Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ ḤRM_1 ‘forbidden, prohibited, taboo, sacred’ ↗ḥarām; ‘inviolable place, sacred precinct, sanctuary; wife’ ↗ḥaram; ‘harem; female members of the family, women’ ↗ḥarīm
▪ ḤRM_2 ‘thief, robber, bandit’ ↗ḥarāmī
▪ ḤRM_3 ‘woolen blanket (worn as a garment around head and body)’ ↗ḥirām
▪ ḤRM_4 ‘handkerchief’ ↗maḥramaẗ

♦ Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (acc. to BAH2008): ‘inviolable place, sanctuary, that which is under one’s protection; womenfolk, wife; to forbid, forbidden; sinful, illegitimate, taboo; to deny s.o. s.th., to preclude, exclusion; to respect, to honour, to revere, to venerate’

conc

▪ [v1] : Huehnergard2011 reconstructs protSem *X̣RM ‘to separate, ban, prohibit’, while Kogan2015 is reluctant to accept suggested Akk cognates and, pointing also to the »noteworthy … complete absence of *ḥrm from extant Ug texts«, restricts his reconstruction to protWSem *ḤRM ‘to forbid’. – The term has developed three important connotations: religious (sanctuary, holy place, etc.), sexual-moral-legal (women, forbidden for others to see\touch\marry), and ethical (respect, dignity) – see section DERIV in entry ↗ḥaram.
▪ Ultimately, all other values [v2]–[v4] may be derived from [v1] so that one could imagine a development along the line *ʻto forbid, sanctity, inviolability, taboo > to cover and thereby protect (from being violated) > piece of cloth used for veiling head\body (and thereby protecting it from violation), scarf, foulard, turban > handkerchief’.
▪ [v2] : prob. a simple nisba formation from ḥarām ‘forbidden, prohibited, taboo, sacred’, thus depending on [v1].
▪ [v3] : According to DRS (#ḤRM-1), Ar ḥirām ‘woolen blanket (worn as a garment around head and body)’ is cognate to Akk ḫarāmu ‘to cover’ (CAD: ʻto stretch or place a membrane, skin or a layer of metal over and object; to place a tablet in a clay case’). Moreover, the authors think the value [v3] ʻto cover’ and the complex [v1] ‘to forbid, exclude, deny, prohibit’ »peuvent être liées« – see below, section DISC.
▪ [v4] : In MSA and many Ar dialects, the word maḥramaẗ means ‘handkerchief’, while it signifies ‘turban’ in ḤḍrAr (as does also Soq mḥármeh). For Soq, Leslau suggests a connection with Ar ↗ḫimār ʻveil covering head and face of a woman’.¹ In contrast, the authors of DRS rather feel inclined to compare [v4] to [v3] ʻto cover’ (and in this way also [v1] ʻto forbid’). Thus, etymologically, [v3] and [v4] may indeed be essentially one. – Any interference of Engl handkerchief or Fr mouchoir? Like the Ar ‘handkerchief’, the Eur words seem to have been, originally, pieces of cloth to veil/protect the head or body… See below, section DISC.
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1. Allegedly also akin to an Aram ḥūmrā ʻcover (n.)’, but I was unable to verify this word in any of the dictionaries at my disposal – SG.

hist

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cogn

▪ DRS 9 (2010) #ḤRM-1 Akk ḫarāmu ‘couvrir’ (CAD: arāmu~ḫarāmu~erēmu ʻto stretch or place (a membrane, skin or a layer of metal) over and object, place a tablet in a clay case’), Ar ḥirām ‘couverture’. -?2 Akk ḫarāmu ‘séparer’; – Moab *hḥrm, Hbr hęḥ^ęrīm ‘consacrer, vouer’; Hbr ‘vouer à la destruction totale’, JP ḥarem ‘excommunier, interdire, déclarer qc mise à part pour l’usage du Temple, vouer à la destruction’, Nab ḥrm ‘chose sacrée, inviolable’, hḥrm ‘vouer’, Mnd ḥrm ‘interdire, maudire’; Ar ḥarama ‘repousser, tenir à distance, prohiber, déclarer illicite’, ḥarima ‘être illicite, être sacré et interdit à l’usage profane’, ḥaram ‘chose illicite, sacrée; enceinte sacrée; femme’; ḥurumāt ‘ordres et interdits inviolables (de Dieu)’, DaṯAr miḥrām ‘sanctuaire’; SAr ḥrm (vb.): Sab ‘être interdit, proscrit; être en état de sacralisation (pèlerin)’, Qat ‘être prohibé, puni; décréter, commander’, Soq ḥrm ‘maudire’, Ḥrs ḥerm ‘être privé (de droits conjugaux)’, Mhr ḥōrəm, Ḥrs ḥārəm ‘se repentir, jurer de ne pas’, Jib oḥúrm ‘jurer de ne pas’, Mhr ḥrūm ‘provoquer un désastre en enfreignant un interdit’, Jib aḥrím ‘interdire’; – ḥrm (n.): Sab ḥrm, Sab Qat Min mḥrm ‘enclos, sanctuaire’, Mhr Ḥrs ḥərōm, Jib ḥárúm ‘interdit, tabou’, Ḥrs ḥərām ‘mariage, légitimité’, Mhr ḥərmēt ‘femme, épouse; femme sans défense, veuve’, Jib ḥarmɛ́t ‘veuve’; Gz ḥarama, Te ḥarräma, Amh harrämä,arrämä ‘interdire’, Te məḥram ‘sanctuaire’, Tña ḥarämä ‘être interdit’. – ? YemAr ḥaram(ä) ‘mort naturelle’. -3 ḤḍrAr maḥrameh ‘foulard de tête’, EAr maḥrameh, MġrAr maḥramah, mḥarmah ‘mouchoir, foulard’, Soq mḥármeh ‘turban’. -4 Mhr ḥōrem ‘route, voie’.
▪ [v1] Kogan2015: 84 #23: Hbr ḥrm (hip.) ‘to put under a ban’, Syr ḥrm (ap.) ‘devovit, Ar ḥrm ‘to be forbidden, prohibited’, Sab ḥrm ‘to put under restraint’, Min ḥrm ‘proclamer sacre’, Qat ḥrm ‘to be forbidden’, Gz ḥarama ‘to forbid’, Mhr ḥōrəm ‘to repent; to swear not to do s.th.’, ḥrūm ‘to bring disaster by doing s.th. forbidden’, Jib aḥrím ‘to forbid’, Soq ḥórim ‘maudire’.
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disc

▪ [v1] Kogan2015: 84 #23 reports that protWSem *ḤRM ‘to forbid’ has been often compared with Akk ḫarimtu ‘prostitute’, which, however, as Kogan himself thinks, »is far from evident either phonologically or semantically.« Moreover, »[t]he presumably related verb [Akk] ḫarāmu ‘to separate’ is very sparsely attested« (ibid., n.246), and Akk does not seem to have an »exact verbal match corresponding to the semantic sphere of protWSem *ḤRM.«¹ Taken together with the absence of Ug cognates, the lack of an Akk verbal match and the doubtfulness of Akk ḫarimtu as a parallel, Kogan feels it is safer to posit the basic *ḤRM ʻto forbid’ only for protWSem rather than for the common protSem lexicon.
▪ [v1] : DRS asks whether one should perh. also compare protSem √ḪRM »dont certaines valeurs sont assez proches de celles de ḤRM, pour qu’il soit difficile, parfois, de différencier avec certitude, celles qui relèvent de l’une ou l’autre racine; ainsi par exemple dans le cas de Akk ḫarāmu ʻséparer’« (which, in their opinion, could be either from *ḤRM or *ḪRM). – See root entry ↗ḪRM (basic value: ‘to pierce, make a hole’).
▪ [v2] : The very widespread word for ‘thief, robber, bandit’, Ar ḥarāmī, is not mentioned in DRS, prob. because the authors regard its dependence on ḥarām as unquestionable. It could indeed be a simple nisba formation from the latter, thus meaning *ʻs.o. dealing with forbidden\unlawful things’ or (from ḥarām in the sense of ʻcursed, accursed’) *ʻperson who may\should be cursed’.
▪ [v4] (≙ DRS #ḤRM-3) : If we assume that [v3] ʻwoolen blanket’ and [v4] ʻhandkerchief’ essentially are one and that they are related to [v1] ʻto forbid’, one may posit the hypothetical semantic development within the root as follows: *ʻto forbid, sanctity, inviolability, taboo (incl. women, and dignity, respect) > to cover and thereby protect (s.th. taboo from being violated) > piece of cloth used for veiling head\body (and thereby protecting it from violation), scarf, foulard, turban > handkerchief’. The transition ʻhead\body cloth > handkerchief’ was perh. motivated by, or itself a motivating factor behind, a similar development in Eur langs, where e.g. Engl kerchief originally was a *ʻsquare piece of fabric folded and worn about the head, cloth for covering the head’, from mEngl kovrechief ʻpiece of cloth used to cover part of the head’, esp. a woman’s head-cloth or veil, from AngloFr courchief, oFr couvrechief ʻa kerchief’, lit. *ʻcover head’, from couvrir ʻto cover’ + chief ʻhead’ (< Lat caput ʻhead’). It was from lC14 that the Engl word came to be used as ʻpiece of cloth used about the person’ generally, for purposes other than covering the head; and from c. 1400 as ʻpiece of cloth used about the person, carried in the hand’ to wipe the face, etc., »a curious confluence of words for ʻhand’ and ʻhead’« (EtymOnline, as of 25Nov2020). If the parallel is not a mere coincidence, or due to a typologically similar development in Eastern and Western cultural history, esp. court culture, then one would have to search for the environment of cultural contact in which a calquing may have happened – in whatever direction.
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1. »Partially equivalent [to Akk ḫarimtu ‘prostitute’] are the nouns asakku and ikkibu, both borrowed from Sum.«

west

▪ Engl harem, harmattan, ihram, Marrano, Muharram ↗ḥaram (with further references).

deriv

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