Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ QNW_1 ‘spear, lance; shaft; tube, pipe; canal; channel’ ↗qanāẗ
▪ QNW_2 ‘to acquire, appropriate’ ↗qanā (var. qanà, √QNY)
▪ QNW_3 ‘bunch of dates’ ↗qunw, var. qinw
▪ QNW_4 ‘deep(-red), blood(-red)’ ↗qān⁽ⁱⁿ⁾ (√QāN, QNY), qāniʔ (√QNʔ)
▪ QNW_5 ‘technique’ ↗tiqn (√TQN)

Cf. BAH2008#QNW/Y: ‘to acquire livestock primarily for breeding, to possess; to cause to acquire wealth, to be content; rivulet; a spear shaft, branch, stalks of dates with or without the dates’

conc

▪ The origin of QNW_1 is, with all probability, the Akk qanû ‘reed’, from protSem *qanaw‑ ‘reed’ (Huehnergard2011).
▪ QNW_2 ‘to acquire, appropriate’ and QNW_3 ‘bunch of dates’ both seem to depend on QNW_1: the bunch of dates because of its similarity with stalks of reed, the vb. ‘to acquire, appropriate’ being taken from the meaning of ‘measuring rod’, and hence also ‘scales’, of the n.
▪ QNW_4 : from Tu kan ‘blood?’
▪ QNW_5 : unrelated to √QNW.
▪ Taken from the same source as corresponding Sem items, many European words, like Engl cane, can, canister, canal, channel, canyon, canon, cannon, are indirectly related to Ar words from this root, cf. ↗qanāẗ and ↗qānūn.

hist

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cogn

▪ QNW_1 : Akk qanû ‘reed; (a fragrant reed); arrow; tube, pipe; measuring rod; (a measure of length); plot of land’, Hbr qānêʰ ‘tube, pipe; scales’, Ar qanāẗ ‘spear, lance; shaft; tube, pipe; canal; channel’
▪ QNW_2 : Akk qanû, Hbr qānāʰ, Aram qənā, Ar qanā, SAr qny, Gz qanaya ‘to buy, acquire’.
▪ QNW_3 : probably as QNW_1.
▪ QNW_4 : ↗qān⁽ⁱⁿ⁾ (√QāN, QNY), qāniʔ (√QNʔ)
▪ QNW_5 : ↗tiqn (√TQN)

disc

▪ QNW_1 : Zimmern1914 thinks that the Hbr, Aram, and Ar forms all go back to the Akk n. qanû with the basic meaning (accord. to CAD) of 1 ‘reed’, and hence also 2 a type of fragrant reed (cf. Ar ↗qinnaẗ),¹ 3 an arrow, 4 a tube or pipe, 5 a measuring rod, hence also 6 a measure of length, and 7 a plot of land. The Akk term may itself be a borrowing from Sum gi, but others reconstruct Sem *qanaw‑ ‘reed’. — The borrowing of Akk qanû into Hbr as qānêʰ, meaning not only ‘reed’ but again also a specific type of aromatic reed, ‘tube, pipe’, a measure of length of 6 cubits, a ‘beam of scales’, and hence ‘scales’, is, accord. to Zimmern, secured. — The same Akk qanû (or the Hbr word) was probably also loaned into Grk, from where it passed, via Lat, into many European languages, see WESTLANG below.
▪ QNW_2 : Zimmern1914 takes a dependence (as denominative formation) of ‘to buy, acquire’ on QNW_1 in the specialised sense of ‘scales’ for granted. The only thing that is not clear to him is whether the non-Akk vb.s are directly from the Akk n. or only via the n.s that are borrowed from the Akk one. Against this direct borrowing speaks the fact that, accord. to the author, Akk qanû, unlike Hbr qānêʰ, usually does not mean ‘scales’, but only ‘measuring rod’. There is, however, also the Akk vb. qanû ‘to buy, acquire’. But this is attested not earlier than in nAss and thus may itself be a (re-)borrowing from WSem.
▪ QNW_3 : Probably dependent on Ar qanāẗ : ‘shaft’ > ‘shaft with dates’ > ‘bunch of dates’.

1. Hbr qānê haṭ-ṭôb ‘fragrant calamus’ is probably directly influenced by Akk qan ṭuppi (qanṭuppu, qarṭuppu) ‘reed stylus’.

west

▪ A number of words in European languages (e.g., Engl cane, can, canister, canal, channel, canyon, canon, cannon) go back to the Sem word for ‘reed; (and hence also:) tube, pipe’ (QNW_1). For details cf. ↗qanāẗ and ↗qānūn.

deriv

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