▪ Huehnergard2011: Sem *NBʔ ‘to name, proclaim, summon’.
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▪ Gabal2012 assumes one basic value for all meanings of NBʔ that occur in the Qurʔān: ‘sudden/unexpected appearance or occurrence of s.th., preceded or accompanied by some secrecy/hiddenness (
ẓuhūr ʔaw ṭurūʔ, musbaq ʔaw maknūf bi-ḫafāʔin mā)’. This, he says, is the case in
nabʔaẗ ‘elevation, protrusion’ (= appearing above the surface, of a height that more limited than one would have expected) as well as in
nabaʔ ‘news’ (information that one receives unexpectedly).
▪ Albright1927#47 notices that Ar √NBʔ obviously has two values: a) ‘to be high, raised up’ (Ar ↗
nabaʔa; cf. also
†nabiʔ ‘height, mound’,
†nabāwaẗ ‘high ground’, etc.), b) ‘to make a noise; to proclaim, announce, call by name’ (
†nabʔaẗ ‘barking of dogs’;
nabaʔ ‘news’,
nabīʔ [sic!] ‘prophet’, etc.). Therefore, the author holds, »there must evidently have been a confusion of the two distinct root-meanings«. NBʔ ‘to make noise, etc.’ is treated as an extension from an original *NB, cf. Ar
†nabba (
i –
nabīb,
nabb,
nubāb) ‘to utter a sound, or cry, [or rattle,] when be excited by desire of the female, or at rutting-time (said of a goat)’ (Lane).
▪ Calice1936#59 mentions Ar
nabaʔa ‘to announce’,
nabʔaẗ ‘faint noise’ together with Ar
nabba ‘to bark’, Gz
nababa ‘to growl’ and the Sem vb.s Akk
nabû ‘to call, name’, Sab
nbʔ ‘to proclaim’, Hbr √NBH ‘to prophesy’ as cognate with Eg (MK)
nmj ‘to scream, yell, roar’. Akin to the latter and, according to Calice, thus also to
nabaʔa, are also Ar ↗
naʔama ‘to whisper’ (WehrCowan1979: ‘to sound, resound, ring out; to groan, moan’),
naʕama ‘to say yes’,
namma ‘to whisper’ and Hbr √NʔM ‘to say’ (BDB1906:
nāʔam ‘to utter a prophecy, speak as a prophet’,
nᵊʔūm ‘utterance’. Klein1987: √NʔM ‘to make a speech, utter, give an address; to utter a prophecy, speak as a prophet’: probably related also: √NWM ‘to speak’).
▪ Ehret1989#95 does not mention NBʔ among the root extensions he gives for the bi-consonantal “pre-Proto-Semitic” (pPS, i.e. preSem) root *NB ‘to call, cry’, but the semantics clearly allow us to group
nabaʔ and related items here. For extensions from the same pre-Sem nucleus that Ehret did list, cf. ↗NBː (NBB) ‘to bleat from rut’, ↗NBḤ ‘to bark, bellow, hiss’, ↗NBR ‘to shout to, drive away by cries or shouts’, ↗NBZ ‘to give one a nickname, revile’, ↗NBṢ ‘to speak’.
▪ Militarev2006 (#603) reconstructs Sem *
n˅b˅ʔ‑ ‘to call; to speak; to nominate’, WCh *
nab‑ ‘to read, count’ and Omot *
nab‑ ‘name’, all from a hypothetical AfrAs *
nab‑ ‘to call by name’.
▪ Dolgopolsky2012 reconstructs Sem *NBʔ ‘to name, give a name’. – The semantics of Ar
nabaʔa,
nabbaʔa ‘to announce’ may be influenced by Ar
nabīy ‘prophet’ (which the authors considers a borrowing from Hbr). – Dolgopolsky further juxtaposes Sem *NBʔ ‘to name, give a name’ and IE *
‘no(ː)m-n(-) / *
‘n̥m-n(-) ‘name’, and alleged cognates in other macro-families, deriving all from a hypothecial Nostr *
‘nimʔ˅‑ ‘name’ (with dissimilation of Sem *NB from Nostr *NM).