ID … • Sw – • BP … • APD … • © SG | 15Feb2021
√LḤN
intelligent, understanding, sensible – WehrCowan1979.
▪ √LḤN seems to be an exclusively Ar root, not attested elsewhere in Sem nor outside of it.
▪ The basic meaning of Ar √LḤN is probably *‘to deviate (from the normal), modulate, modify’ (for Fück1950 this is secondary from a primary value ‘to incline, lean towards’). From ‘deviation’, Fück derives the adj. laḥin in the sense of *‘flexible, mobile, agile’, hence ‘clever, intelligent, perspicacious’ and the n. †laḥan ‘cleverness, comprehension, perspicacity’.
▪ Is Fück right? In my [SG] view, the semantic shift he assumes—from ‘deviation’ to *‘flexibility, mobility’—is not very convincing. But unless we assign the current value to another, homonymous root there are by now no better suggestions.
▪ WKAS has laḥina a (laḥan) ‘to be clever, intelligent, perspicacious; †to learn, grasp, understand (s.th., ʕan from s.o.); lāḥana, vb. III, ‘to outdo, excel in cleverness, astuteness’; †laḥan, n., ‘cleverness, comprehension, perspicacity’, laḥin and lāḥin, adj., ‘clever, intelligent, perspicacious’
▪ Probably without cognates. According to Tropper2008, the meaning of Ug lḥn is uncertain (either ‘to be understanding, intelligent’ or ‘to be closely related to s.o.’, cf. Ar laḥḥ ‘close relationship’).
▪ See above, section CONC.
► laḥina, a (laḥan), to be intelligent: denom.? For other values attached to the same root, cf. ↗laḥana, ↗laḥn, and, for the whole picture, ↗LḤN.
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