Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ Huehnergard2011#RGM: from Sem *RGM ‘to say, speak, call, shout, contest, lay claim to’; there may have been a t-stem *t-RGM ‘to speak to one another, translate’ already in protoSem times.
▪ The theory, summarized by Huehnergard in the prededing paragraph, is contested by a more recent one that argues (on account of the ending -annu) that the Akk term is a borrowing from Luwian – Smelik2013:141 (referring to Starke1993, Rahim1963 and Von Soden1989).

hist

▪ …

cogn

▪ BDB1906, Zimmern1914, CAD: Akk targumānu, turgumānu (CAD: targumannu ~ targamannu, turgumannu, targumjanu, from oAkk on) ‘interpreter, dragoman’, Aram targᵊmānā, turgᵊmānā, Ar tarǧamān ~ tarǧumān, turǧumān; Hbr tirgēm, Aram Syr targem, Ar tarǧama ‘to interpret, translate’; pBiblHbr targūm ‘translation, Targum’. – Cf. perh. also Ar raǧama ‘to conjecture, opine’.

disc

▪ Wellhausen1897 notes that Ar tarǧīm (vn. of D-stem raǧǧama) has the same meaning as ḍarb bi’l-ḥaṣy, i.e. ‘[the art of prophesy from] throwing pebbles’. From this, the sense of ‘to assume, conjecture’ could be derived: ‘to throw stones > to interpret the results, try to give them a meaning > to assume’. »Vielleicht hängt damit auch [Hbr] trgm zusammen: ‘enträtseln’, dann ‘dolmetschen’« (207, fn. 4), i.e., tarǧama, too, may be dependent on the heathen practice: ‘to throw stones > to interpret the results, solve the riddle > to explain, interpret’; cf. raǧǧama, D-stem of ↗raǧama (with Wellhausen1897:111-2 on ĭrtiǧām, ruǧmaẗ, raǧm).
▪ BDB1906: (on Akk targumānu ‘interpreter’, Hbr tirgēm, Aram Syr targem, Ar tarǧama ‘to interpret, translate’): perh. from √RGM, cf. Ar raǧama ‘to conjecture, opine’.
▪ Zimmern1914: Ar tarǧamān ~ tarǧumān ~ turǧumān < Aram targᵊmānā ~ turgᵊmānā < Akk targumānu ~ turgumānu ‘interpreter’.
▪ Huehnergard2011#RGM: Ar tarǧumān ‘translator’ < Aram targᵊmānā < Akk targumannu ‘interpreter’, either from Akk ragāmu ‘to speak, call, contest’ or from an earlier Sem t-stem vb., *t-rgm ‘to speak to one another, translate’.
▪ Smelik2013:141: “Although most scholars still hold that [Akk] targumannu(m) is related to the root [Akk] ragāmu ‘to call out’, this connection—and the supposedly inherited meaning of ‘speaking out aloud’ of the root TRGM—is almost certainly wrong. The noun-formation of targumannu(m) is neither Akk nor Sem, but points to a Luwian loanword in Akk. Via Aram, targumannu(m) was adopted in Hbr and Ar, and later in many IE langs.”

west

▪ Huehnergard2011#RGM: Not from Ar tarǧumān, but akin to the latter’s source, is Engl targum, from Mishnaic Hbr targūm ‘translation’, from Aram targᵊmtā (< *targᵊmā), back-formation from targᵊmānā, from Akk targumannu ‘interpreter’.

deriv

↗turǧumān.

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