ID – • Sw – • BP … • APD … • © SG | 13Apr2023, last update 21May2023
√ǦNḤ
1 side; 2 var. of ↗ǧunḥ – WehrCowan1976
▪ [v1] Ar ǧinḥ ‘side’ is a reflexion of a Sem word that Militarev&Kogan2005 (SED I #86) reconstruct (with some reluctance) as Sem *ganaḥ- ‘chest with upper arm/wing’ (< AfrAs *g˅n˅ḥ- ‘arm/leg; wing’). If their hypothesis is valid, ǧinḥ can be seen as the result of a semantic reduction and generalisation, orig. meaning *‘side of the chest where an arm/wing is’. The *‘wing’ component of the Sem etymon lives on in ↗ǧanāḥ ‘wing’, while *‘chest’ is still present in ↗ǧāniḥaẗ ‘rib; bosom’. The vb. I ↗ǧanaḥa ‘to lean toward, tend to’ is prob. denom. from ǧinḥ.
▪ [v2] : ǧinḥ sometimes also is exchangeable with ↗ǧunḥ ‘darkness, gloom’, perh. due to lexicalisation of frequent fig. expressions like fī ǧunḥ al-layl ‘in the dark of night, under cover of night’ (< *‘under the wings of the night’) or bayna ǧunḥay al-karà, lit. ‘between the two halves (*‘sides’) of slumber’, i.e., ‘at night when everyone’s asleep’.
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▪ DRS 3 (1993) #GNḤ-1-2 .... -3 Ar ǧanāḥ ‘aile, bord, côté’, ǧinḥ ‘bord, côté’, ǧunḥ ‘crépuscule’, ǧanaḥa ‘(se) pencher, s’incliner, décliner’, Jib génaḥ ‘aile’, Mhr agonəḥ ‘voler’, Soq ganḥ ‘côté’.
▪ MilitarevKogan2005 (SED II) #86: Ar ǧanāḥ, ǧāniḥaẗ, Soq ganḥ. | Outside Sem: Eg ḏnḥ (Pyr) ‘wing’, (18th Dyn) ‘leg or part of it’. Also related may be certain terms meaning ‘hand/arm’, ‘foot/leg’ and ‘wing’ in those Cush, Omot and Chad languages which do not differenciate between AfrAs *-ḥ and *-ʕ and are usually united under AfrAs *ga/in(a)ʕ- ‘hand’; the last may be eventually related to the present entry as a variant root.
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▪ MilitarevKogan2005 (SED II) #86: Reconstruction of Sem etymon is questionable. Anatomic terms valid for comparison are scarcely attested only in Ar and Soq where it can be an Ar loan. Cf. Mhr agōnəḥ ‘to fly’, likely related; Jib gɛ́naḥ ‘wing’ is an Arabism, according to Johnstone. The protSem reconstruction is, however, supported by the existence of an AfrAs (Eg) parallel.
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►ǧanaḥa, a (ǧunūḥ), vb., I, 1a to incline, be inclined, tend (li‑, ʔilà to); b to lean (li‑, ʔilà to, toward); c to turn, go over (ʔilà to), join (ʔilà s.th.), associate o.s. (ʔilà with); 2 to strand (ʕalà, ʔilà on a coast; ship); 3a to diverge, deviate, depart (ʕan from); b to turn away (ʕan from), break (ʕan with)
►ʔaǧnaḥa, vb. IV, 1a to incline, be inclined, tend (li‑, ʔilà to); b to lean (li‑, ʔilà to, toward); c to turn (li‑, ʔilà to s.th.); 2 to strand (ship): *Š-stem, (?) denom., from ǧinḥ or ǧanāḥ ►ʔaǧnaḥᵘ, adj., more inclined (ʔilà to): elat. formation
►ǧanūḥ, adj., inclined (ʔilà to s.th.)
►ǧunūḥ, n., inclination, leaning, bent, tendency (ʔilà to): vn. I
►ǧāniḥ, n., side, flank, wing
►ǧāniḥaẗ, pl. ǧawāniḥᵘ, n.f., 1 rib; 2 (pl. also:) bosom, heart, soul | bayna ǧawāniḥī, in my bosom, at heart; ṭafarat ǧawāniḥu-hā, she became happily excited, she trembled with joy For other values attached to the root, cf. ↗ǧanaḥa, ↗ǧunḥ, ↗ǧanāḥ, ↗ǧunāḥ, and ↗ǧāniḥaẗ, as well as, for the whole picture, root entry ↗ǦNḤ.
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