Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ SRː (SRR)_1 ‘umbilical cord; navel; centre, heart’: ↗surr, ↗surraẗ
▪ SRː (SRR)_2 ‘secret, to hide’: ↗sirr
▪ SRː (SRR)_3 ‘concubine’: ↗surriyyaẗ
▪ SRː (SRR)_4 ‘joy, happiness, to make glad’: ↗sarra
▪ SRː (SRR)_5 ‘bed, throne’: ↗sarīr
▪ SRː (SRR)_6 ‘line (of the palm or forehead), feature’: ↗surur, sirār
▪ SRː (SRR)_7 ‘last night (of the lunar month)’: ↗sarār

Other values, now obsolete, include:
▪ ^†SRː (SRR)_8 ‘holed, concave (piece of zand wood used as a touchwood); worn-out [and hence hollowed] (fire steel); galled in the breast (camel)’ (Hava1899): ʔasarrᵘ; cf. also sarra (sarr), vb. I, ‘to apply a piece of flammable wood (like tinder) to the zand touchwood, which is slightly hollowed’ (Kazimirski1860), sarar ‘hollowness (of a spear-shaft etc.)’ (Lane iv-1872)
▪ ^†SRː (SRR)_9 ‘bundle of scented herbs’: surūr (pl.); cf. also masarraẗ, n.f., ‘[perhaps as being a cause of pleasure] the extremities of sweet-smelling plants’ – Lane iv (1872); sarra, vb. I, ‘complimenter qn en lui présentant des herbes odoriférantes’ – Kazimirski1860
▪ ^†SRː (SRR)_10 ‘best/choice part of a race, (bottom) of a valley’: sarār(aẗ), also sirr (pl. ʔasirraẗ) ‘middle of the valley’; cf. also ʔasarrᵘ ‘good, excellent (soil, terrain)’ – Kazimirski1860, Hava1899.

▪ Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (acc. to BAH2008): ‘1 the inside, base (e.g., of the head or the navel), innermost part of an object; secrecy, secrets; 2 seat, bed; 3 pleasure, to please, delight

▪ The assumption, made by BAH2008, of three basic values in the root seems to be correct in principle, although perhaps not going far enough: probably, all the above values are dependent on only one or two: WSem (or CSem?) *šurr- *‘navel string’ and, perhaps, Sem *š/sar- / *s/car- ‘vertebral column, backbone’ (for [v5], as suggested by SED). The latter, however, is not really reliable, due to scarce attestation. For details of possible semantic relations see below, section DISC. For [v3] and [v7], too, other etymologies have been proposed, but none with reliable evidence.
▪ Zetterstéen1942 postulated (for the whole root) a »sense primitif« of *‘lier, serrer’ [based on ‘umbilical cord’?]. In the light of the Sem evidence, this assumption seems hardly tenable; cf., however, Dolgopolsky2012 #2106, who puts Sem *šurr- ‘navel (string)’ together with Berb *√sr˻w˼ ‘to bind, weave’ and NatIndEur *ser- ‘thread, string’ [cf. etymonline: IE *ser- ‘to line up’], all going back to a hypothetical Nostr *säR˹U˺ (= *säRo?) ‘sinew, fibre’.
▪ Regarding the ‘navel string’, not the ‘navel’ itself as the primary value makes sense in the light of the fact that Ar surraẗ ‘navel’ appears to be formed from surr ‘umbilical cord’, not the other way round. (Otherwise, surr would be a back formation from surraẗ, to distinguish the ‘navel string’ from the ‘navel’.)
▪ All other values in the root, however, seem to be dependent on ‘navel’ rather than on ‘navel string’. Therefore, one may assume that surraẗ, once derived from surr, started to live a life of its own, leaving the ‘navel string’ behind as a rather isolated value within the Ar root.

–

SRː (SRR)_1 (and perh. also all others):
▪ SED #254: Ug šr (?); Hbr šōr, postBiblHbr šārār ‘navel, umbilical cord’; JP šōrā ‘umbilical cord’, Syr šerrā, šurtā ‘umbilicus’, Mand šura ‘navel’; Ar surr, sarar, sirar ‘umbilical cord’; Mhr *šīrε̄ ‘navel’ (see comments below), Hrs šerā, Soq šíraḥ, pl. šireʕheten ‘nombril’, also ŝiraḥ. According to Kogan2015: 198-99 #54, Ug šr is not reliably attested epigraphically, so it is not clear whether one should stop reconstruction at the WSem level or whether the word might have a CSem dimension.
▪ Dolgopolsky2012 #2106: Ug šr, BiblHbr šor* ‘navel string, navel’, JPA šôrā, JEA šûrâ, Syr šerrā, Mand šura, nMand šorra ‘navel’, Ar surr ‘navel string’; Mhr ŝīrε̄ ‘navel’, Hrs šerā, Jib s͗irᴐʕ, Soq ŝirᴐʕ ̃ širᴐʕ. – On the AfrAs level, the author sees cognates in (Berb) Izn/Rf asraw ‘fil de chaîne du métier à tisser’, Rf B/A fiřu usra ‘fil horizontal (trame)’, Tmz i-sirr (pl. i-sarr-ən) ‘fibre de bois\viande; fil de trame, fin pour le tissage des djellabas ou des burnous’. – For an assumed IE connection and, hence, a Nostr dimension, see DISC below.

SRː (SRR)_3 (unless dependent on [v1]):
▪ Leslau2006 (CDG) suggests to see Ar surriyyaẗ ‘concubine’ together with Gz tasarra ‘to be covered (female animal), be attacked’.

SRː (SRR)_5 (unless dependent on [v1]):
▪ SED #253: Ar sarīr ‘base de la tête, endroit où elle est jointe au cou’, sarāẗ ‘dos; milieu’ (< *saraw/y-aẗ-), ? Amh säräsär ‘vertebra, spinal cord, sinew’; also sərasəra ‘vertebrae’ (cf. šə(r)rət ‘fin of a fish’, Gur (Sel) särsär, (End) sässär ‘rib of the animal’).

SRː (SRR)_7 (unless dependent on [v1]):
▪ DelOlmoLeteSanmartín2003 postulate a connection with an Ug srr meaning ‘sunset’, from an alleged verbal root Ug √srr ‘to set, sink, hide’ (in its turn perh. cognate to Hbr swr, srr). But this rendering seems doubtful to Tropper2008.

▪ SRː (SRR)_1:
Given the broad attestation throughout Sem, it is safe to assume WSem *šurr- / *surr- ‘navel, navel string’ as the common origin of the Ar, Hbr, Aram and modSAr forms. There might even be a CSem dimension once Ug šr, currently not reliably attested epigraphically, should be established more firmly.
Dolgopolsky2012 #2106 goes beyond that in postulating not only an AfrAs but also a Nostr dimension. The evidence he puts forward for the AfrAs dimension is what he believes to be Berb cognates, all from protBerb *√sr˻w˼; he then sees the Sem and Berb forms together with NatIndEur *ser- ‘thread, string’ (cf. etymonline: IE *ser- ‘to line up’), justifying his reconstruction of Nostr *säR˹U˺ (= *säRo?) ‘sinew, fibre’.
‘Navel’ may well be the etymon from which most of the other values in the Ar root, perh. even all of them, are derived, by metaphorical or allegorical extension. The navel is both the centre of the belly and a small cavity in it. From ‘cavity’, both the ‘hollowness’ of ^†[v8] and the lines (“furrows, trenches”) of the palm or forehead and, hence, the notion of [v6] ‘(facial) features’ can easily be derived. Something having a navel-like cavity may also be regarded as deficient, hence the extended meaning ^†‘worn-out, galled’ (ʔasarrᵘ, formed along the ʔaFʕaLᵘ pattern for colours and bodily afflictions) of [v8]. The notion of ‘centre’ (obviously seen as primary value by BAH2008, which, however is hardly tenable, given the many “umbilical” cognates outside Ar) may then have become the starting-point for further semantic changes. The centre or middle can have been identified with [v5], originally meaning ^†‘the part where the head rests upon the neck’ (hence: ‘neck-rest > bed’); [v7] the ‘middle (of the lunar month)’ (later shifting in meaning to its ‘first, or last, night’; but cf. DISC on [v7] below); and ^†[v10] the ‘best/choice part of s.th.’, the ‘middle or bottom’ of a valley, offering ‘good soil, excellent terrain’, or the nobility of a social group, usually being regarded as its central representatives. Centre, however, is close also to the innermost part of an object, its essence, its very best, its ‘marrow’ (= again ^†[v10]), or (if it is, as usually is the navel, invisible, covered, concealed) its innermost [v2] ‘secret’, something ‘hidden’ from the viewer’s eyes. From here, the value ^†‘pudenda’ developed, to which belongs the [v3] ‘concubine’, as a woman whom a man may let see his pudenda (if the concubine is not the one whom he conceals from his wife, as another interpretation would have it). Along the same lines, ^†‘fornication’ as well as ^†‘marriage’ became attached to secrecy, intimacy. In modern usage, al-ʕādaẗ al-sirriyyaẗ ‘the secret habit’ is a common circumscription of ‘masturbation’. – Ultimately, even the [v4] ‘joy, happiness, to make glad’ may have arisen from the pleasures granted by the “meeting of the pudenda”, or the vision of the “hidden secret” of the latter, or the navel, or, simply, by being let into a secret. [v9] ‘bundle of scented herbs’ is said to belong to [v4], as sweet-smelling plants are a cause of pleasure.
The long distance between [v1] ‘navel’ and [v4] ‘happiness, joy’ seems to be the reason why BAH2008 separate the value ‘inside, base (e.g., of the head or the navel), innermost part of an object; secrecy, secrets’ from that of ‘pleasure, delight’. At the same time, by mentioning ‘base of the head’ alongside with ‘navel’, the authors appear to be open to derive also [v5] ‘bed, throne’ from the notion of centre, inside, base. In their list of basic values, they separate the value from the first by a semicolon; but there are others who think that the original meaning of sarīr is *‘the part where the head rests upon the neck’, hence (?) *‘neck-rest > place to rest > bed’.

▪ SRː (SRR)_2 ‘secret, to hide’: probably from [v1] ‘navel, centre, innermost part, essence’.

▪ SRː (SRR)_3 ‘concubine’: usually interpreted as *‘woman whom a man may let see his “secret parts”, i.e., his pudenda’ or *‘woman at whose vulva a man is allowed to look’, or *‘woman whose existence a man conceals from his wife’, all based on the idea of [v2] ‘secrecy, intimacy’. The shift in surriyyaẗ from sirr to surr is usually explained as phonologically motivated. But why such a far-fetched, little plausible explanation? It is easy to interpret the woman’s navel as the secret that the concubine reveals to a man or through which he is attracted to her; thus, [v3] can be derived directly from [v1] rather than from [v2]. – Leslau2006 (CDG) suggests regarding Ar surriyyaẗ as cognate to Gz tasarra ‘to be covered (female animal), be attacked’.

▪ SRː (SRR)_4 ‘joy, happiness, to make glad’: dependence of this value on [v2] ‘secret’ (*‘to experience joy on account of being let into a secret’) is more probable than on [v3] (*‘… being shown the navel/pudenda’). But the semantic distance is still rather great. Alternatively, one may think of ‘joy, happiness, tranquility of the mind’ as the result of ‘affluence, ease’, a value connected to [v5] ‘bed, throne’. But ClassAr lexicographers see it the other way round, see next paragraph. A dependence of ‘joy’ on [v6] ‘line of the forehead, facial feature’, as *‘emotion recognizable from facial expression’, is not considered anywhere.

▪ SRː (SRR)_5 ‘bed, throne’: ClassAr lexicographers tend to relate this value to the preceding, [v5] ‘joy, happiness’, deriving sarīr from surūr ‘pleasure, tranquility of the mind’ because »it [sc. a sarīr] generally belongs to persons of ease and affluence and of authority, and to kings« (hence also the values ‘throne; dominion, sovereignty, rule, authority | dignité royale, royauté; ease, comfort, affluence | bien-être’, with the expr. zāla ʕan sarīrih ‘déchu de son bien-être’, and, as an appellation of good omen, ‘bier, before the corpse is carried upon it’ – Lane iv (1872) | Kazimirski1860). However, as discussed under [v4], it may be the other way round, i.e., ‘bed, throne’ > ‘ease, happiness, peace of mind’. According to SED and Kogan2015, the original meaning of sarīr is ^†‘the part where the head rests upon the neck’ (a value given also by Freytag1833 and Kazimirski1860), which, actually, also is the value first attested in the sources (555 CE, according to HDAL). So one could think of a development *‘neck > neck-rest > place to rest > bed’. Given another early attestation of sarīr (590 CE – HDAL) as ‘middle (of a valley)’, the assumption made by BAH2008 that one should connect the ‘base of the head, neck’ to [v1] ‘centre, innermost part’, may be correct. In contrast, SED and Kogan2015 suggest for [v5] an origin different from that of [v1]. SED #253 tentatively assumes a Sem *š/sar- or *s/car- ‘vertebral column, backbone’ as the common source of the Ar and some EthSem forms. However, »[s]carce attestation in Ar and MEth only; neither of these languages distinguishes between *š and *s. Note doubling of the second radical and annexation of -w as a third radical in Ar and a full stem reduplication in Eth. See a derived term in Eth and Gur (Sel, Cha, Enn, End, Gye) särsär ‘instrument made of the ribs of a cow and used for leveling the floor’.« The idea, put forward in SED, that this complex is »likely related«, »with a meaning shift«, to modSAr forms meaning ‘behind’ is rejected by Kogan2015: 569 #97.

▪ SRː (SRR)_6 ‘line (of the palm or forehead), feature’: from *‘hollow, cavity’ (cf. [v8]), from [v1] ‘navel (cavity it in the belly)’.

▪ SRː (SRR)_7 ‘last night (of the lunar month)’: The meaning given in WehrCowan is only one of several other options, including ^†‘commencement\first night of the lunar month’, or its ‘middle’. We would assume that the latter is the original one, cf. also sirr al-šahr / al-layl ‘the middle of the month / the night’. If this is correct, [v7] is rather clearly derived from [v1] ‘navel (> centre, innermost part)’. – In contrast, DelOlmoLeteSanmartín2003 put Ar sarār, var. sarar, together with Ug srr ‘sunset, dawn’ (as in b srr špš ‘at the setting of the Sun’), from a verbal root Ug √srr ‘to set, sink, hide’ (seen as cognate to Hbr swr, srr); Tropper2008 seems to acknowledge that √srr can be a variant of √sw/yr ‘to go away, leave, disappear’ (cf. Ar ↗sāra), but doubts the rendering of Ug srr as ‘sunset, dawn’.

▪ ^†SRː (SRR)_8 ‘holed, concave’: The adj. ʔasarrᵘ is often applied to a piece of wood used as a touchwood to make fire, but also to a worn-out spear-shaft or a wound in a camel’s breast. The notion of concaveness, common to all of these values, is clearly derived from [v1] ‘navel (cavity in the belly)’.

▪ ^†SRː (SRR)_9 ‘bundle of scented herbs’: likely dependent on [v4] ‘joy, happiness’, as the herbs/flowers are seen as a cause of pleasure.

▪ ^†SRː (SRR)_10 ‘best/choice part of s.th., also of a race; good, excellent (soil, terrain)’: from [v1] ‘navel > centre, middle’, or [v8] ‘cavity, bottom’, as the ‘middle/bottom of a valley’ is the most copious and fertile of its parts. There may also be a relation to [v4] the ‘comfort, richness, ease, happiness’ that is usually connected with [v5] ‘bed, throne’.

▪ Dolgopolsky2012 #2106 sees Sem *šurr- ‘navel (string)’ together with Berb *√sr˻w˼ ‘to bind, weave’ and NatIndEur *ser- ‘thread, string’ [cf. EtymOnline: IE *ser- ‘to line up’] and postulates Nostr *säR˹U˺ (= *säRo?) ‘sinew, fibre’. If his hypothesis is true, the Sem words for ‘navel (string)’ and their derivatives are related to all what has sprung off IE *ser- ‘to line up’, e.g., Engl series, etc.

–

sarr‑ / sarar‑ سرّ / سرر , u (surūr, tasirraẗ, masarraẗ)

ID 384 • Sw – • BP 5554 • APD … • © SG | 15Feb2021

√SRː (SRR)

vb., I

to make happy, gladden, delight, cheer; pass. surra (surūr) to be happy, glad, delighted (li‑ or min at), take pleasure (in) – WehrCowan1979.

▪ The value ‘joy, happiness, to make glad’ of √SRː (SRR) seems to be dependent on ↗sirr ‘secret’, originally signifying the *‘joy experienced when let into a secret’, or, with a more specific sense of sirr, the *‘pleasure experienced when being shown the pudenda’ or the ‘navel’ (↗surraẗ, from ↗surr ‘umbilical cord’; cf. also ↗surriyyaẗ ‘concubine’). But the semantic distance is still rather great. Alternatively, one may think of ‘joy, happiness, tranquility of the mind’ resulting from ‘affluence, ease’, a value connected to ↗sarīr ‘bed, throne’. ClassAr lexicographers, however, would see it the other way round, deriving sarīr ‘bed, throne’ from surūr ‘pleasure, tranquility of the mind’ because »it [sc. a sarīr] generally belongs to persons of ease and affluence and of authority, and to kings« – Lane iv (1872). In contrast, a dependence of ‘joy’ on ↗surur, sirār ‘line of the forehead, facial feature’ (as *‘emotion recognizable from facial expression’) is not discussed anywhere. Moreover, on a few occasions, surūr is also interpreted as a pl., meaning ‘bundle of scented herbs’ (or flowers), so that the vb. sarra sometimes also takes the specific sense of ‘complimenter qn en lui présentant des herbes odoriférantes’ – Kazimirski1860. The values of sarra and surūr appear as specifications here; but couldn’t it be the other way round, so that ‘joy, happiness, pleasure’ could be read as a generalisation of ‘bundle of scented herbs’?
▪ Extra-Ar evidence that could help sort things out is scarce and perh. irrelevant, as the “cognates” suggested by some scholars probably aren’t genuine cognates or are based on weak textual evidence.

▪ Lane iv (1872) also has: ^†sarr ‘man who rejoices, or gladdens, another, makes him happy’ (also in the connection with barr: raǧul^un sarr^un barr^un ‘man who treats his brethren with goodness, affection, gentleness, rejoices them’)

▪ According to Leslau2006 (CDG), C. Rabin (in Hamito-Semitica, 1975: 90) connected Ar sarra ‘to rejoice’ with the complex Akk šarāru ‘to sway, vacillate’, Ug m-srr ‘bird’ (from srr ‘fly’), Aram srsr ‘to fly’, Gz sarara, śarara ‘to fly, fly forth, leap up in the air, leap upon, rush upon, spring forth, assault, cover (of male animal), roam’. Leslau himself would be reluctant to accept such a relation and rather connect the items put forward by Rabin to Ar ↗sāra ‘to leap, mount’.
▪ Zammit2002: cf. Ug mšr (< šrr) ‘Gegenstand der Freude’?
▪ For cognates of ↗surr, ↗surraẗ, or ↗sarīr on which sarra most likely is dependent, see s.v., and, for the general picture, ↗√SRː (SRR).

▪ See above, section CONC and, for the overall picture, ↗√SRː (SRR).

–

► sarrara, vb. II, to make happy, gladden, delight, cheer: caus.
► ʔasarra, vb. IV, 1 to make happy, gladden, delight, cheer: caus.; 2 ↗sirr.

► ^BP#3830surūr, n., joy, happiness, delight, pleasure; glee, gaiety, hilarity, mirth: vn. I.
► sarrāʔᵘ, n., happiness, prosperity: | fī ’l-sarrāʔ wa’l-ḍarrāʔᵘ, expr., in good and bad days, for better or for worse.
► masarraẗ, pl. āt, n.f., joy, happiness, delight, pleasure; glee, gaiety, hilarity, mirth: vn. I.
► sārr, adj., gladdening, gratifying, joyous, glad, cheering, delightful: PA I.
► masrūr, adj., glad, happy, delighted (bi at), pleased (bi with): PP I.
► musirr, adj., gratifying, delightful, pleasant: PA IV.

sirr سِرّ , pl. ʔasrār

ID … • Sw – • BP 792 • APD … • © SG | 15Feb2021

√SRː (SRR)

1 secret; secret thought; secrecy; mystery; 2 underlying reason (of s.th.); 3 sacrament (Chr.); 4 heart, inmost – WehrCowan1979

▪ The value ‘secret, to hide’ of √SRː (SRR) seems to be dependent on ‘navel’ (↗surraẗ, from ↗surr ‘umbilical cord’), either directly (the navel being interpreted as a pudendum or s.th. secret), or via the sense of ‘centre, middle’ and, hence, ‘innermost’ part of s.th., that surraẗ also can take (and thereby itself become equivalent to sirr which in its turn can signify the ‘heart, inmost’).
▪ Extra-Ar evidence that could help sort things out is scarce and perh. irrelevant, as the “cognates” suggested by some scholars probably aren’t genuine cognates. Thus neither the Ug srr (Gt) ‘to confide (?)’ nor Ug sr ‘false’ (Akk sarru), mentioned by Tropper2008, nor Ug šrr ‘in secret’ (Zammit2002) seem to be reliable enough to build a well-founded hypothesis on. Dillmann1865: 384 suggested to assume a kinship betw. Ar sārra, vb. III, ‘to confide a secret’, and Gz sawwara, śawwara ‘to hide, conceal, cover over, shield, screen, protect’, səwwər, səwwur ‘hidden, concealed, covered, secret, obscure’, (pl.) səwwərāt ‘mysteries’ (values given in Leslau2006-CDG; cf. also Aram swyr ‘hide’ and, ultimately, perh. also the complex treated under Ar ↗sūr ‘wall’). But this, too, is highly speculative.
▪ Possibly from sirr is derived ↗surriyyaẗ ‘concubine’, as *‘woman whom a man may show his “secret”, i.e., his penis, or who shows a man her pudenda, or whose existence a man tends to conceal, i.e., keep as a secret, from his wife’. In line with this are attestations of sirr in ClassAr as ^†‘penis, vulva’, then also ^†‘concubitus, cohabitation’ as well as ^†‘marriage’ and ^†‘adultery, fornication’ (see section HIST, below). Where the ‘secret’ has no sexual connotation it can take the meaning of *‘innermost, best part, essence’ and then signify, for instance, the ^†‘marrow, pure\choice\best part of s.th.’, or the ^†‘inmost = best\most fruitful part (of a valley, etc.)’, hence also ‘goodness, excellence’ in general.
▪ From ‘to let into a secret, confide s.th. to s.o.’, the meaning ‘to reveal (a secret)’ has developed, giving rise to counting sarra among the so-called ʔaḍdād, i.e., words that can take contradictory meanings—sometimes sparking hermeneutical controversies about the meaning of certain Qur’anic passages (see ↗surriyyaẗ).

▪ For sirr, Kazimirski1860 and Lane iv (1872) have also the values (now obsolete):

^†‘penis, vulva, external portion of the organs of generation’, hence the expr. ĭltaqà ’l-sirrān ‘the two pudenda met’; hence also
^†‘concubitus | cohabitation avec une femme; hence also marriage’, cf. expr. wāʕadahā sirran ‘he promised her marriage, she promising him the same’; but also ^†‘adultery, fornication’ (cf. walad al-sirr ‘bastard’)
^†‘commencement\first night of the lunar month’, or its ‘middle’, e.g., sirr al-šahr / al-layl ‘the middle of the month / the night’;
^†‘marrow, pure\choice\best part of s.th.’;
^†‘the low\depressed part of a valley, its best\most fruitful part, or its middle’; cf. also ʔarḍ^un sirr^un ‘fruitful\good land’, hence also ‘goodness; excellence’ in general

Moreover, there is ^†sarar ‘secret discourse, secret communication (betw. two persons or parties)’
▪ Due to the ambiguity in meaning of vb. IV, a controversy arouse around Q 10:54 (and 34:33) wa-ʔasarrū ’l-nadāmaẗa lammā raʔaw-u ’l-ʕaḏāba. While some interpreted this as ‘and they will be openly remorseful when they see the chastisement’, others read it as ‘▪ … secretly remorseful▪ …’

▪ ?Tropper2008: Ug sr** ‘falsch’, Akk sarru.
▪ Tropper2008: Ug srr (Gt) ‘anvertrauen (?)’, Ar srr III, IV ‘jdm e Geheimnis anvertrauen, heimlich mitteilen’.
▪ Zammit2002: cf. Ug šrr ‘in secret’.
▪ Leslau2006 (CDG): Gz sawwara, śawwara ‘to hide, conceal, cover over, shield, screen, protect’, səwwər, səwwur ‘hidden, concealed, covered, secret, obscure’, (pl.) səwwərāt ‘mysteries’. Cf. Aram swyr ‘hide’, (Dillmann 1865: 384 suggests) Ar sārra ‘to confide a secret’.

▪ Kogan2015: 396-7 #12: »The only immediate cognate of protAram *šūr ‘wall’ is Ar ↗sūr with the same meaning. The Ar term has often been considered an Aramaism (Fraenkel 1886: 237-8), which becomes less evident in view of Sab ms₁wrt (pl.) ‘wall,’ h-s₁r ‘to build a wall’, Qat s₁wr ‘to build a wall around’ and Te sor ‘wall, partition wall’ (unless an Arabism). Hbr šūr, although probably autochthonous in such passages as Ps 18:30 = 2S 22:30 and Gn 49:22, is a rare poetic synonym of the standard Hbr terms for wall, such as ḳīr, ḥōmā and gādēr. No fully persuasive verbal origin for *šūr- is at hand, but an ultimate connection with Gz sawwara ‘to hide, conceal, shield, screen, protect’ (CDG 520, with cognates in other EthSem langs) and Mhr sər, Jib serr ‘to cover’ cannot be excluded (cf. Marrassini 1971:76-9)«.
▪ Nöldeke1904 counts sarra among the ʔaḍdād, meaning, allegedly, not only ‘to hide, conceal’ but also ‘to reveal’, developed from *‘to deal with the hidden in such a way that it is brought to light’. The two contrary significations are mentioned also in Lane iv (1872), following Zabīdī’s Tāǧ; however, Lane thinks that the attribution of the sense of ‘to reveal’ to sarra is due to a »mistranscription«, where it actually should be vb. IV, ʔasarra ‘to tell confidentially, confide (bi or h s.th. ʔilà to s.o.)’, hence ‘to reveal (s.th. to s.o.)’.

–

► sirran, adv., secretly, privately
► sirran wa-ʕalaniyyaẗan, adv., secretly and publicly
► sirr al-layl, n., watchword, password
► ʔasrār al-qurʔān, n.pl., the secret meaning of the Koran
► kātib al-sirr and kātim al-sirr, n., secretary
► kalimaẗ al-sirr, watchword, password
► bi-sirrikum or fī sirrikum, expr., to your health!, cheerio! skoal!
► fī sirrihī, adv., secretly, inwardly, in his heart
► ʔatʕaba sirrahū, vb. IV, to trouble [s.o.’s heart], worry, bother, harass s.o.
► ʔaǧrà sirran, vb. IV, to dispense a sacrament (Chr.)
► qaddasa ’llāhu sirrahū, expr., may God hallow his secret/heart/soul! (eulogy after the name of a deceased Muslim saint)

► sārra, vb. III, to confide a secret (-h to s.o.): assoc. | sārrahū fī ʔuḏnih, expr., to whisper in s.o.’s ear.
► ʔasarra, vb. IV, 1 ↗sarra; 2 to keep secret, hide, conceal, disguise (s.th.); to tell confidentially, confide (bi‑ or -h s.th. ʔilà to s.o.); to tell under one’s breath, whisper: denom. | ʔasarra fī ʔuḏnih, expr., to whisper in s.o.’s ear (s.th.).
► ĭstasarra, vb. X, 1 to try to hide; to hide, be hidden (ʕan from): conat.; 2 ↗surriyyaẗ

► ^BP#1848sirrī, adj., 1 secret; private; confidential; mysterious, cryptic; 2 sacramental (Chr.): nisba formation. | al-ʔamrāḍ al-sirriyyaẗ, n.pl., venereal diseases.
► ^BP#2744sirriyyaẗ, n.f., secret; secretiveness, secrecy: abstr. formation in iyyaẗ for abstract concepts.
► sarīraẗ, pl. sarāʔirᵘ, n.f., 1 secret; secret thought; 2 mind, heart, soul:… | ṣafāʔ al-sarīraẗ, n., clearness of conscience; ṭayyib al-sarīraẗ, adj., guileless, simplehearted.
► misarraẗ, pl. masārrᵘ, n.f., 1 speaking tube; 2 telephone: n.instr., cf. the old value ^†‘instrument in which one speaks secretly, like a roll, or scroll’ – Lane iv (1872): vn. I.
► mustasarr, n., place of concealment: n.loc.

surriyyaẗ سُرِّيّة , pl. sarāriyy

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

√SRː (SRR)

n.f.

concubine – WehrCowan1979

▪ Related to / derived from ‘secret’ (↗sirr) or ‘navel’ (↗surraẗ, from surr ‘umbilical cord’), as *‘woman who shows her secret parts/navel, or to whom a man shows his secrets/navel’, or from ‘to please’ (↗sarra), as *‘woman who gives pleasure’?
▪ Is the ambiguity in the corresponding vb.s between tasarrara and tasarrà (V), or ĭstasarra and ĭstasarrà (X), simply due to phonological reasons, the long vowel in tasarrà / ĭstasarrà compensating the loss of a syllable or facilitating pronunciation, or should one suspect the lexicographers’ explanation and rather assume some other—hitherto obscure—reason, an indication of an origin that is different from both ‘secret’ and ‘to please’? But what could that be?

▪ First attestation, according to HDAL, in a ḥadīṯ (tentatively dated 632 by HDAL) in which the Prophet talks to his wife Ḥafṣaẗ bt. ʕUmar (Sunan al-Bayhaqī) telling her that he will regard a certain surriyyaẗ as taboo.

▪ ?Leslau2006 (CDG): Gz tasarra ‘to be covered (female animal), be attacked’

▪ Lane iv (1872) reports the controversy among the ClassAr lexicographers around the two versions of vb. V, tasarrara and tasarrà. While some regard the latter simply as a variant owing to the difficulty of pronunciation of forms like tasarrartu (with -rr-r- > rr-y, giving tasarraytu), others thought that tasarrà was not only an alleviating form, but the correct root.
▪ Lane iv (1872) also reports that surriyyaẗ is generally thought to derive from sirr as signifying ^†‘concubitus’ or, alternatively, ‘concealment’ »because a man often conceals and protects her from his wife«, the change of vowel from i to u in the nisba being a phenomenon known also from dahr/duhrī, sahlaẗ/suhlī, etc.; others think it is u »to distinguish it from sirriyyaẗ which is applied to ‘a free woman with whom one has sexual intercourse secretly’, or ‘one who prostitutes herself’; others think it is not from sirr ^†‘concubitus’ but from surr in the sense of surūr ‘joy’ »because her owner rejoices in her«.

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► tasarrà (and tasarrara), vb. V, to take (bi‑ or -hā a woman) as concubine (surriyyaẗ): denom.?
► ĭstasarra, vb. X, 1 ↗sirr; 2 to take as concubine (-hā a woman): request., denom.?

► tasarrin, det. -ī, n., concubinage: vn. V.
► ĭstisrār, n., concubinage: vn. X.

surr سُرّ , pl. ʔasirraẗ

√SRː (SRR)

umbilical cord – WehrCowan1979

▪ From WSem (or CSem?) (Kogan2011: protSem, best attested in CSem) *šurr‑ ‘navel (string)’.
▪ Zetterstéen1942 postulated (for the whole root √SRR) a »sense primitif« of *‘lier, serrer’ [? based on ‘umbilical cord’]. In the light of the Sem evidence, this assumption seems hardly tenable; cf., however, Dolgopolsky2012 #2106 who puts Sem *šurr- ‘navel string’ together with Berb *√sr˻w˼ ‘to bind, weave’ and NatIndEur *ser- ‘thread, string’ [cf. etymonline: IE *ser- ‘to line up’], all going back to a hypothetical Nostr *säR˹U˺ (= *säRo?) ‘sinew, fibre’. Regarding the navel string, not the navel itself as the primary value makes sense in the light of the fact that in Ar, the n.f. surraẗ ‘navel’ appears to be formed from the n.m. surr ‘umbilical cord’, not the other way round. All other values in the root, however, seem to be derived from ‘navel’ rather than from ‘navel string’ which continued to live a rather isolated life while ‘navel’ began to develop several new meanings.

▪ HDAL: no attestation given yet

▪ Cf. ↗surraẗ, n.f., 1 navel, umbilicus; 2 centre

▪ See ↗surraẗ, and ↗√SRː (SRR) for the general picture.

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► surrī, adj., umbilical | al-ḥabl al-surrī, n., umbilical cord
► surur and sirar, n., umbilical cord: var. of surr.
► surraẗ, pl. -āt, surar, n.f., 1 navel, umbilicus; 2 centre: derived from surr, or is the latter a back-formation? See ↗surraẗ.

surraẗ سُرّة , pl. ‑āt, surar

√SRː (SRR)

n.f.

1 navel, umbilicus; 2 centre – WehrCowan1979

▪ From WSem (or CSem?) (Kogan2011: protSem, best attested in CSem) *šurr‑ ‘navel (string)’.
▪ Zetterstéen1942 postulated (for the whole root √SRR) a »sense primitif« of *‘lier, serrer’ [? based on ‘umbilical cord’]. In the light of the Sem evidence, this assumption seems hardly tenable; cf., however, Dolgopolsky2012 #2106, who puts Sem *šurr- ‘navel (string)’ together with Berb *√sr˻w˼ ‘to bind, weave’ and NatIndEur *ser- ‘thread, string’ [cf. etymonline: IE *ser- ‘to line up’], all going back to a hypothetical Nostr *säR˹U˺ (= *säRo?) ‘sinew, fibre’. Regarding the navel string, not the navel itself as the primary value would make sense in the light of the fact that Ar surraẗ ‘navel’ appears to be formed, by adding f. aẗ, from the m. ↗surr ‘umbilical cord’, not the other way round. (Otherwise, surr would be a back formation from surraẗ, to distinguish the ‘navel string’ from the ‘navel’.)
▪ However, all other values in the root seem to be dependent on ‘navel’ rather than on ‘navel string’ – see ↗√SRː (SRR) for the wider picture. Therefore, one may assume that surraẗ, once derived from surr, started to live a life of its own, leaving the ‘navel string’ behind as a rather isolated value.

▪ For surraẗ, Lane iv (1872) has also

^†‘small cavity, or hollow, of the belly, in the middle thereof’, hence also
^†surraẗ al-faras ‘[the navel of the horse =] the star, of Pegasus, that is in the head of Andromeda’, and
^†masrūraẗ n.f., ‘the kind of jar termed muzammalaẗ, having a surraẗ, meaning a perforation in the middle, in which is fixed a tube of silver or lead, whence one drinks’.

▪ For surraẗ, Kazimirski1860 not only gives ‘navel’ but also

^†‘milieu, fond d’une vallée, la partie la plus encaissée’ and
^†‘qui égaye, qui cause de la joie (femme)’.

▪ First attestations of several values in HDAL: 528 ‘navel’, 554 (surraẗ al-wādī) ‘the best part of the valley’ (cf. ↗sirr), 632 (surraẗ al-šahr) ‘the middle of the month’ (cf. ↗sarār), 811 ‘affluence, ease, well-being’ (cf. ↗sarīr)

▪ SED #254, Kogan2015: 198-99 #54: Ug šr (epigraphically unreliable); Hbr šōr, postBiblHbr šārār ‘navel, umbilical cord’; JP šōrā ‘umbilical cord’, Syr šerrā, šurtā ‘umbilicus’, Mand šura ‘navel’; Ar surr, sarar, sirar ‘umbilical cord’; Mhr *šīrε̄ ‘navel’ (see comments below), Hrs šerā, Soq šíraḥ, pl. šireʕheten ‘nombril’, also ŝiraḥ.
▪ Dolgopolsky2012 #2106: Ug šr, BiblHbr šor* ‘navel string, navel’, JPA šôrā, JEA šûrâ, Syr šerrā, Mand šura, nMand šorra ‘navel’, Ar surr ‘navel string’; Mhr ŝīrε̄ ‘navel’, Hrs šerā, Jib s͗irᴐʕ, Soq ŝirᴐʕ ̃širᴐʕ. – On the AfrAs level, the author sees cognates in (Berb) Izn/Rf asraw ‘fil de chaîne du métier à tisser’, Rf B/A fiřu usra ‘fil horizontal (trame)’, Tmz i-sirr (pl. i-sarr-ən) ‘fibre de bois\viande; fil de trame, fin pour le tissage des djellabas ou des burnous’. – For an assumed IE connection and, hence, a Nostr dimension, see DISC below.

▪ According to Kogan2015: 198-99 #54, Ug šr is not reliably attested epigraphically, so it is not clear whether one should stop reconstruction at the WSem level or whether the word might have a CSem dimension.
▪ Kogan2015: 198-99 #54: »The origin of protCSem *šurr- ‘navel (string)’ is uncertain, its attribution to the hypothetical biconsonantal element *Sr(S) “clustering about the notion of strength and stability” (Faber 1984: 213-215) is scarcely convincing, although an eventual connection with the verbal root *šrr ‘to be firm, hard,’ represented by Hbr šərīrūt ‘stubbornness’ (HALOT 1658) and Syr šar ‘convaluit, firmatus est’ (LSyr 802, SL 1611), cannot be ruled out. Possible modSAr cognates discussed in SED I #254 are rather unreliable«.

▪ If Dolgopolsky2012 is right in assuming a Nostr dimension, then Ar surr, surraẗ ‘navel (string)’ and its derivatives may be akin to all the descendants of IE *ser- ‘to line up’ (Dolgopolsky: ‘thread, string’), such as, e.g., Engl assert(ion), as-, con-sort, desert (vb., ‘to leave one’s duty’), dissertation, insert, sermon, sorcer-y, -er, series, sort.

► surrī, adj., umbilical: nisba formation. | al-ḥabl al-surrī, n., umbilical cord.
► surur and sirar, n., umbilical cord: var.s of surr.
► surr, pl. -āt, surar, n.f., 1 navel, umbilicus; 2 centre: f. formation

surur سُرُر

√SRː (SRR)

line of the palm or forehead – WehrCowan1979

▪ The meaning seems to have developed from the notion of *‘hollowness, cavity’ associated with the ‘navel’ (*‘cavity in the belly’). surur and the synonymous sirār therefore belong to the complex treated under ↗surr ‘umbilical cord’ and ↗surraẗ ‘navel’ and, as a whole, in the root entry ↗√SRː (SRR).
▪ But is perh. also surūr ‘joy’ (↗sarra) dependent on surur ‘line of the forehead, facial feature’, as *‘emotion recognizable from facial expression’?

▪ Earliest attestations according to HDAL: surur not attested yet; var. sirār: 536 (sirār al-baṭn etc.) ‘wrinkles and folds in the belly’ (cf. ↗sarār).

…

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► sirār, pl. ʔasirraẗ, ʔasārīrᵘ, n., line of the palm or forehead; pl. features, facial expression, air, also ʔasārīr al-waǧh.

sarār سَرار

√SRː (SRR)

sarār al-šahr, n., last night of the lunar month – WehrCowan1979

▪ Probably from *‘best part, choice’, from *‘middle, centre’, from ‘navel’ (↗surraẗ), from ‘navel string’ (↗surr), from WSem (?CSem) *šurr- ‘umbilical cord’, ultimately perh. from a hypothetical Nostr *säR˹U˺ (= *säRo?) ‘sinew, fibre’.
▪ Another etymology is considered by DelOlmoLeteSanmartín2003, where Ar sarar ‘last night of the lunar month’ is seen as cognate to Ug srr ‘to set, sink, hide’, in its turn allegedly cognate to Hbr swr, srr. Tropper2008, however, is not sure about the reading of the underlying Ug phrase b srr špš as ‘at the setting of the Sun’ (as the phrase is rendered in DelOlmoLeteSanmartín2003); he also leaves it open where the vn. srr should be derived from: from sw/yr ‘to leave’ (Hbr √swr) or its »Wurzelvariante« √srr.

▪ …

▪ If dependent on Ar ↗surraẗ ‘navel’, cf. there for cognates.
▪ If from another etymon, then cf. perh. DelOlmoLeteSanmartín2003, who translate the Ug b srr špš as ‘at the setting of the Sun’, seeing Ar the Ug √srr ‘to set, sink, hide’ (Hbr swr, srr) as cognate forms.

▪ The meaning ‘last night of the lunar month’ is probably secondary, the result of regarding the last night as the most important, or best, or essential, one. In ClassAr texts, one equally finds sarār (and also sirr) al-šahr in the sense of ^†‘commencement\first night of the month’, or its ‘middle’, and sarār (or sirr) al-layl meaning ‘the middle of the the night’ – Lane iv (1872). Given the overall picture, ‘middle’ or ‘best part of’ seems to be the primary meaning.
▪ In contrast, DelOlmoLeteSanmartín2003 postulate a connection with an Ug word meaning ‘sunset’ (see section CONC, above); but this rendering seems doubtful to Tropper2008.
▪ For semantic development and relation to other items in the root, cf. ↗√SRː (SRR).

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sarīr سّرير , pl. ʔasirraẗ, surur, sarāyirᵘ

√SRː (SRR)

1 bedstead, bed; 2 throne, elevated seat – WehrCowan1979

▪ ‘Bed, throne’ is usually seen to derive from surūr ‘joy, happiness, pleasure, tranquility of the mind’ (↗sarra).
▪ However, the primary meaning may have been ‘the part where the head rests upon the neck’ (Freytag1833, Kazimirski1860, SED) so that one could imagine a semantic development along the line *‘neck > neck-rest > place to rest > bed; throne’. For this ‘part where the head rests upon the neck’, SED #253 tentatively assumes a Sem *š/sar- or *s/car- ‘vertebral column, backbone’ as the common source of the Ar and some EthSem forms. However, such an assumption rests only of scarce attestations. A relation of this complex to modSAr forms meaning ‘behind’ is rejected by Kogan2015.
▪ One could also think of the ‘base of the head, neck’ as a value having arisen from the interpretation of [v1] the navel (↗surraẗ) as ‘centre, innermost part’, hence ‘base’.

▪ Lane iv (1872) has ‘the part where the head rests upon the neck’, »said to be derived from surūr [joy, pleasure, tranquility of the mind] because it generally belongs to persons of ease and affluence and of authority, and to kings« (> ‘dominion, sovereignty, rule, authority; ease, comfort, affluence’). – Hence, and as an appellation of good omen, ‘bier, before the corpse is carried upon it’
▪ Kazimirski1860 not only gives ‘bed’ and ‘throne’, but also (from the former) ‘brancard (avant qu’on y ait mis le cadavre)’ and ‘base de la tête, endroit où elle est jointe au cou’ (= Freytag1833: ‘radix capitis, qua cohaeret cum collo’), as well as (from the latter) ‘dignité royale, royauté’ and ‘bien-être’
▪ HDAL: 555 ‘place where the head rests upon the neck’, 569 ‘bier’, 575 ‘throne’, 590 ‘middle (of a valley)’, 621 ‘place to sit or sleep on’, 791 ‘well-off, affluent’

▪ Zammit2002: lists sarīr, but without cognates in Sem.

▪ ClassAr lexicographers tend to relate derive sarīr ‘bed, throne’ from surūr ‘joy, happiness, pleasure, tranquility of the mind’ (↗sarra) because »it [sc. a sarīr] generally belongs to persons of ease and affluence and of authority, and to kings« (hence also the values ^†‘throne; dominion, sovereignty, rule, authority | dignité royale, royauté; ease, comfort, affluence | bien-être’, as well as the expr. ^†zāla ʕan sarīrih ‘déchu de son bien-être’, and, as an appellation of good omen, ‘bier, before the corpse is carried upon it’ – Lane iv (1872) | Kazimirski1860). However, it may be the other way round, i.e., ‘bed, throne’ > ‘ease, happiness, peace of mind’.
▪ According to SED and Kogan2015, the original meaning of sarīr is ^†‘the part where the head rests upon the neck’ (value given also by Freytag1833 and Kazimirski1860), which, actually, also is the value first attested in the sources (555 CE, according to HDAL). So one could think of a development *‘neck > neck-rest > place to rest > bed; throne’. Given another early attestation of sarīr (590 CE – HDAL) as ‘middle (of a valley)’, the assumption made by BAH2008 that one should connect the ‘base of the head, neck’ to ↗surraẗ ‘centre, innermost part’ (originally ‘navel’), may be correct. In contrast, SED #253 tentatively assumes a Sem *š/sar- or *s/car- ‘vertebral column, backbone’ as the common source of the Ar and some EthSem forms. However, the authors are aware of the fact that such an assumption is based on »[s]carce attestation in Ar and MEth only; neither of these languages distinguishes between *š and *s. Note doubling of the second radical and annexation of -w as a third radical in Ar and a full stem reduplication in Eth. See a derived term in Eth and Gur (Sel, Cha, Enn, End, Gye) särsär ‘instrument made of the ribs of a cow and used for leveling the floor’.« The idea, put forward in SED, that this complex is »likely related«, »with a meaning shift«, to modSAr forms meaning ‘behind’ is rejected by Kogan2015: 569 #97: »The origin of prot-modSAr *sar [> Mhr sār, Jib ser, Soq sɛr] ‘behind’ is uncertain. Contra W. Leslau and M. Bittner (1914:15), any connection with protSem *ʔaṯar- ‘trace’ can be safely excluded for phonological reasons. Quite far-fetched is the comparison between the modSAr terms and Ar sarīr ‘the part where the head rests upon the neck’ (Lane 1339), sarāt- ‘back’ (ibid. 1353), Amh säräsär ‘vertebra, spinal cord’ (AED 487) suggested in SED I #253. Shall one rather compare Hbr swr ‘to turn aside’ (HALOT 748), assuming a semantic development from the more original meaning ‘to turn back’?«

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