Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ ʕMː (ʕMM)_1 ‘paternal uncle’ ↗ʕamm
▪ ʕMː (ʕMM)_2 ‘(to be\come) common, general, comprehensive, embracing; common people; people, nation’ ↗ʕamma
▪ ʕMː (ʕMM)_3 ‘turban’ ↗ʕimāmaẗ

Other values, now obsolete, include (after Lane and Hava1899):

ʕMː (ʕMM)_4 ‘large(ness), tall(ness), numerous(ness), abundance, density’ : ^†ʕamma ‘to make long, or tall; to be(come) long, or tall’, ^†ʕamʕama (ʕamʕamaẗ) ‘to have a numerous army, or military force (after paucity thereof)’, ^†ʕamam ‘[…]; numerous(ness), abundance; largeness, bigness; whole, complete, full-grown’, ^†ʕumum ‘completeness; largeness of body, youthful vigour’, ^†ʕamīm (pl. ʕumum) ‘abundant, numerous; […]; of tall stature (woman), lofty (palm-tree)’, ^†ʕamm ‘tall palm-tree, of full tallness and abundance and density’, ^†ʕummiyyaẗ ‘pride, haughtiness’, ^†ĭʕtamma (said of beast of the bovine kind) ‘to have all teeth grown’
ʕMː (ʕMM)_5 ‘(to be, become) chief, lord’: ^†muʕammam ‘[…]; made a chief; chief’
ʕMː (ʕMM)_6 ‘raft’: ^†ʕimāmaẗ, ^†ʕāmmaẗ ‘pieces of wood bound together, upon which one embarks on the sea, and upon which one crosses a river’: should properly be ʕāmaẗ < ↗ʕāma ‘to float, swim’

♦ Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (acc. to BAH2008): ‘1 turban; 2 encompassing, general, common; 3 to be strong, become chief; 4 the common people; 5 uncle, paternal aunt’

conc

▪ It cannot be excluded, or even seems likely, that all three values are related. Together with others, Kogan2015 thinks that »protCSem *ʕamm- ‘people’ [cf. ʕMː (ʕMM)_2] probably represents a semantic extension of the kinship term WSem *ʕamm- ‘grandfather, ancestor’ [cf. ʕMː (ʕMM)_1] «, which in Ar specialized into ‘paternal uncle’, replacing protSem *dād- ‘paternal uncle’.¹ . The idea, put forward in BDB1906, that ‘people’ prob. originally means *‘those united, connected, related’, lets one think whether this “binding together” might be somehow related to the binding together of a ‘turban’, Ar ʕimāmaẗ. But neither this word nor a vb. *ʕmm ‘to bind together’ is attested throughout Sem, except in the fig. sense of ‘to encompass, comprise, cover’[ʕMː (ʕMM)_2], and this rarely outside Ar. Is ʕimāmaẗ an Ar spezialisation then, developed from the idea of ‘kinship’ and ‘belonging together’ (*‘uniting’ the hair, or the piece of cloth, or covering it completely, in its wholeness)? For another possibility see below.
▪ For ʕMː (ʕMM)_2, the most adequate entry to treat the corresponding semantic field in would be ^†ʕamm ‘company of men, crowd; numerous party’ rather than the (prob. denom.) verb ʕamma. The reason why the data nevertheless will be arranged under ʕamma is the fact that the more original n. has become obsolete in MSA and n.s with a similar value are derived from the vb.
▪ Given that ʕMː (ʕMM)_3 ʕimāmaẗ ‘turban’ stands rather isolated within Sem *ʕMM (see above), should one perh. put it together with WSem *ĠMM ~ ĠMY/W ‘to be dark, dim’, a root that in Ar usually has preserved initial *ġ- (cf. Ar ↗ġamma ‘to cover, veil, conceal’, ↗ġamām ‘clouds’, ʔaġammᵘ ‘covered with dense hair’), but in Can and Aram has undergone the regular sound shift *ġ > ʕ : Ug ʕmm (D pass.) ‘to be covered, veiled, darkened’, Hbr ʕāmam ‘to darken, dim’, JudAram ʕᵃmam ‘to be(come) dim, dark(ened)? Semantically, the ‘turban’ as *‘(head) cover, (kind of) veil’ would be quite plausible. But would it be justifiable also from a phonological point of view? Should initial *ġ- have been preserved in some places, but undergone an irregular shift *ġ > ʕ in ʕimāmaẗ ? Rather unlikely. ʕimāmaẗ would then have to be a loan from Hbr or Aram. But these langs have nothing that would fit, and Syr ʕᵃmamtā ‘a mitra’ is a loan from Ar…

1. Cf. however Huehnergard 2011 who assumes the meaning ‘paternal kinsman; kin, clan; people’ already for the ComSem n. *ʕamm .

hist

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cogn

▪ ʕMː (ʕMM)_1 : (Kogan2015) Ug ʕm ‘kinsfolk’, Hbr ʕam ‘kinsman (on father’s side)’, Syr ʕamtā (f.) ‘paternal aunt’, Ar ʕamm ‘paternal uncle’, Sab ʕm, Min ʕm, Ḥaḍ ʕm ‘uncle’, Te ʕammät (f.) ‘paternal aunt’, Mhr ʔōm, f. ʔāmēt, Jib ʕom, f. aʕĩt ‘grandfather, f. -mother’
▪ ʕMː (ʕMM)_2 ‘(to be, become) common, general, comprehensive, embracing; common people; people, nation’: Ug ʕm ‘kinsfolk, people’, Hbr ʕām, ʕam, Syr ʕammā ‘people’, Min ʕm , Ar ^†ʕamm ‘crowd; numerous party; dense (palm-trees, herbs). – Cf. prob. also the prep. Ug ʕm /ʕimma/, Hbr ʕim, JudPal ʕäm, Sab ʕm, Min ʕm, Qat ʕm- n ‘together with’, ? Ar maʕa (metath.) ‘with’, ʕinda (< *ʕim-da ‘by’, ? ʕan ‘from’¹ .
▪ ʕMː (ʕMM)_3 ‘turban’ : Ar ʕimāmaẗ; ? items mentioned as cognates of ʕMː (ʕMM)_1 and _2; ? Ug ʕmm (D pass.) ‘to be covered, veiled, darkened’, Hbr ʕāmam ‘to darken, dim’, Ar ↗ġamma ‘to cover, veil, conceal’ (see also ↗ġamām ‘clouds’, ʔaġammᵘ ‘covered with dense hair’).
▪ ʕMː (ʕMM)_4-5 are akin to the preceding [ʕMː (ʕMM)_2-3], while ʕMː (ʕMM)_6 originally is ʕāmaẗ, from ↗ʕāma (√ʕWM) ‘to float, swim’.

1. Kogan 2015: »One is tempted to follow P. Jensen (apud LSyr 529), who compared protCSem *ʕimma also with Ar ʕan ‘from’, otherwise with no etymology. Given the fact that * m shifts to n in a few other non-lexical or semi-lexical morphemes in Ar (ʔin ‘if’ < *šim, nunation instead of mimation), this comparison seems to be acceptable from the formal point of view. More problematic is the semantic gap between ‘with’ and ‘from’, but note that both meanings clearly co-exist in Sab.«

disc

▪ ʕMː (ʕMM)_1-2 : While Huehnergard2011 assumes the belonging to the paternal lineage to be a characteristic already of the noun he reconstructs as ComSem *ʕamm , Kogan2015 regards it as a secondary phenomenon, reconstructing the—lineage-wise still unspecific—kinship term WSem *ʕamm- ‘grandfather, ancestor’. According to Kogan, the latter value took on the more specific meaning ‘uncle’ in some langs, but was probably also extended to mean ‘kinsfolk, clan, tribe’ and then also ‘people’ in general.
▪ ʕMː (ʕMM)_2 : For the prep. ‘together with’, which according to the standard view underlies Ar maʕa ‘with’, as well as in ʕinda (< *ʕim-da) ‘by’, Kogan2015 reconstructs protCSem *ʕimm(-a) ‘together with’. Ar maʕa would then be the result of metathesis, while ʕinda is traditionallybelieved to go back to *ʕim-da.¹ )
▪ Ultimately from Sem *ʕamm- is perh. also Ar ↗ʔummaẗ ‘nation, people, community’. For details, see s.v.
▪ ʕMː (ʕMM)_3 : How Ar ʕimāmaẗ ‘turban’ fits into this picture remains unclear so far. (See above, section DISC.) Further research needed.
▪ ʕMː (ʕMM)_4 ‘large(ness), tall(ness), numerous(ness), abundance, density’ : is basically the same as ʕMː (ʕMM)_2.
▪ ʕMː (ʕMM)_5 ‘(to be, become) chief, lord’: result./fig. use of ʕMː (ʕMM)_3; since the ʕimāmaẗ is the “crown of the Arabs”, putting on the turban signifies a kind of coronation, and the one who is crowned becomes chief. For many other instances of fig. use cf. entry ↗ʕimāmaẗ.
▪ ʕMː (ʕMM)_6 : ^†ʕimāmaẗ, ^†ʕāmmaẗ ‘raft’ is a popular re-interpretation of original ʕāmaẗ, from ↗ʕāma (√ʕWM) ‘to float, swim’.

1. The second component is believed to be from ↗yad ‘hand’, as is the case also with the prep. la-dā ‘with’, cf. Militarev&Kogan2000#291.

west

▪ Engl n.prop. Jeroboam, cf. (↗RBː/RBB and) ↗ʕamm, ↗ʕāmm.

deriv

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