Bibliotheca Polyglotta

ṢQR_3 ‘to strike, break stones’: ^†ṣaqara
ṢQR_4 ‘to light (a fire)’: ^†ṣaqara, ^†ṣaqqara
ṢQR_5 ‘to scorch, be scorching (sun)’: ^†ṣaqara, ^†ʔaṣqara
ṢQR_6 ‘very sour milk’: ^†ṣaqr
ṢQR_7 ‘sharp-sighted’: ^†ṣāqir
ṢQR_8 ‘treacle of dates, grapes’: ^†ṣaq(a)r
ṢQR_9 ‘blasphemer, unbeliever’: ^†ṣaqqār
ṢQR_10 ‘lies’: in the expression ǧāʔa bi’l-^†ṣuqar wa’l-buqar or bi’l-^†ṣuqārà wa’l-buqārà ‘he came with lies’

conc

For 2 out of the 10 values listed above, foreign etymologies have been suggested (ṣaqr ‘falcon’ < Pers šikara ‘birds of prey trained to hunt’, perh. also oTu suŋkur ‘id.’; ṣāqūr ‘stone axe’ < Lat secūris ‘axe, hatchet, cleaver’). But there may be overlapping with ṢQR_3 ‘to beat, strike, (hence?) break stones’. There is large diversity also among the other 8 values (all become obsolete in MSA). Although far from obvious, some of these may be related to each other (figurative use?). The diversity may, however, also be due to convergence of earlier SQR with ṢQR, initial s having become emphatic ṣ through influence from following q.

hist

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cogn

See DISC below.

disc

▪ Although foreign etymologies have been suggested for both ṢQR_1 ‘falcon, hawk’ and ṢQR_2 ‘stone axe’ (see below), the evidence of the ClassAr vb. I ^†ṣaqara (u, ṣaqr) ‘to strike (bi- with a stick), break stones (bi- with a hammer etc.)’ (ṢQR_3) as well as the attribute ^†ṣāqir ‘sharp-sighted’ (ṢQR_7) in ṣaqr ṣāqir ‘sharp-sighted falcon’ may suggest that the ‘stone axe’, ṣāqūr, could be akin to ^†ṣaqara ‘to break stones’ and also the ‘falcon’, ṣaqr, might be related to this vb. (perh. *‘the striking one’). Folk etymology may have overshadowed true origins.
▪ Ehret1995#902 gives both ‘to beat’ and (hence?) ‘to break stones’ as the two values of the vb. ^†ṣaqara, which according to him is an extension in “diffusive” *-r from a bi-consonantal “pre-Proto-Semitic” (pPS, i.e. preSem) root *ṣḳ- ‘to beat’, from AfrAs *-tl’ok’- ‘to beat’. – For other extensions from the same preSem root cf. ↗*ṢQ- (*ṢḲ-), ↗ṣāqaba ‘to approach, go/come near, be neighbours, adjacent’, ↗ṣaqʕaẗ ‘frost, ice, hoarfrost’, and ↗ṣaqala ‘to smooth, polish, burnish, cut’.
▪ Furthermore, if one assumes for ṢQR a basic value of ‘to beat, strike’, then not only ṢQR_1 ‘falcon, hawk’ and ṢQR_2 ‘stone axe’ can be seen as developments from this value (*‘the striking one’ and *‘instrument for breaking stone by striking it’), but also most of the others that are listed as distinct values above: ṢQR_4 ‘to light (a fire)’ (by ‘striking’ firestones against each other?), ṢQR_5 ‘to be scorching (sun)’ (i.e., *‘beating, striking’?), ṢQR_6 ‘sour (milk)’ (i.e., of a *‘striking, biting taste’?), and ṢQR_7 ‘sharp-sighted’ (i.e., being endowed with a *‘striking’ sight). Only ṢQR_8-10 would be difficult to connect to an original *‘beating’ or *‘striking’. But given the fact that there seems to be some overlapping with, or contamination by, other roots (see below), all this is highly speculative.
▪ ṢQR_1: cf. also the old denom. vb. V, ^†taṣaqqara ‘to hunt with a hawk’. – Perhaps under the influence of ^†ṣaqara ‘to beat, strike’ from Pers šekara ‘rapacious birds trained to hunt’ (or/from oTu suŋkur ‘id.’?) (rather than from Lat sacer ‘falcon, harrier’, as suggested by Fraenkel1886, or from Eg zkr ‘Sokar(is)’, a falcon-headed deity, as mentioned, though at the same time doubted, by Calice1936#788). For details see ↗ṣaqr.
▪ ṢQR_2: Unless akin to ^†ṣaqara ‘to beat, strike, (?hence also:) break stones’, the ‘stone axe’, ṣāqūr, (*‘stone-breaker’?) is perhaps (Fraenkel1886: »without doubt«), mediated by Aram sqūriyā, (Brockelmann1895:) Syr sīqūrā ‘id.’, from Lat secūris ‘axe, hatchet, cleaver’ (which is also the source of Engl saw, etc.), with Lat [z] > Syr [s] > Ar [ṣ] (as perhaps in ṢQR_1). The ‘un-Arabic’ fāʕūl pattern supports the assumption of a foreign etymology. The meaning ‘to break stones’ of ṢQR_3 ^†ṣaqara may then be denominative from ṣāqūr.
▪ ṢQR_3: If the obsol. vb. I ^†ṣaqara (u, ṣaqr) ‘to strike (bi- with a stick), break stones (bi- with a hammer etc.)’ represents the major basic value, then many others in this root may be derived from it (see discussion above). For the second value, ‘to break stones’, one could, however, also assume a denom. formation from ṣāqūr (see preceding paragraph, ṢQR_2). – The obsol. n.f. ^†ṣāqiraẗ ‘misfortune, calamity’, actually a PA of vb. I, is with all probability fig. use (misfortune = *‘the striking one’).
▪ ṢQR_4: The obsol. value ‘to light (a fire)’ (I ^†ṣaqara, II ^†ṣaqqara) is probably a special use of ṢQR_3 ‘to strike, beat’ (sc. fire-stones to produce sparks). – Cf. also ^†ĭṣṭaqara, vb. VIII, ‘to be lighted (fire)’. – But cf. also ṢQR_5.
▪ ṢQR_5: Likewise, the obsol. value ‘to scorch, be scorching (sun)’ of ^†ṣaqara u (ṣaqr, ṣaqraẗ) and ^†ʔaṣqara, vb. IV, seem to be fig. use of ṢQR_3 ‘to strike, beat’. Cf., however, also ↗saqar (with non-emphatic s) ‘heat of the sun, sunburn, sunstroke; Hell-fire’, of which ṢQR_5 may be just a phonetic var. if we assume emphatic ṣ < non-emphatic s due to following q (partial assimilation).
▪ ṢQR_6: Is also the value ‘very sour milk’ of ^†ṣaqr (pl. ṣuqūr, ṣiqār) such a metaphorical use of ṢQR_3 ‘to strike, beat’ (the sour taste being experienced as *‘striking’)? The meaning ‘undeserved curse’ seems to be fig. use of ‘sour milk’, while the vb. ‘to be very sour’ (I ^†ṣaqara, IV ^†ʔaṣqara) obviously is denominative.
▪ ṢQR_7: The adj. ^†ṣāqir ‘sharp-sighted’, grammatically a PA of an obsol. vb. I *‘to be sharp-sighted’ and preserved only in the phraseme ṣaqr ṣāqir ‘sharp-sighted saker, falcon’, is interesting because one may perhaps have to compare (in spite of s instead of ṣ) Syr sqūriyā ‘the evil eye, looking askance’, sqūrātiyā ‘one looking with the evil eye’, and the corresponding vb. Syr sqar, nesqūr (PA: sāqar, sāqrā) ‘to look awry, askance, look with the evil eye, envy, grudge, spite’ (PayneSmith1903), although Brockelmann1895 gives Ar SQR (cf. ↗saqar ‘hell’), not ṢQR as cognate of Syr sqar. The oscillation between s and ṣ can be observed also in ṢQR_5 ‘to scorch (sun)’, which also appears as ^†saqara (u, saqr), ṢQR_8 (^†ṣaqir ‘sweet’ vs. ^†ʔasqara ‘to bear sweet dates (palmtree)’) and ṢQR_9 (^†ṣaqqār ~ saqqār ‘blasphemer’). ‒ Thus, it is possible that we are dealing with a primary SQR here whose initial S, under the influence of neighbouring Q, has undergone partial assimilation, resulting in emphatic Ṣ.
▪ ṢQR_8: Besides ^†ṣaqr, var. ṣaqar, pl. ṣuqūr, ṣiqār, n., ‘treacle of dates, grapes’, cf. also ^†ṣaqir, adj., ‘sweet (grape, date)’, ^†ṣaqqār, n., ‘seller of treacle’, ^†muṣaqqar, adj., ‘preserved in treacle’. ‒ Like for ṢQR_7, Hava1899 here, too, lists a corresponding item with s instead of ṣ : ʔasqara, vb. IV, ‘to bear sweet dates (palm-tree)’. Are the forms of ṢQR_8 the result of assimilation/emphatisation, developed from primary SQR?
▪ ṢQR_9: Like the preceding items, also ^†ṣaqqār ‘blasphemer, unbeliever’ has a variant saqqār ‘impious; blasphemer’ with initial s rather than ṣ (Hava1899). ‒ Any relation to (or figurative use of) some of the items ṢQR_1 through ṢQR_8?
▪ ṢQR_10: The element ^†ṣuqar or ^†ṣuqārà in the phraseme meaning ‘to come with lies’ seems to be a Syriansim, cf. (with š, not ṣ) Syr šûqrâ ‘lie’, šaqārâ ‘lying, false, perfidious’ (Sem ŠQR ‘deceive’, Akk šugguru ‘to cheat, lie’, tašgirtu ‘deceit, treachery’, Hbr šäqär ‘deception, disappointment, falsehood’, denom. vb. šāqar ‘to do/deal falsely’).

west

▪ ↗ṣaqr.

deriv

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