Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ NBʔ_1 ‘to be high, tower over, …’ ↗nabaʔa
▪ NBʔ_2 ‘to speak in a low voice, utter a low sound; to announce’ ↗nabaʔ, ↗nabiyy, ↗nubuwwaẗ
▪ ^†NBʔ_3 ‘to turn away, withdraw, be repelled, disgusted, shocked’ ↗nabā .
▪ ^†NBʔ_4 ‘to wander around’: now obsolete.

♦ Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (acc. to BAH2008): ‘protrusion, to rise; to overpower; to leave one’s town and settle in another; news item, to ask for news, to inform; prophecy, to predict, to foretell, to prophesy, to claim to be a prophet’

▪ While Gabal2012 thinks that all values of NBʔ can be derived from one basic value (‘unexpected appearance, accompanied by a hiddenness’), other researchers agree on that NBʔ is a homonymous root with at least two values: 1 ‘to be high, tower over’ (= NBʔ_1) and 2 ‘to speak in a low voice, utter a low sound; to announce’ (= NBʔ_2). Albright1927#47 thinks that among NBʔ_2 is original while NBʔ_1 ‘(to be) high’ is the result of a dissimilation of an underlying *NM- ‘to grow’ into *NB-.
▪ For NBʔ_2, the »reconstruction of Sem *n-b-ʔ as a transitive root meaning ‘to name, proclaim’« is »uncomplicated« (following Huehnergard1999).
▪ Militarev2006 assumes an AfrAs dimension of NBʔ_2 (AfrAs *nab‑ ‘to call by name’ ), and Dolgopolsky2012 goes even farther, putting Sem *NBʔ ‘to name, give a name’ together with IE *‘no(ː)m-n(-) / *‘n̥m-n(-) ‘name’ and assuming Nostr *‘nimʔ˅‑ ‘name’ as the common ancestor. For him, Nostr *NM dissimilated into Sem *NB.
▪ NBʔ_3 ‘to turn away’ seems to be etymologically the same as ↗nabā ‘to move away, withdraw; to bounce off; to disagree, be in conflict with; to be repugnant’ (↗NBW).
▪ NBʔ_4 ‘to wander around’: etymology still unclear (see DISC).

▪ BadawiAbdelHalim2008 #NBʔ: ‘1 protrusion, to rise; to overpower; 2 news item, to ask for news, to inform; prophecy, to predict, foretell, prophesy; to claim to be a prophet; 3 to leave o.’s town and settle in another’.

For cognates, see DISC below as well as ↗nabaʔ and ↗nabaʔa.

NBʔ_1 and NBʔ_2:
▪ 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). – ClassAr nabīʔ ‘clear path’ is said to belong to ↗NBW, while nabiyy ‘prophet’ is believed to derive from *nabīʔ meaning that the Prophet is both ‘called/informed’ (munbaʔ) by God and ‘informing’ (munbiʔ) about Him, rather than from nabwaẗ ‘elevated place’.
▪ 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«. The author thinks the latter value is from an original *NB, while the former is as dissimilation from *NM.
▪ BDB1904 (#NBʔ): cf. [NBʔ_2] Ar nabaʔa ‘to utter a low voice, or sound (esp. of dog); to announce’, (but also) [NBʔ_1] to be exalted, elevated (nabʔaẗ eminence); [NBʔ_2] III, IV, ‘to acquaint, inform’; nabaʔ ‘information, announcement, intelligence’; Akk nabū ‘to call, proclaim, name’, Gz nababa ‘to speak’, Sab tnbʔ ? => Hbr nāḇî(ʔ) ‘spokesman, speaker, prophet’, nᵊḇûʔâh ‘prophecy’.

NBʔ_1:
▪ Cf. also obsolete items like ^†nabʔ ‘superiority, victory, success’, ^†nubuʔ ‘being high, superiority’, ^†nabiʔ ‘high point’, ^†nābiʔ ‘bossed, convex’, and also (NBʔ ~ NBW) ^†nabwaẗ, ^†nabāwaẗ ‘height; rising ground’, ^†nābin, det. nābī, pl. nubiyy, ‘high ground’, ^†nābiyaẗ ‘strongly-bent bow’ (all BK, Munǧid, Wahrmund1887/Steingass1894).
▪ Ehret1989#92 thinks NBʔ ‘to be high, tower over, come upon from above, conquer, surpass’ is an extension in “concisive” *‑ʔ from a bi-consonantal “pre-Proto-Semitic” (pPS, i.e. preSem) root ↗*NB ‘to rise, become high’, cf. ↗NBː (NBB) ‘to be haughty’. Other extensions from the same pre-Sem nucleus: ↗NBT ‘to germinate, sprout, grow’, ↗NBR ‘to raise, elevate, thrive, grow’, ↗NBṢ ‘to be on the point of sprouting’, ↗NBĠ ‘to fly off’, ↗NBL ‘to surpass in any skill’, ↗NBH ‘to awake’
▪ Albright1927#47 holds that Ar »nabaʔa ‘to be high’ is connected with Hbr nûb ‘to grow’¹ and Ar nabt ‘plant’, old pl. nabāt, from which ↗nabata ‘to grow’ is denom., as well as with Ar ↗namā ‘to grow, rise’, nammà ‘to raise’. The root is probably nm, from which the dissimilated form nb (cf. banna for manna, etc.) has arisen.« – Outside Sem, Eg nb3 ‘carrying pole’ (= Calice1936#655) is perhaps to be connected.

NBʔ_2:
▪ Huehnergard2011: Sem *NBʔ ‘to name, proclaim, summon’ (Huehnergard1999: an »uncomplicated reconstruction«).
▪ 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 thus also to nabaʔa, are also Ar naʔama ‘to whisper’, naʕama ‘to say yes’, namma ‘to whisper’ and Hbr √NʔM ‘to say’.²
▪ 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 Ar NBʔ_2 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): Sem *n˅b˅ʔ‑ ‘to call; to speak; to nominate’, WCh *nab‑ ‘to read, count’, Omot *nab‑ ‘name’ < AfrAs *nab‑ ‘to call by name’
▪ Dolgopolsky2012: Sem *NBʔ ‘to name, give a name’, IE *‘no(ː)m-n(-) / *‘n̥m-n(-) ‘name’, and alleged cognates in other macro-families < Nostr *‘nimʔ˅‑ ‘name’ (with dissimilation of Sem *NB from Nostr *NM).

NBʔ_3 and NBʔ_4:
▪ There seems to be a lot of overlapping of NBʔ with ↗NBW. Thus, NBʔ_3 ‘to turn away, withdraw, be repelled, disgusted, shocked’ seems to be etymologically the same as ↗nabā ‘to move away, withdraw; to bounce off; to disagree, be in conflict with; to be repugnant’.
▪ No explanation so far with regard to NBʔ_4 ‘to wander around’. Belonging to NBʔ_3 ‘to turn away’? – In ClassAr, there is, e.g. (data from Freytag1837 and Hava1899): ^†nābiʔ ‘ex alia regione veniens (aquae fluxus, homo), crossing a country (man, stream)’, nabiʔ ‘migrans de locu in locum, wanderer, wayfarer’, (?) nabīʔ ‘well-traced road’. Gabal2012 thinks it belongs to ↗NBW. Albright1927#47 considers a connection with Eg nmy ‘to traverse’ and Eg nby ‘to swim’.³

1. BDB: ‘to bear fruit’; cf. also nîḇ ‘fruit’, tᵊnûḇâh ‘fruit, produce’. 2. 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’. 3. ErmanGrapow1921/ThesLingAeg nbj, Copt neebe (Crum: niēbe, and var.).

–

See
► nabaʔa and
► nabaʔ.

nabaʔ‑ نَبَأَ a (nabʔ , nubūʔ)

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

√NBʔ

vb., I

1 to be high, raised, elevated, protruding, projecting, prominent; to overcome, overpower, overwhelm (ʕalà s.o.). – 2 to turn away, withdraw, shrink (ʕan from); to be repelled, repulsed, sickened, disgusted, shocked (ʕan by) – WehrCowan1979.

Other values, now obsolete:
^†3 to pass (min from a place, ʔilà to another), to wander around
^†4 (nabʔ) to bark faintly (dog) – Hava1899

▪ [v1]: The vb. and the corresponding complex of ‘height, elevation, high ground, etc.’ are difficult to relate semantically to the other main value of NBʔ, ‘to utter a low noise; to proclaim, announce, call’ (treated s.v. ↗nabaʔ, ↗nabiyy, ↗nubuwwaẗ), so that one with all probability has to regard NBʔ as a homonymous root with several distinct meanings (↗NBʔ). While Ehret traces the two values back to a biconsonantal nucleus *NB- that shows four separate values (among which *‘to rise, become high’, whence nabaʔa; and *‘to call, cry’, whence nabaʔ), Albright thought that nabaʔa ‘to be high’ and semantically close items in Sem and outside ultimately go back to a *NM that only has dissimilated into *NB; he therefore compares Ar nabaʔa ‘to be high’ with, among others, ↗namā ‘to grow’.
▪ [v2]: This item seems to be etymologically the same as ↗nabā ‘to move away, withdraw; to bounce off; to disagree, be in conflict with; to be repugnant’ and is therefore treated there; cf. also ↗NBW.
▪ For [v3] cf. ↗NBʔ.
▪ [v4] belongs to the complex treated s.v. ↗nabaʔ.

▪ …

▪ [v1] Albright1927#47: Hbr nûb ‘to grow’¹ , Ar nabāt (thought to be an old pl., nab‑ + ‑āt) ‘plant’, Ar ↗namā ‘to grow, rise’, nammà ‘to raise’. – Outside Sem: ? Eg nb3 ‘carrying pole’ (Calice1936#655).

▪ [v2] ↗nabā.
▪ [v3] ↗NBʔ.
▪ [v4] ↗nabaʔ.

1. BDB: ‘to bear fruit’; cf. also nîḇ ‘fruit’, tᵊnûḇâh ‘fruit, produce’.

▪ [v1] 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). – In contrast, the author continues, ClassAr nabīʔ ‘clear path’ belongs to ↗NBW, while he believes nabiyy ‘prophet’ to derive from nabīʔ meaning that the Prophet is both ‘called/informed’ (munbaʔ) by God and ‘informing’ (munbiʔ) about Him, rather than from nabwaẗ ‘elevated place’.
▪ [v1] 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«. The author thinks the latter value is from an original *NB, while the former is as dissimilation from *NM. He thinks Ar »nabaʔa ‘to be high’ is akin to a Hbr vb. for ‘to grow’ (see COGN above) as well as to Ar ↗NBT ‘plant; to grow’ and Ar ↗namā ‘to grow, rise’. – Outside Sem, Eg nb3 ‘carrying pole’ (Calice1936#655) is perhaps to be connected.
▪ [v1] Ehret1989#92 thinks NBʔ ‘to be high, tower over, come upon from above, conquer, surpass’ is an extension in “concisive” *‑ʔ, from a bi-consonantal “pre-Proto-Semitic” (pPS, i.e. preSem) root ↗*NB ‘to rise, become high’, cf. ↗NBː (NBB) ‘to be haughty’. Other extensions from the same pre-Sem nucleus: ↗NBT ‘to germinate, sprout, grow’, ↗NBR ‘to raise, elevate, thrive, grow’, ↗NBṢ ‘to be on the point of sprouting’, ↗NBĠ ‘to fly off’, ↗NBL ‘to surpass in any skill’, ↗NBH ‘to awake’

[v2] : ↗nabā.
[v3] : Cf. also: ^†nābiʔ ‘ex alia regione veniens (aquae fluxus, homo), crossing a country (man, stream)’, nabiʔ ‘migrans de locu in locum, wanderer, wayfarer’, (?) nabīʔ ‘well-traced road’ (Freytag1837, Hava1899). – Etymology unclear; see ↗NBʔ. Gabal2012 thinks it belongs to ↗NBW.
[v4] : Cf. also nabʔaẗ ‘faint voice; ^†barking of dogs’ (Hava1899). Belongs to the complex ‘to utter a low voice; to announce, proclaim’ treated s.v. ↗nabaʔ.

–

…

nabaʔ نَبَأ , pl. ʔanbāʔ

√NBʔ

news, tidings, information, intelligence; announcement; report, news item, dispatch – WehrCowan1979.

▪ The n. nabaʔ (which is taken here as the main entry because there is no vb. I in MSA with a corresponding value any more) belongs to the ClassAr vb. ^†nabaʔa (a, nabʔ) ‘to utter a low voice/sound; to cry, bark (dog); (= IV) to inform, tell, make s.o. know’ that can be traced back to protSem *NBʔ ‘to name, proclaim, summon’ (Huehnergard2011). There are theories that connect this Sem/Ar NBʔ to roots that show M instead of B (cf., e.g., Eg MK nmj ‘to scream, yell, roar’, Ar namma, naʔama ‘to whisper’, naʕama ‘to say yes’, Hbr nᵊʔūm ‘utterance’, √NʔM ‘to make a speech; to utter a prophecy’, √NWM ‘to speak’); others regard it as an extension from a biconsonantal nuclear root *NB, and some also found an AfrAs (and even Nostr) background.
▪ The value ‘to utter a faint sound; to inform, make known’ is only one of a number of other values appearing in ↗√NBʔ. The relation of this value to the others (‘to be high’, ‘to withdraw’, ‘to wander around’, etc.) is still subject to discussion.
▪ Closely related to this discussion is the question whether the word for ‘prophet’, ↗nabiyy, should be derived from Ar nabaʔa ‘to be high’ (the prophet as ‘the excellent one’), or (via Hbr or Aram) from Sem *NBʔ ‘to name, proclaim, summon’ (prophet = ‘person called by God’), if not from ↗NBW.

▪ eC7 1 (news, tidings) Q 33:20 yasʔalūna ʕan ʔanbāʔik-kum ‘seeking news of you’, 38:67 huwa nabaʔun ʕaẓīmun ‘it [the Revelation] is a momentous message’; 2 (story, tale, narrative) Q 5:27 wa-’tlu ʕalay-him nabaʔa ’bnay ʔādama bi’l-ḥaqqi ‘and relate to them in truth the tale of the two sons of Adam’; 3 (disclosures, revelations) Q 11:49 tilka min ʔanbāʔi ’l-ġaybi nūḥī-hā ʔilay-ka ‘these are some of the disclosures of the hidden [knowledge] that we have revealed to you’; 4 (lessons to be learned, examples) Q 54:4 wa-laqad ǧāʔa-hum min-a ’l-ʔanbāʔi mā fī-hi muzdaǧar ‘and from examples [of past generations] has come to them that in which [should be] a deterrent’; 5 (prophecy) Q 6:67 li-kulli nabaʔin mustaqarrun wa-sawfa taʕlamūn ‘every prophecy has its fixed time to be fulfilled (or: certain endurance), you will come to realise’; 6 (replies, responses, arguments) Q 28:66 fa-ʕamiyat ʕalay-him-u ’l-ʔanbāʔu yawmaʔiḏin ‘all answers will escape (lit., not find) them on that Day’

▪ Huehnergard1999: Akk nabû (< nabāʔu) ‘to name, invoke, summon, proclaim’,² Ar nabaʔa ‘to speak in a low voice; to announce’, Sab (tD) tnbʔ ‘to promise’, Mhr nəbō (also caus. anōbi) ‘to inform’, Soq (caus.) ə́nbəʔ ‘to name’, Jib (caus.) enbé ‘to name, announce (that one will fast)’.
▪ Calice1936#59 (cognates of Eg MK nmj ‘to scream, yell, roar’): Ar nabaʔa ‘to announce’, nabʔaẗ ‘faint noise’, Ar nabba ‘to bark’, Gz nababa ‘to growl’, Akk nabû ‘to call, name’, Sab nbʔ ‘to proclaim’, Hbr √NBH ‘to prophesy’; cf. also Ar naʔama ‘to whisper’, naʕama ‘to say yes’, namma ‘to whisper’, Hbr √NʔM ‘to say’.³
▪ Militarev2006#603: For unknown reasons the author does not mention Ar NBʔ in this entry. But since the Sem evidence he gives parallels the one to be found elsewhere, the reference is repeated here, in order to connect it with alleged extra-Sem evidence and, hence, document a possible AfrAs dimension] Akk nabû ‘to call’, Hbr nbʔ, SAr nbʔ, Gz nbb ‘to speak’, Soq nbʔ, Jib enbe ‘to nominate’. – Outside Sem: [WCh] (1 lang) nabi ‘to read, count’, [Omot] (1 lang) nabi, naabi ‘name’.

2. Cf. CAD nabû ‘to name, give a name; to invoke; to summon, call a person (to exercise a function), to appoint a person to an office; to decree, proclaim, command, make known; to count among’, nabû (nabiʔu) ‘called’, nibītu ‘name; pronunciation and spelling; call, vocation; person called (by the gods), chosen’, nību (var. nimbu, nīpu) ‘name; amount, number; spokesman (?), utterance’, nibûtu ‘name’ 3. 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’.

▪ Huehnergard2011: Sem *NBʔ ‘to name, proclaim, summon’.⁴
▪ 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).

4. Called an »uncomplicated reconstruction« already in Huehnergard1999.

–

► wakālat al-ʔanbāʔ or ^†maktab al-ʔanbāʔ, n., news agency, wire service

► nabbaʔa, vb. II, to inform, notify, tell, advise (s.o. ʕan or bi‑ of s.th.), let (s.o.) know (ʕan or bi‑ about), make known, announce, impart, communicate; to be evidence (ʕan of), show, indicate, manifest, bespeak, reveal, disclose (ʕan s.th.): caus./ints. of *I, probably denom.
► ʔanbaʔa, vb. IV, to inform, notify, tell, advise (s.o. bi‑ of), let (s.o.) know (bi‑ about), make known, announce, impart, communicate: denom.
► tanabbaʔa, vb. V, to predict, foretell, forecast, prognosticate, presage, prophesy (bi‑ s.th.); to claim to be a prophet, pose as a prophet: denom. from *nabīʔ (= ↗nabiyy) ‘called one, appointed (by God)’.
► ĭstanbaʔa, vb. X, to ask for news, for information; to inquire (DO after), ask (DO about): requestative, denom.

► nabʔaẗ, n.f., faint noise, low sound: This word, in pre-MSA also meaning the ‘(faint) barking (of a dog)’, is perhaps the last remnant in MSA of an earlier stage in the semantic history of NBʔ, when the latter emerged as an extension of biconsonantal *NB- + modifyer *‑ʔ; cf. the fact that Gz nababa ‘to speak’ originally was ‘to growl’ (Calice1936, Klein1987).
► nubūʔaẗ, pl. ‑āt, n., prophecy; prognosis: not derived directly from nabaʔ, but belonging to the same Sem root, cf. ↗nubuwwaẗ.
► ^BP#4823nubuwwaẗ, n.f., prophethood, prophecy: belonging to the complex Sem/Ar NBʔ,¹ though probably not derived directly from nabaʔ but via Hbr or Aram, see s.v.
► ^BP#813nabiyy (= nabīy), pl. ‑ūn, ʔanbiyāʔᵘ, n., prophet: belonging to the complex Sem/Ar NBʔ,² though probably not derived directly from nabaʔ but via Hbr or Aram, see s.v. | ḫašab al-ʔanbiyāʔ, n., guaiacum wood.
► ^BP#3290nabawī, adj., prophetic, of or pertaining to a prophet or specifically to the Prophet Mohammed: nsb-adj. of nabiyy.³
► ʔinbāʔ, pl. ‑āt, n., notification, information, communication: vn. IV.
► tanabbuʔ, pl. ‑āt, n., prediction, forecast, prognostication; prophecy; prognosis: vn. V.
► tanabbuʔī, adj., prognostic, predictive: nsb-adj. from the preceding.

1. But grouped s.r. NBW in WehrCowan1979, probably for formal reasons. 2. But grouped s.r. NBW in WehrCowan1979, probably for formal reasons. 3. Grouped s.r. NBW in WehrCowan1979, probably for formal reasons.

nabiyy نَبِيّ , (= nabīy, *nabīʔ), pl. ‑ūn , ʔanbiyāʔᵘ , *nubaʔāʔᵘ , *ʔanbāʔᵘ

√NBʔ, NBW

prophet – WehrCowan1979.

▪ As against the opinion that nabiyy should be connected with the notion of ‘to be high’ (↗nabaʔa), EtymArab follows Huehnergard and others who regard it as a borrowing (from Hbr or Aram) with the original meaning of ‘the called/appointed one’. Thus, nabiyy belongs, though only indirectly, to the complex of Sem *NBʔ ‘to name, proclaim’, treated s.v. ↗nabaʔ , which probably developed as an extension in ‑ʔ from a biconsonantal nucleus *NB ‘to call, cry’ (the latter perhaps from AfrAs *nab‑ ‘to call by name’, which in turn may have dissimilated from Nostr *‘nimʔ˅‑ ‘name’).
▪ The fact that a number of Ar and Sem roots show *NM rather than *NB (or both) with similar meanings (Ar namma, naʔama ‘to whisper’, naʕama ‘to say yes’, Hbr nᵊʔūm ‘utterance’, √NʔM ‘to make a speech; to utter a prophecy’, √NWM ‘to speak’, cf. also Eg nmj ‘to scream, yell, roar’) and that the idea of ‘uttering a low, faint voice, groaning, mumbling, murmuring’ often is paralleled, like in ClassAr ^†nabaʔa, with that of addressing s.o. with a message, may also let one think of a prophet as a ‘person who utters faint sounds, murmurs’ (under the impression of a divine voice calling him, or speaking through him). This direction has not yet been explored in research so far.

▪▪ …
▪ eC7 Q 19:41 wa-’ḏkur fī ’l-kitābi ʔibrāhīma ʔinnahū kāna ṣiddīqan nabiyyan ‘and in the Qurʔān, mention Abraham—he was a man of truth, a prophet’¹

1. Or, read as quasi-PP: ‘he was a man of truth, called/appointed by God’.

▪ Jeffery1938: Hbr nāḇî(ʔ) ‘prophet’, Aram nəḇiyyā, Syr nᵊḇīyā, Gz nabīy.
▪ Zammit2002: Ø [!].
▪ Huehnergard1999: Akk nabû (< *nabiʔu) (adj.) ‘called’, Hbr nāḇîʔ ‘prophet’. For the vb. from which the forms are derived (Sem *NBʔ ‘to name, proclaim’), see s.v. ↗nabaʔ.
▪ …

▪ Gabal2012 does not think nabiyy ‘prophet’ is from √NBW; but he does not assume a foreign origin either. For the author, the word is from *nabīʔ (cf. the dual nabīʔayn, where the hamz is still preserved), meaning that the Prophet (Muḥammad) is both ‘called/informed’ (munbaʔ) by God and ‘informing’ (munbiʔ) about Him. A derivation, put forward by others, from the notion of ‘to be high, haughty, elevated’ (cf. nabwaẗ ‘elevated place, hill’) is, he says, to be rejected (on theological grounds, though).
▪ Jeffery1938, 276: »Usually the word is taken to be from √NBʔ ‘to bring news’ (as-Sijistānī, 312), though some thought it was from a meaning of that root ‘to be high’.⁵ – Fraenkel, Vocab, 20, pointed out that the pl. nabiyyūn, beside the more usual ʔanbiyāʔ, would suggest that the word was a foreign borrowing and that it was taken from the older religions has been generally accepted by modern scholarship.⁶ Sprenger, Leben, ii, 251, would derive it from the Hbr nāḇī(ʔ), and this view has commended itself to many scholars.⁷ There are serious objections to it, however, on the ground of form, and as Wright has pointed out,⁸ it is the Aram nəḇiyyā, which by the dropping of the sign for emphatic state, gives us the form we need. Thus there can be little doubt that nabiyy, like Eth [Gz] nabīy (Nöldeke, Neue Beiträge, 34), is from the Aram,⁹ and probably from JudAram rather than from Syr nᵊḇīyā. It was seemingly known to the Arabs long before Muḥammad’s day,¹⁰ and occurs, probably of Mani himself, in the Manichaean fragments (Salemann, Manichaeische Studien, i, 97).«
▪ Schall 1982: from Hbr nāḇī(ʔ) ‘prophet’.
▪ Huehnergard2011: Hbr nāḇî(ʔ) ‘prophet’ (originally, ‘one named, summoned by a god’).¹¹ Hbr (and, in general, Sem) *qatīl nouns are stative, resultative, or passive in meaning.
▪ Huehnergard1999: uncomplicated reconstruction of Sem *NBʔ ‘to name, proclaim’ (similar meaning also in NWSem and > Hbr). »Since […] *qatīl agent nouns of transitive roots are uniformly passive in Hbr, Hbr morphology and semantics lead us inevitably to conclude that nābîʔ too is passive rather […] and means ‘the one called/named’ by a god, just as we find in parallel Akk expressions such as (literary) oBab nabiʔu DN ‘the one named/called by DN’.¹² «
▪ Dolgopolsky2012 – The author thinks that BiblAram nᵊḇîʔ-ā, JudAram nᵊḇiyy-ā, Syr nᵊḇiy-ā, and Ar nabīy ‘prophet’ all are from BiblHbr nāḇî(ʔ) ‘prophet’ (originally a PP signifying ‘named one, appointed one’) and that Gz nabiyy ‘id.’ is from Ar. In contrast, he seems to see the Sem vb.s in direct dependence from Sem *NBʔ.
▪ Pennacchio2014:162 follows Blachère in regarding nabiyy as a loan from Hbr nāḇî(ʔ) ‘prophet’, more precisely from the Jews of the Ḥiǧāz. However, she gives the meaning of the underlying root NBʔ as ‘to be high, elevated’, which most others reject.
▪ Cf. also roots ↗√NBʔ in general and ↗√NBW, as well as ↗nubuwwaẗ.

5. Ibn Durayd, Ishtiqāq, 273; and see Fraenkel, Fremdw, 232, n. 6. Margoliouth, Schweich Lectures, 22, however, thinks that the Hbr is to be explained from the Ar, and Casanova, Mohammed et la Fin du Monde, 39, n., argues that nabiyy is a proper derivation from nbʔ, which is absurd, though Fischer, Glossar, 131, thinks that this root had an influence on the word. So Ahrens, Muhammad, 128. 7. Von Kremer, Ideen, 224; Hirschfeld, Beiträge, 42; Rudolph, Abhängigkeit, 45; Grimme, Mohammed, ii, 75, n. 2; Sacco, Credenze, 116. 8. Comparative Grammar, 46. 9. So Guidi, Della Sede, 599; Horovitz, KU, 47; JPN, 223, seems doubtful whether Hbr or Aram. 10. Hirschfeld, Beiträge, 42. 11. John Huehnergard, “On the etymology and meaning of Hebrew nābîʔ ”, Eretz-Israel 26 (1999): 88-93. 12. E.g., ḫa-am-mu-ra-pí na-bi-ù AN-nim ‘Ḫammurapi, the one named/called by Anum’.

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► tanabbaʔa, vb. V, to predict, foretell, forecast, prognosticate, presage, prophesy (bi‑ s.th.); tanabbà, to claim to be a prophet, pose as a prophet: denom.

► ^BP#4823nubuwwaẗ, n.f., prophethood, prophecy: denom. (?).
► ^BP#3290nabawī, adj., prophetic, of or pertaining to a prophet or specifically to the Prophet Mohammed: nisba formation.
► tanabbuʔ, pl. ‑āt, n., prediction, forecast, prognostication; prophecy; prognosis: vn. V, denom.
► tanabbuʔī, adj., prognostic, predictive: nisba formation from denom. vn. V.

nubuwwaẗ نُبُوَّة (= nubūwaẗ, *nubūʔaẗ)

√NBʔ, NBW

n.f.

prophethood, prophecy – WehrCowan1979.

Like ↗nabiyy ‘prophet’, nubuwwaẗ ‘prophethood, prophecy’ does probably neither belong to the root ↗NBW (see also ↗nabā ‘to remove, withdraw’) nor to NBʔ in the sense of ‘to be high’, but rather to the homonymous Sem root NBʔ ‘to name, proclaim, summon’, treated s.v. ↗nabaʔ ‘news, message’. Although also the var. nubūʔaẗ (with ‑ʔ‑) occurs, for the value ‘prophethood, prophecy’ the form with ‑w‑ instead of ‑ʔ‑ seems to be the older one in Ar, a fact that supports the theory of an inner-Sem borrowing, most probably from lHbr nəḇūwāh ‘prophecy’, which denotes the ‘office’ of a Hbr nābî(ʔ) ‘prophet’. The latter is obviously a PP from Hbr < Sem *NBʔ ‘to name, proclaim’. The latter took form perhaps as an extension in ‑ʔ from a biconsonantal nucleus *NB ‘to call, cry’ (which, according to some, goes back to an AfrAs vb. *nab‑ ‘to call by name’, which in turn may have dissimilated from the Nostr n. *‘nimʔ˅‑ ‘name’).

▪ eC7 Q 57:26 (prophethood) wa-ǧaʕalnā fī ḏurriyyati-himā ’l-nubuwwaẗa wa’l-kitāba ‘and We established for their descendants prophethood and revelations’; see also Q 3:79, 6:89, 24:27, 45:16 ‘prophecy’

▪ Zammit2002: Ø [!].
▪ Jeffery1938: Hbr nəḇūwāh; cf. also JA nəḇūʔəṯā Syr nəḇīyōṯā ‘prophecy’.
▪ For the wider context, cf. ↗nabiyy, ↗nabaʔ, ↗NBʔ, ↗NB.

▪ Jeffery1938, 277 [na buwwaẗ]: »The word occurs only in late Meccan passages (but see Ahrens, Christliches, 34), and always in connection with the mention of the previous Scriptures with which the Arabs were acquainted. It is thus clearly a technical word, and though it may be a genuine development from ↗nabiyy, there is some suspicion that it is a direct borrowing from the Jews. – In late Hbr nəḇūwāh is used for ‘prophecy’ (cf. Neh. vi, 12, and 2 Chron. xv, 8), and in one interesting passage (2 Chron. ix, 29) it means a prophetic document. In Jewish Aram nəḇūʔəṯā also means ‘prophecy’, but apparently does not have the meaning of ‘prophetic document’,¹³ nor is the Syr nəḇīyōṯā so near to the Ar as the Hbr, which would seem to leave us with the conclusion that it was the Hbr word which gave rise to the Ar, or at least influenced the development of the form (Horovitz, JPN, 224).«
▪ Pennacchio2014:162 follows Jeffery and Horovitz in regarding nubuwwaẗ as a loan from lHbr nᵊḇûʔâh ‘prophecy’, taken from the Jews of the Ḥiǧāz.
▪ Cf. also ↗NBW, ↗nabiyy, ↗NB and ↗NBʔ.

13. Horovitz, KU, 73, says it does, and refers to Bacher’s Die exegetische Terminologie der jüdischen Traditionsliteratur, ii, 123, but Bacher gives this meaning of ‘prophetischer Abschnitt’ only for nəḇūʔāh and does not quote any example of it for nəḇūṯā.

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