituer un texte, c’est-à-dire, littéralement, un tissu. Lorsque, plus tard, viendra le moment de relier les uns aux autres des feuillets écrits, on voit que la langue arabe aura deux bonnes raisons de recourir à la racine K-T-B pour désigner cette activité.«⁴
▪ However, it may be simpler to think of a book or another piece of writing as a ‘record’ in which the writer ‘(re-) collects’ information, thoughts etc. or where these are ‘brought/sewn together’.
▪ The problem poses itself differently, and can perhaps be solved in an easier (and more convincing?) way if we assume, with Nöldeke1905 and Huehnergard2011, that the original meaning of the root is ‘to prick, cut’ (for which we would also have to compare, with metathesis, Akk takāpu ‘to pierce, puncture, stich; to cover with dots, spots’). Should this be true then both [v1] ‘to write’ and [v3] ‘to sew (together)’ could be seen as developed from there, the first as ‘to prick’ > ‘to carve (signs into stone, wood, etc.)’ > ‘to write’; the second as ‘to prick’ > ‘to perforate (leather, textiles, etc.)’ > ‘to sew’ > ‘to sew together’ (whence, on yet another level, ‘to bind together, conjoin’ > ‘squadron’).

1. ZDMG 59 (1905): 419, fn. 1. 2. In J. Grill, “Ueber das Verhältniss der indogermanischen und der semitischen Sprachwurzeln”, ZDMG 27 (1873): 427, fn. 1. 3. Jeffery1938: 249, fn. 1, however, does not give a reference to Buhl but to Fleischer in ZDMG, xxvii, 427, n., adding that »[F]rom this [s.c. ‘to draw together, bring together, conjoin’] we have katībaẗ ‘squadron’.« 4. J.C.R., “Hypothèses sur l’étymologie de l’arabe كتيبة katība ”, article s’inspirant d’une intervention faite au cours de la séance de la SELEFA le 20 mars 2014.

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katab‑ كَتَبَ , u (katb , kitbaẗ , kitābaẗ)

ID 735 • Sw – • BP 357 • APD … • © SG | 15Feb2021

√KTB

vb., I

1 to write, pen, write down, put down in writing, note down, inscribe, enter, record, book, register, (ʕanhu from s.o.’s dictation). – 2 to compose, draw up, indite, draft. – 3 to bequeath, make over by will (s.th. li‑ to s.o.). – 4 to give written orders (bi‑ to do sth.). – 5 to prescribe (s.th. ʕalà to s.o.). – 6 to foreordain, destine (s.th. li‑ or ʕalà to s.o.; of God) – WehrCowan1979.

▪ The traditional view, based on Jeffery’s analysis, sees the notion of ‘writing’ as a borrowing from Aram, perhaps (or probably) with kitāb ‘scripture’ as the primary borrowing from which all other related items derive.
▪ Within Sem, the meaning ‘to write’ of the root KTB seems to be WSem (Huehnergard) or, more specifically, a NW Sem invention. (It is found also in SSem—a fact that lets Pennacchio think it may be ComSem—but the SSem forms are with all probability loans from Ar.)
▪ Where the NW Sem value ‘to write’ had its origin is still unclear. While there have been attempts to derive it from ‘to draw together, bring together, conjoin’ (a meaning preserved in ClassAr), without however fully convincing explanations as to the semantic relation between both, Huehnergard2011 and before him Nöldeke1909, hold that it developed from an earlier meaning ‘to prick, cut’ (cf. ↗KTB).
▪ Should that be the case, this would be a nice bridge to yet another suggestion, which connects Ar kataba ‘to write’ with (by metathesis) Akk takāpu ‘to prick, puncture, perforate; to sew; to cut a cuneiform sign’.
▪ One could think of katībaẗ ‘squadron’ as derived from ‘to write’ (< ‘conscription’, or ‘to inscribe o.s. in an (army-) list of recipients of stipends and maintenance’), but this is generally rejected, see ↗katībaẗ.
▪ v2 through v6 are later specialisations and fig. use, developed from v1.

lC6 ‘to write’ already in pre-Islamic poetry (Polosin1995).
▪ eC7 Of frequent occurrence in the Q, always meaning ‘to write’. – »Besides the verb we should note the derived forms in the Qurʔān – kitāb a ‘book, writing’ (pl. kutub), kātib ‘one who writes’, maktūb ‘written, ĭktataba ‘to cause to be written’, and kātaba ‘to write a contract of manumission’.« (Jeffery1938)

▪ DRS 10 (2012)#KTB: Ug ktb, Phn ktb, Hbr kātab, oEmpAram Palm Nab *ktb, JP kᵉtab.¹
▪ Apart from a possible derivation from kataba in the extinct meaning of ^†‘to draw together, bring together, conjoin’, Rolland2014 mentions Akk takāpu ‘piquer, percer, perforer; coudre; imprimer un signe cunéiforme’ as “probable cognate, if not ancestor” of Ar kataba in the sense of ‘to write’. Cf. also CAD, s.v. tikpu ‘dot, spot’: tikip santakki ‘cuneiform writing’.

1. The authors also list Mhr Ḥrs ketōb, Śḥ ktob ‘écrire’, Gz kətāb ‘écriture, écrit; amulette écrite’, Te kätba ‘écrire, vacciner, écrire des amulettes’, Amh kättäbä ‘écrire une amulette, vacciner’. But the SSem forms are probably from Ar, as e.g. Kerr2014 (n.25) holds: The word »is not documented in Sab and Qat. Gz kataba in this sense with derivations like kətāb ‘book’ (< *kitāb !) etc. are borrowed from Ar.«

▪ Jeffery1938: »The word appears to be a NSem development and found only as a borrowed term in SSem. Hbr kāṯaḇ, Aram kṯaḇ, Syr kṯaḇ, Nab ktb, and Phoen ktb all mean ‘to write’, and with them Buhl compares Ar kataba ‘to draw or sew together’.⁵ – The borrowing was doubtless from Aram,⁶ and Fraenkel, Fremdw, 249, thinks that the borrowed word was kitāb, which like Eth [Gz] kətāb came from Aram ktbʔ, Syr kətābā, and that then the verb and other forms developed from this. The borrowing may have taken place at al-Ḥīra, whence the art of writing spread among the Arabs,⁷ but as both nominal and verbal forms are common in Nab (cf. RES, ii, 464; iii, 443), it may have been an early borrowing from NArabia.«
▪ EALL (Retsö, »Aramaic/Syriac Loanwords«⁸ ): Ar katab‑ ‘to write’ loaned from synonymous Syr kᵉṯaḇ.
▪ Pennacchio2014 contends Jeffery’s view and holds that, given the wide distribution of the meaning ‘to write’ in Sem and its development in Ar, it may be Common Sem. In any case, if it is a borrowing it is pre-Islamic.
▪ If not from Aram but from Akk, (Mesopotamian cuneiform) ‘writing’ would originally have been addressed as the ‘dots, spots’ with which a clay tablet was ‘sprinkled’ (like, e.g., a skin of a leopard). The metathesis that we would have to assume in this case (Akk tkp > Ar ktb) is unproblematic since it is a common phenomenon (found already in Akk itself).

5. Vide Fleischer in ZDMG, xxvii, 427, n. From this we have katībaẗ ‘squadron’. 6. BDB, 507; D. H. Müller, WZKM, i, 29; Horovitz, KU, 67; Fischer, Glossar, 112; Künstlinger in Rocznik Orjentalistyczny, iv, 238 ff. 7. Vide Krenkow in EI, ii, 1044. 8. following Jeffrey 1938.

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► kataba kitābahū, vb. I, to draw up the marriage contract for s.o., marry s.o. (li‑ to): Given the fact that the vn. used in this connection is katb rather than kitābaẗ, the drawing up of a marriage contract may originally have had less to do with signing a written document but with bringing two people together (the older/other meaning of kataba, preserved in ClassAr, cf. ↗katībaẗ.)
► kutiba, vb. I pass., to be fated, be foreordained, be destined (li‑ to s.o.) | kutiba ʕalà nafsihī ʔan, vb. I pass., to be firmly resolved to…, make it one’s duty to…

► kattaba, vb. II, to make write: caus.; to form or deploy in squadrons (troops): denom. from ↗katībaẗ.
► kātaba, vb. III, to keep up a correspondence, exchange letters, correspond (‑hū with s.o.): assoc.
► ʔaktaba, vb. IV, to dictate, make (s.o.) write (s.th.): caus.
► takātaba, vb. VI, to write to each other, exchange letters, keep up a correspondence: recipr.
► ĭnkataba, vb. VII, to subscribe: *‘to write o.’s name (into a list), or denom. from ↗katībaẗ ?
► ĭktataba, vb. VIII, to write (s.th.); to copy (s.th.), make a copy (of s.th.): autobenefactive; to enter one’s name; to subscribe (li‑ for); to contribute, subscribe (bi‑ money li‑ to); to be entered, be recorded, be registered: from kataba or denom. from ↗katībaẗ ?
► ĭstaktaba, vb. X, to ask (s.o.) to write (s.th.); to dictate (s.th. to s.o.), make (s.o.) write (s.th.); to have a copy made (by s.o.): requestative.

► ^BP#196kitāb, pl. kutub, n., piece of writing, record, paper; letter, note, message; document, deed; contract (esp. marriage contract); book; al-kitāb, n.def., the Koran; the Bible: a loan from Aram/Syr? See DISC above. | ʔahl al-kitāb, n., the people of the Book, the adherents of a revealed religion, the kitabis, i.e., Christians and Jews; kitāb al-zawāǧ, n., marriage contract; kitāb al-ṭalāq, n., bill of divorce; kitāb taʕlīmī, n., textbook; kitāb al-ĭʕtimād credentials (dipl.); dār al-kitāb, n.f., library
► kutubī, pl. ‑iyyaẗ, n., bookseller, bookdealer: nsb-adj from kutub, pl. of kitāb.
► kitābḫānaẗ and kutubḫānaẗ, n.f., library; bookstore: composed of Ar kitāb ‘book’ + Pers ḫāne ‘house’.
► kuttāb, pl. katātībᵘ, n., kuttab, Koran school (lowest elementary school): ?
► kutayyib, pl. ‑āt, n., booklet: dimin. of kitāb.
► ^BP#966kitābaẗ, n.f., (act or practice of) writing; art of writing, penmanship; system of writing, script: lexicalized vn. I; inscription; writing, legend; placard, poster; piece of writing, record, paper: resultative; secretariat; written amulet, charm; pl. kitābāt, writings, essays; kitābatan, adv., in writing.
► kitābī, adj., written, in writing; clerical; literary; scriptural, relating to the revealed Scriptures (Koran, Bible); kitabi, adherent of a revealed religion; the written part (of an examination): nsb-adj from kitāb.
► ^BP#2711katībaẗ, pl. katāʔibᵘ, n., 1 squadron, brigade; battalion (Eg., Syr., Jord., mil.); corps; (Eg.) name of Islamic youth groups: from ‘to write’ or and earlier offspring? See separate entry ↗katībaẗ. – 2 (piece of) writing, record, paper, document; written amulet: pseudo-PP.f.
► katāʔibī, adj., pertaining to the Phalange Party (Leb.): nsb-adj from katāʔibᵘ, pl. of ↗katībaẗ (1), see above.
► ^BP#565maktab, pl. makātibᵘ, n., office; bureau; business office; study; school, elementary school; department, agency, office; desk: n.loc.
► maktabī, adj., office (in compounds) : nsb-adj from maktab, see above.
► ^BP#1830maktabaẗ, pl. ‑āt, makātibᵘ, n., library; bookstore; (writing) desk; literature: n.loc.
► miktāb, n., typewriter: n.instr.
► mukātabaẗ, n.f., exchange of letters, correspondence: vn. III.
► ĭktitāb, n., enrollment, registration, entering (of one’s name); — (pl. ‑āt) subscription; contribution (of funds): vn. VIII.
► ĭstiktāb, n.,dictation: vn. X.
► ĭstiktābī, adj.: nsb-adj from ĭstiktāb, see above | ʔālaẗ ĭstiktābiyyaẗ, n., dictaphone.
► ^BP#719kātib, pl. ‑ūn, kuttāb, katabaẗ, n., writer; scribe, scrivener; secretary; clerk typist; office worker, clerical employee; clerk, registrar, actuary, court clerk; notary; writer, author: nominalized lexicalized PA I.
► kātibaẗ, pl. ‑āt, woman secretary; authoress, writer: nominalized lexicalized PA I.f.
► ^BP#1835maktūb, adj., written, written down, recorded; fated, foreordained, destined (li‑ or ʕalà to s.o.); n., s.th. written, writing; — (pl. makātībᵘ) a writing, message, note; letter : PP I.
► mukātib, n., correspondent; (newspaper) reporter: nominalized lexicalized PA III.
► muktatib, n., subscriber: nominalized lexicalized PA VIII.

kuttāb كُتّاب , pl. katātībᵘ

√KTB

kuttab, Koran school (lowest elementary school) – WehrCowan1979.

The traditional explanation as a figurative use of the pl. of the PA of ↗kataba —‘writing ones, writers’ > ‘place where people/pupils who write are to be found, school’—cannot be accepted without some hesitation. On the other side, the nominal pattern FuʕʕāL for a n. in the sg. is rare and would be difficult to explain.

lC8 Ḫalīl b. ʔAḥmad, K. al-ʕAyn : maǧmaʕ ṣibyān al-muʕallim, cf. also Asās 386 b 17f.; Ibn Saʕd III 2, 103, 7.9; Buḫ. IV 326, 1; etc. (WKAS).

…

▪ Lane summarizes the Class lexicographers’ opinions as follows: »‘school, place where the art of writing is taught’; accord. to Mbr and F, the assigning this signification to the latter word is an error; it being a pl. of kātib and signifying, accord. to Mbr, the ‘boys of a school’: in the A it is said, this word is said to signify the boys, not the place: but al-Šihāb says, in the Šarḥ al-šifa, that it occurs in this sense in the classical language, and is not to be regarded as a postclassical word: it is said to be originally a pl. of kātib, and to be fig[uratively] employed to signify a ‘school’.«
▪ This explanation seems to be doubtful. But to regard the word as a genuine sg. of the FuʕʕāL type is not much more convincing either since the pattern is very rare and, alongside with kuttāb, there exists, with almost identical meaning, the n.loc. maktab. A plausible explanation would have to account for this parallelism and the choice of the FuʕʕāL pattern. In any case, if the traditional etymology should not be true, then one could think of a derivation, like that of katībaẗ, from kataba in the sense, now extinct, of ‘to draw together, bind together’ (similar to ǧāmiʕaẗ, lit. ‘the uniting one’, for ‘university’), see ↗katībaẗ.

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katībaẗ كَتِيبَة , pl. katāʔibᵘ

√KTB

n.f.

1 squadron, brigade; battalion (Eg., Syr., Jord., mil.); corps; (Eg.) name of Islamic youth groups – WehrCowan1979. – 2 For another meaning see DERIV of ↗kataba .

From kataba in the sense (now extinct) of ‘to draw together, bring together, conjoin’, cf. ↗KTB.

lC6 Huḏ. 38,9; 74,27; 143,1 etc. (WKAS). – ʕAntarah b. Šaddād 5,5: fawqa kulli katībatin liwāʔun; 7,8: nulāqī katībatan tuṭāʕinunā; 19,10; 23,13; 32,2: wa-katībatun labbastuhā bi-katībatin šahbāʔa bāsilatin; 32,12; 143, 22: law ʔannī laqītu katībatan sabʔīna ʔalfan mā rahibtu liqāhā; pl. 5,5; 19,10; 47,14: lā kuḥla ʔillā min ġubāri ’l-katāʔibi – (all): ‘group of warriors, horsemen’ (отряд воинов, всадников: Polosin1995).

▪ ClassAr has preserved the older meaning of kataba (obsolete in MSA) of ‘to draw together, bring together, conjoin’. Besides the vb. I which is often used in connection with female camels or mules and then means ‘to conjoin the oræ of the mule’s vulva by means of a ring or a thong, to close the camel’s vulva (and put a ring upon it, conjoining the oræ, in order that she might not be covered’, ‘to sew (s.th.) together with two thongs, close (s.th.) at the mouth, by binding it round (with s.th.), so that nothing (of its contents) should drop from it’, cf. e.g., kattaba, vb. II, (al-nāqaẗ) to tie the udder of the camel; takattaba, vb. V, to gird o.s. and draw together o.’s garments upon o.s.’; ĭktataba (vn. ĭktitāb or kitbaẗ), vb. VIII, (inter al.), to be suppressed (urine); to be constipated, or costive, suffer from constipation’; kutbaẗ, pl. kutab, n., 1. thong with which one sews s.th., esp. also that with which the vulva of a camel (or a mule) is closed in order that she may not be covered; 2. seam, suture (in a skin or hide, made by sewing together two edges so that one laps over the other]; qirbaẗ katīb skin that is sewed with two thongs, closed at the mouth, so that nothing [of its contents] may drop from it (Lane vii).

Rolland2014⁹ : from kataba in the proper sense of ‘to draw together, bring together, conjoin’, cf. ↗KTB. “Comme la legio latine, [katībaẗ ] est une troupe dont les membres sont ‘reliés, attachés, liés’ les uns aux autres […], un groupe d’hommes fortement unis autour d’un chef, et avec un objectif commun”.

9. J.C.R., “Hypothèses sur l’étymologie de l’arabe كتيبة katība ”, article s’inspirant d’une intervention faite au cours de la séance de la SELEFA le 20 mars 2014.

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► katībaẗ al-salām, n., Peace Corps.
► katībaẗ naǧdaẗ, n., military auxiliary corps.
► ḥizb al-katāʔib, n., the Phalange Party (Leb.).
► katāʔibī, adj., pertaining to the Phalange Party (Leb.): nsb-adj from katāʔibᵘ, pl. of katībaẗ.

► kattaba, vb. II, to form or deploy in squadrons (troops): denom. – For another meaning see ↗kataba.

Perhaps also
► ĭnkataba, vb. VII, to subscribe: perhaps denom. from katībaẗ rather than pass. of ‘to write’. – For another meaning see ↗kataba.
► ĭktataba, vb. VIII, to enter one’s name; to subscribe (li‑ for); to contribute, subscribe (bi‑ money li‑ to); to be entered, be recorded, be registered: perhaps denom. from katībaẗ rather than refl. of ‘to write’? In ClassAr it has the meaning, among others, of ‘to register o.s. in the sultan’s army-list, or stipendiaries’. – For other meanings see ↗kataba.
► ĭktitāb, n., enrollment, registration, entering (of one’s name); — (pl. ‑āt) subscription; contribution (of funds): vn. VIII.
► muktatib, n., subscriber: nominalized lexicalized PA VIII.

maktabaẗ مَكْتَبَة

√KTB 

n.f.

▪ n.loc.f

▪ …

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