▪ The situation within the Sem root RGM is summarized by Kogan2015:218#28 as follows: »Hbr
rgm, Syr
rgm, Ar
rǧm < protCSem *RGM ‘to stone’. ⇒ [This meaning] represents an extension of the more original [Sem] ‘to speak (emphatically), to curse’,
1
represented by Akk
ragāmu ‘to call; to prophesy; to summon; to lodge a claim, sue’, Ug
rgm ‘to say, tell, announce’, Ar
rǧm ‘to revile, utter evil speech’, (III) ‘to plead in defense of someone’, Gz
ragama ‘to curse, insult’, Jib
s̃érégəm ‘to blame one another with harsh words’. Within this approach, Soq
rígɛm ‘être lapidé’ can be plausibly explained as an Arabism. / The diachronic background of *
rgm in modSAr remains problematic. Throughout modSAr, the basic meaning of this root is ‘to cover, protect’: Mhr
rəgūm ‘to cover (usually food to keep the flies off it)’, Jib
ɛrgúm ‘to cover, put a lid on’, Soq
régom ‘couvrir, protéger’. As such, this meaning can hardly have anything to do with stoning, and it seems wise, therefore, to keep apart Soq
rígɛm ‘to be stoned’ and
régom ‘to cover, protect’ as different (homonymous) roots […]. At the same time, it is noteworthy that one of the prominent applications of
rgm in Jib is connected with covering a dead body with stones:
erógəm ‘to cover (a dead body, with stones and soil)’,
rɔ́tgəm ‘(corpse) to be buried’,
s̃ergím ‘to be covered, buried alive (as, e.g., a witch)’,
rəgmún ‘stoned, covered by stones; covered by stones and soil (in the grave)’. The same semantic nuance is attested in Ar:
raǧam ‘stones that are placed upon a grave’,
rǧm (II) ‘to place a stone on one’s grave’. These facts may prompt one to abandon the traditional semantic explanation […], disconnecting the meaning ‘to stone’ from ‘to blame, curse’ and deriving it instead from ‘to cover (with stones).’
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It is more likely, however, that the meaning ‘to cover with stones’ in Ar represents a secondary development from ‘to stone (as punishment)’, which, in its turn, influenced Jib
rgm ‘to cover’, originally unconnected to the present root.«
▪ RǦM_1-3 seem to be etymologically related. As suggest by Leslau and substantiated by Kogan2015, the development within the Sem root seems to have been: Sem *RGM ‘to speak, say, shout’ > ‘to speak against, bring legal action against’ > ‘to abuse, curse’ > ‘to cast stones [while cursing]’ > ‘stone, tombstone; meteorites’; for ‘to interpret ’ see DISC below). – Cf., however, the fact that »[t]he lapidation and heaps of stones [as part of the
ḥaǧǧ rituals] at Minā are called
ǧamraẗ [↗√ǦMR, not √RǦM, i.e., with metathesis], [… traditionally derived from
ǧamarāt al-ʕArab ‘groups of Bedouin tribes’, allegedly close to Ar ↗
ǧamma and ↗
ǧamaʕa ‘to reunite’]« – art. »radjm« (M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes / T. Fahd), in
EI².
▪ In contrast, RǦM_4 is a borrowing from Fr
régime ‘diet’.
▪ Value RǦM_5 ‘the two cross-beams of a pulley’, attested in ClassAr
†riǧāmān, seems to be an extension of
†riǧām ‘stone for cleansing a well; stone-work around a well’ (Hava1899), which clearly belongs to the ‘heap of stones’ of RǦM_1.
▪ Value RǦM_6 ‘strong; battering (horse); sling’, attested in ClassAr
†mirǧam (Hava1899), has with all probability to be seen in connection with the ‘cursing’ and ‘casting (of stones)’ that is among the main ideas of RǦM_1.