ID – • Sw – • BP … • APD … • © SG | 1Jun2024
√ʕǦM
to try, test, put to the test – WehrCowan1976
▪ The original meaning of the vb. ʕaǧama seems to be *‘to bite on s.th. hard (a stone, kernel, etc.) to test its quality’, hence the more general ‘to put to the test’. The vb. could be denom. from ¹ʕaǧam ‘stone, kernel, pit, pip, seed (of fruit)’.
▪ Some values within the “root” ↗ʕǦM likely have Sem cognates, but not so the complex ‘stone, kernel; to bite on s.th. hard to test its quality’. This seems to be an Ar ideosyncrasy.
▪ Inside Ar, one can certainly connect ↗ʔaʕǧama ‘to provide (a letter) with diacritical points’ to ʕaǧama, though it is prob. rather from the same ¹ʕaǧam ‘stone, kernel, pit, pip, seed (of fruit)’ than from the vb. I. – The original meaning of ʔaʕǧama seems to be *‘to provide (s.th., e.g., letters) with little “stones” or other “prominent” elements to make it discernable from others, or from the surrounding’. ʕaǧama and ʔaʕǧama thus share the idea of making s.th. discernable or distinguishable.
▪ With this, they may also be related to the obsol. †ʕaǧamāt (sg. †ʕaǧmaẗ, ʕaǧamaẗ) ‘hard rocks protruding (lit. growing forth) in a valley’ as well as †ʕaǧmaẗ ~†ʕiǧmaẗ ‘heap of sand rising above what is around it’ and †ʕaǧmāʔᵘ (pl. ʕaǧmāwāt) ‘tract of sand without trees’ (↗†ʕǦM_5).
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▪ Cf. also the (now obsol.) items given by Hava1899: †ʕuǧām ‘date-stone’, †ʕaǧama ‘to chew; to bite s.th. for trying it’, †ʕaǧmī ‘intelligent and discriminating’, †ʕāǧama (III) ‘to try s.o.’
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▪ Prob. unrelated to the complex of *‘dumbness, muteness’ and its possible cognates (↗ʕǦM_3).
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▪ See above, section CONC.
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►ʕaǧama ʕūda-h, expr., to try, test s.o., put s.o. to the test ►ʔaʕǧama, vb. IV, to provide (a letter) with a diacriticaI point (with diacritical points)
►²muʕǧam, adj., 1 ↗ʕaǧama; 2a dotted, provided with a diacritical point (letter); b (pl. maʕāǧimᵘ) dictionary, lexicon | ḥurūf al-muʕǧam, n.pl.non-hum., the letters of the alphabet For other values attached to the "root", cf. ↗¹ʕaǧam, ↗²ʕaǧam, ↗ʔaʕǧama, ↗ʔaʕǧamᵘ, ↗ʕaǧmāʔᵘ, and ↗²muʕǧam, as well as, for the overall picture, "root" entry ↗√ʕǦM.
ʔaʕǧam‑ أَعْجَمَ , yuʕǧim‑ (ʔiʕǧām)
ID – • Sw – • BP – • APD … • © SG | 1Jun2024
√ʕǦM
to provide (a letter) with a diacriticaI point (with diacritical points) – WehrCowan1976
▪ The vb. ʔaʕǧama is a *Š-stem from ↗ʕaǧama ‘(to bite on s.th., e.g., a coin, a stone, etc.) to test its quality’, prob. denom. from ↗¹ʕaǧam ‘stone, kernel, pit, pip, seed (of fruit)’. The original meaning is thus *‘to put stones, seeds, etc. on s.th. to make it discernable, give it a “profile”’.
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▪ Cf. also (the now obsol.) †ʕaǧmī ‘intelligent and discriminating’ – Hava1899.
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▪ See above, section CONC.
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►²muʕǧam, I adj., 1 ↗ʕaǧama; 2 dotted, provided with a diacritical point (letter); II (pl. maʕāǧimᵘ), n., dictionary, lexicon | ḥurūf al-muʕǧam, n.pl.non-hum., the letters of the alphabet For other values attached to the "root", cf. ↗¹ʕaǧam, ↗²ʕaǧam, ↗ʕaǧama, ↗ʔaʕǧamᵘ, and ↗ʕaǧmāʔᵘ, as well as, for the overall picture, "root" entry ↗√ʕǦM.
ID – • Sw – • BP … • APD … • © SG | 1Jun2024
√ʕǦM
stone, kernel, pit, pip, seed (of fruit) – WehrCowan1976
▪ Prob. a “purely” Ar value, unrelated to the complex of *‘dumbness, muteness’ that constitutes another main value within √ʕǦM (↗ʕǦM_3).
▪ ¹ʕaǧam is prob. the n. from which the vbs. (I) ʕaǧama ‘to bite on s.th. (a stone, kernel, etc.) to test its quality > to put to the test’ and (IV) ʔaʕǧama ‘to provide (a letter) with diacritical points (to distinguish it from other letters with the same main body)’ are derived.
▪ A feature in the ‘date-stones, kernels, etc.’ that seems to have become etymologically relevant is their *‘protruding’ quality that allows sensual perception to distinguish between s.th. elevated and the flat surrounding, cf. the (now obsol., but historically attested) items †ʕaǧ(a)m ‘camels that bite\chew (certain types of) thorny trees’ (< *‘to bite on\chew s.th. to test it’?), ʕaǧamāt ‘hard rocks protruding (lit. growing forth) in a valley’, †ʕaǧmaẗ ~ †ʕiǧmaẗ ‘sand rising above what is around it’.
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▪ Cf. also the historically attested var. †ʕuǧām ‘date-stone’ – Hava1899.
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►ʕaǧama u (ʕaǧm), vb. I, to try, test, put to the test | ʕaǧama ʕūda-h to try, test s.o., put s.o. to the test
►ʔaʕǧama, vb. IV, to provide (a letter) with a diacriticaI point (with diacritical points)
►²muʕǧam, adj., 1 ↗ʕaǧama; 2a dotted, provided with a diacritical point (letter); b (pl. maʕāǧimᵘ) dictionary, lexicon | ḥurūf al-muʕǧam, n.pl.non-hum., the letters of the alphabet For other values attached to the "root", cf. ↗²ʕaǧam, ↗ʕaǧama, ↗ʔaʕǧama, ↗ʔaʕǧamᵘ, ↗ʕaǧmāʔᵘ, and ↗²muʕǧam, as well as, for the overall picture, "root" entry ↗√ʕǦM.
ID – • Sw – • BP … • APD … • © SG | 1Jun2024
√ʕǦM
1a barbarians, non-Arabs; b Persians – WehrCowan1976
▪ As Gabrieli’s entry in EI² (quoted below, section DISC) explains, the value ‘barbarians, non-Arabs; Persians’ has developed from that of ‘dumbness, speechlessness’ (↗ʕǦM_3) and therefore belongs together with the corresponding adj. ↗ʔaʕǧamᵘ ‘dumb, speechless; (hence also:) speaking incorrect Arabic, barbarian, non-Arab, foreigner, alien; Persian’ and its f. form ↗ʕaǧmāʔᵘ that has acquired the specific meaning of ‘(dumb) beast’.
▪ For further details, see ↗ʔaʕǧamᵘ.
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▪ »[T]he etymology and semantic evolution of this collective term in Arabic are exactly parallel to those of the Greek word βάρβαροι. In conformity with the basic meaning of the root from which it is derived, ʿadjam means people qualified by ʿudjma, a confused and obscure way of speaking, as regards pronunciation and language. ʿUdjma is therefore also the contrary of the Arabic faṣāḥa, and the ʿadjam are the non-Arabs, the βάρβαροι, so called after the most characteristic sign of barbarousness: an incomprehensible and obscure way of speaking. As to the Greeks, so also to the Arabs, the barbarians were primarily their neighbours the Persians, and pre-Islamic poetry already contrasted al-ʿArab with al-ʿAdjam, although for the latter the form Aʿādjim, the plural of aʿdjam, was preferred. The affective value attributed to the word depended on the point of view of the user; although it preserved for the most part the original contemptuous force inspired by the haughty presumption of Arab superiority, it sometimes, and even at an early date, implied the desirability and allurement of the exotic, and the acknowledgment of a more civilized and refined culture. In any case, during the whole Umayyad period the superiority of the Arabs, who held the hegemony in Islam and by whom it was spread, over the conquered ʿadjam was uncontested, and only isolated voices were raised […] in support of the race and culture of non-Arabs, i.e. of the Iranians. With the coming to power of the ʿAbbāsids, the victory of the ʿadjam over the Arabs, […] reversed the situation; the Iranians, having obtained political and social supremacy, soon laid claim to the supremacy of their cultural and spiritual values. This was the s̲h̲uʿūbiyya movement [q.v.] which, in its essential nucleus, reaffirmed the superiority of the ʿadjam over the Arabs, even although its campaign was carried on in Arabic. When the heat of the controversy had died down, the two words remained in current usage merely to indicate ethnical difference, ʿadjam becoming synonymous with Furs (Persians). ʿIrāḳ ʿAdjamī indicated, from the late medieval period onwards, Iranian Media (which the ancient geographers had called al-Djibāl), to distinguish it from ʿIrāḳ ʿArabī, which is ʿIrāḳ proper« – F. Gabrieli, art. »ʕadjam«, in EI².
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▪ (orig. Span) Aljamía or Aljamiado (composed of aljamía + PP-suffix -ado) »manuscripts that use the Arabic script for transcribing European languages, especially Romance languages such as Old Spanish or Aragonese« (wiki.en), from Arabic (al‑)ʕaǧamiyyaẗ, from ʕaǧam ‘non-Arabs, esp. Persians’ + nsb-suffix ‑ī + -aẗ (fem. marker, also used to mark language names or to generally form nouns from the adjectives) – en.wiktionary.
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►al-ʕaǧam or bilād al-ʕaǧam, n.geogr., Persia
►ĭstaʕǧama, vb. X, to become un-Arabic
►ʕaǧamī, pl. ʔaʕǧām, adj./n., 1a barbarian, non-Arab; b Persian Not derived from ʕaǧam but also related are ►ĭnʕaǧama, vb. VII, to be obscure, incomprehensible, unintelligible (ʕalà to s.o.; language)
►ʕuǧmaẗ, n.f., barbarism, incorrectness (in speaking Arabic)
►ʔaʕǧamᵘ, f. ʕaǧmāʔᵘ, pl. ʔaʕāǧimᵘ, 1 speaking incorrect Arabic; 2 dumb, speechless; 3a barbarian, non-Arab, foreigner, alien; b a Persian
►ʔaʕǧamī, adj./n., 1a non-Arabic; b non-Arab, foreigner, alien; c a Persian
►¹muʕǧam, adj., 1 incomprehensible, unintelligible, obscure (language, speech); 2 ↗ʔaʕǧama For other values attached to the "root", cf. ↗¹ʕaǧam, ↗ʕaǧama, ↗ʔaʕǧama, and ↗ʕaǧmāʔᵘ, as well as, for the overall picture, "root" entry ↗√ʕǦM.
ʔaʕǧamᵘ أَعْجَمُ , f. ʕaǧmāʔᵘ, pl. ʔaʕāǧimᵘ
ID – • Sw – • BP … • APD … • © SG | 1Jun2024
√ʕǦM
1 speaking incorrect Arabic; 2 dumb, speechless; 3a barbarian, non-Arab, foreigner, alien; b a Persian – WehrCowan1976
▪ The original value is [v2] ‘dumb, speechless’, hence [v1] ‘speaking incorrect Arabic’, hence also [v3a] ‘barbarian, non-Arab, foreigner, alien’, especially [v3b] ‘Persian’. For these semantics, cf. F. Gabrieli’s entry »ʕAdjam« in EI² (quoted s.v. ↗²ʕaǧam, section DISC).
▪ The notion of *‘dumbness, muteness’ in Ar may be related to that of *‘sadness, grief, anger’ found in what might be cognates in Akk, Ug, Hbr, and Aram, though the shift from this value to ‘dumbness, muteness’ (or vice versa) would be difficult to explain. If an etymological relation indeed exists, it seems more likely to take *‘sadness, grief, anger’ as secondary, developed from *‘dumbness, muteness’, in which case Ar (and the modSAr languages, see below) would have preserved the primary value better than the NSem idioms.
▪ The Mhr Jib Ḥrs Soq forms are clearly cognate. Interestingly, in addition to the value ‘mute’, some of them show the notion of *‘narrow pass\passageway’ (hence also ‘virgin’) and *‘to block, dam’ (Jib Soq). This latter may point to an underlying – still “more primary” – value from which also the Ar ‘dumbness, speechlessness’ possibly has developed. Cf. in this context also the old †muʕǧam ‘locked’ (door) (↗†ʕǦM_8).
▪ *‘Dumbness, speechlessness’ is itself prob. unrelated to the semantic complex around ↗¹ʕaǧam ‘stone, kernel, pit, pip, seed (of fruit)’ and the denom. ↗ʕaǧama ‘to bite (on a stone, kernel, coin, etc.) to test it, put to the test’ (with also the form IV vb. ↗ʔaʕǧama ‘to provide with diacritical points’) and other (now obsol.) items sharing the idea of *‘s.th. protruding, making it discernible/distinguishable from the surrounding’.
▪ The f. form ʕaǧmāʔᵘ has taken the specialised meaning ‘(dumb) beast’ (see also s.v.).
▪ Cf. perh. also the (obsol.) †ʕaǧǧām ‘large bat, or swallow’ (↗†ʕǦM_7) which may be *‘the (very) mute one, the mute “bird”’.
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▪ (?) : Klein1987, CAD, DohaDict: Akk agāmu ‘to be angry (CAD), grieved, vexed’, Ug ʕgm ‘to groan, moan’, Hbr ʕāgam ‘to be grieved, sad, gloomy, depressed’ (Hapax in Bible), mHbr (Ni) näʕägam ‘to be grieved, sad, sorry’, postBiblHbr ʕāgmāʰ, mHbr ʕᵒgäm, nHbr ʕᵘgäm ‘grief, sadness, sorrow’, BabAram ʕgm ‘to be sad’, Syr ʕăgam ‘to be grieved’.
▪ (ibid.): Mhr ʔāgēm, ʔāgəmēt / ʔāgwōm, ʔāgəmōtən ‘mute; narrow passageway’, ʔāgəm, ʔāgēm ‘virgin’, ʔaygəm ‘to be mute’, Jib ʕégəm ‘to be mute’, igɛ́m ‘narrow pass’, ʕógúm ‘to block, dam’, Ḥrs ʔāgem ‘virgin’, ʔāgōm / ʔawéggém, ʔāgemōten ‘quick snake’, ʔáygem ‘to be mute’, ʕéyemi ‘Persian’, Soq ʕaygémhen ‘mute’, égom ‘to block, be mute’
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▪ Given the semantic distance between Akk Ug Hbr Syr ‘to be angry, grieved, sad’ and Ar modSAr ‘to be locked, be mute, dumb’ it may be indicated to keep the two apart.
▪ Should one instead assume a relation between the Ar modSAr values and the phonologically close root protSem *ʕlg ‘to stammer’ (SED I #V₂, with Ug ʕlg ‘tartamudear’, tʕlgt ‘stammering’, Hbr ʕillēg ‘stammerer’, Mnd alg ‘to be dumb, have impaired or stammering speech’, alga ‘dumb, tongue-tied, stammered’, Te täʕalaǧäǧä ‘to stammer’)? In this case, Ar ʕǦM_3 could be imagined to be a variant of Ar ʕalǧ ‘tout barbare; non arabe, qui ne pas musulman; rustique dans ses manières’ (with parallels in EthSem, ibid.).
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▪ For (orig. Span) Aljamía or Aljamiado see ↗²ʕaǧam.
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►ĭnʕaǧama, vb. VII, to be obscure, incomprehensible, unintelligible (ʕalà to s.o.; language)
►ĭstaʕǧama, vb. X, to become un-Arabic
►²ʕaǧam, n.coll., 1a barbarians, non-Arabs; b Persians; al-ʕaǧam or bilād al-ʕaǧam, Persia
►ʕaǧamī, pl. ʔaʕǧām, adj./n., 1a barbarian, non-Arab; b Persian: nsb-formation, from the preceding
►ʕuǧmaẗ, n.f., barbarism, incorrectness (in speaking Arabic)
►ʕaǧmāʔᵘ, pl. ʕaǧmāwāt, n.f., (dumb) beast: f. of ʔaʕǧamᵘ, specialisation of meaning.
►ʔaʕǧamī, adj./n., 1a non-Arabic; b non-Arab, foreigner, alien; c a Persian: nsb-formation.
►¹muʕǧam, adj., 1 incomprehensible, unintelligible, obscure (language, speech); 2 ↗ʔaʕǧama, ↗²muʕǧam For other values attached to the "root", cf. ↗¹ʕaǧam, ↗²ʕaǧam, ↗ʕaǧama, ↗ʔaʕǧama, ↗ʕaǧmāʔᵘ, and ↗²muʕǧam, as well as, for the overall picture, "root" entry ↗√ʕǦM.
ʕaǧmāʔᵘ عَجْماءُ , pl. ʕaǧmāwāt
ID – • Sw – • BP … • APD … • © SG | 1Jun2024
√ʕǦM
(dumb) beast – WehrCowan1976
▪ The nominalized f. form of the adj. ↗ʔaʕǧamᵘ ‘dumb, speechless’ has taken the specialised meaning of ‘(dumb) beast’.
▪ Cf. perh. also the (obsol.) †ʕaǧǧām ‘large bat, or swallow’ (↗†ʕǦM_7) which may be *‘the (very) mute one, the mute “bird”’ (like ʔaFʕaLᵘ, the pattern FaʕʕāL often indicates the intense presence of a quality in s.o./s.th.).
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For other values attached to the "root", cf. ↗¹ʕaǧam, ↗²ʕaǧam, ↗ʕaǧama, ↗ʔaʕǧama, ↗ʔaʕǧamᵘ, and ↗²muʕǧam, as well as, for the overall picture, "root" entry ↗√ʕǦM.
²muʕǧam مُعْجَم , pl. maʕāǧimᵘ (II)
ID – • Sw – • BP … • APD … • © SG | 1Jun2024
√ʕǦM
I adj., 1 ↗ʕaǧama; 2a dotted, provided with a diacritical point (letter); II (pl. maʕāǧimᵘ), n., dictionary, lexicon – WehrCowan1976
▪ Unlike ↗¹muʕǧam ‘incomprehensible, unintelligible, obscure (language, speech)’ which is related to the complex of *‘dumbness’ (↗ʕǦM_3), ²muʕǧam is a PP from the vb. ↗ʔaʕǧama ‘to provide (a letter) with a diacriticaI point (with diacritical points)’ which in turn is a *Š-stem from ↗ʕaǧama ‘(to bite on s.th., e.g., a coin, a stone, etc.) to test its quality’, prob. denom. from ↗¹ʕaǧam ‘stone, kernel, pit, pip, seed (of fruit)’. The original meaning of the underlying vb. IV ʔaʕǧama is thus *‘to put stones, seeds, etc. on s.th. to make it discernable, to give s.th. a profile’.
▪ In ClassAr dictionaries (as reproduced in Lane), the meaning of the term ḥurūf al-muʕǧam is given as ‘the letters of the alphabet (of the language of the Arabs), most of which are distinguished by being dotted from the letters of other peoples’. This explanation combines ‘diacritical dotting’ with ‘other (non-Arab) peoples’ (↗²ʕaǧam) and thus suggests an etymological relation between the two, which, however, seems doubtful. Alternatively, the term is interpreted as short for »ḥurūf al-ḫaṭṭ al-muʕǧam ‘the letters of the dotted character’; or by al-muʕǧam is meant al-ʔiʕǧām [vn.], so that the meaning of ḥurūf al-muʕǧam is ‘[the letters] of which a property is the being dotted’«. The latter two explanations are prob. closer to the etymological truth.
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▪ See above, section CONC.
►ḥurūf al-muʕǧam, n.pl.non-hum., the letters of the alphabet For other values attached to the "root", cf. ↗¹ʕaǧam, ↗²ʕaǧam, ↗ʕaǧama, ↗ʔaʕǧama, ↗ʔaʕǧamᵘ, and ↗ʕaǧmāʔᵘ, as well as, for the overall picture, "root" entry ↗√ʕǦM.
Complete text
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