Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ NBʔ_1 ‘to be high, tower over, …’ ↗nabaʔa
▪ NBʔ_2 ‘to speak in a low voice, utter a low sound; to announce’ ↗nabaʔ, ↗nabiyy, ↗nubuwwaẗ
▪ ^†NBʔ_3 ‘to turn away, withdraw, be repelled, disgusted, shocked’ ↗nabā .
▪ ^†NBʔ_4 ‘to wander around’: now obsolete.

♦ Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (acc. to BAH2008): ‘protrusion, to rise; to overpower; to leave one’s town and settle in another; news item, to ask for news, to inform; prophecy, to predict, to foretell, to prophesy, to claim to be a prophet’

conc

▪ While Gabal2012 thinks that all values of NBʔ can be derived from one basic value (‘unexpected appearance, accompanied by a hiddenness’), other researchers agree on that NBʔ is a homonymous root with at least two values: 1 ‘to be high, tower over’ (= NBʔ_1) and 2 ‘to speak in a low voice, utter a low sound; to announce’ (= NBʔ_2). Albright1927#47 thinks that among NBʔ_2 is original while NBʔ_1 ‘(to be) high’ is the result of a dissimilation of an underlying *NM- ‘to grow’ into *NB-.
▪ For NBʔ_2, the »reconstruction of Sem *n-b-ʔ as a transitive root meaning ‘to name, proclaim’« is »uncomplicated« (following Huehnergard1999).
▪ Militarev2006 assumes an AfrAs dimension of NBʔ_2 (AfrAs *nab‑ ‘to call by name’ ), and Dolgopolsky2012 goes even farther, putting Sem *NBʔ ‘to name, give a name’ together with IE *‘no(ː)m-n(-) / *‘n̥m-n(-) ‘name’ and assuming Nostr *‘nimʔ˅‑ ‘name’ as the common ancestor. For him, Nostr *NM dissimilated into Sem *NB.
▪ NBʔ_3 ‘to turn away’ seems to be etymologically the same as ↗nabā ‘to move away, withdraw; to bounce off; to disagree, be in conflict with; to be repugnant’ (↗NBW).
▪ NBʔ_4 ‘to wander around’: etymology still unclear (see DISC).

hist

▪ BadawiAbdelHalim2008 #NBʔ: ‘1 protrusion, to rise; to overpower; 2 news item, to ask for news, to inform; prophecy, to predict, foretell, prophesy; to claim to be a prophet; 3 to leave o.’s town and settle in another’.

cogn

For cognates, see DISC below as well as ↗nabaʔ and ↗nabaʔa.

disc

NBʔ_1 and NBʔ_2:
▪ Gabal2012 assumes one basic value for all meanings of NBʔ that occur in the Qurʔān: ‘sudden/unexpected appearance or occurrence of s.th., preceded or accompanied by some secrecy/hiddenness (ẓuhūr ʔaw ṭurūʔ, musbaq ʔaw maknūf bi-ḫafāʔⁱⁿ mā)’. This, he says, is the case in nabʔaẗ ‘elevation, protrusion’ (= appearing above the surface, of a height that more limited than one would have expected) as well as in nabaʔ ‘news’ (information that one receives unexpectedly). – ClassAr nabīʔ ‘clear path’ is said to belong to ↗NBW, while nabiyy ‘prophet’ is believed to derive from *nabīʔ meaning that the Prophet is both ‘called/informed’ (munbaʔ) by God and ‘informing’ (munbiʔ) about Him, rather than from nabwaẗ ‘elevated place’.
▪ Albright1927#47 notices that Ar √NBʔ obviously has two values: a) ‘to be high, raised up’ (Ar nabaʔa; cf. also ^†nabiʔ ‘height, mound’, ^†nabāwaẗ ‘high ground’, etc.), b) ‘to make a noise; to proclaim, announce, call by name’ (^†nabʔaẗ ‘barking of dogs’; nabaʔ ‘news’, nabīʔ [sic!] ‘prophet’, etc.). Therefore, the author holds, »there must evidently have been a confusion of the two distinct root-meanings«. The author thinks the latter value is from an original *NB, while the former is as dissimilation from *NM.
▪ BDB1904 (#NBʔ): cf. [NBʔ_2] Ar nabaʔa ‘to utter a low voice, or sound (esp. of dog); to announce’, (but also) [NBʔ_1] to be exalted, elevated (nabʔaẗ eminence); [NBʔ_2] III, IV, ‘to acquaint, inform’; nabaʔ ‘information, announcement, intelligence’; Akk nabū ‘to call, proclaim, name’, Gz nababa ‘to speak’, Sab tnbʔ ? => Hbr nāḇî(ʔ) ‘spokesman, speaker, prophet’, nᵊḇûʔâh ‘prophecy’.

NBʔ_1:
▪ Cf. also obsolete items like ^†nabʔ ‘superiority, victory, success’, ^†nubuʔ ‘being high, superiority’, ^†nabiʔ ‘high point’, ^†nābiʔ ‘bossed, convex’, and also (NBʔ ~ NBW) ^†nabwaẗ, ^†nabāwaẗ ‘height; rising ground’, ^†nābin, det. nābī, pl. nubiyy, ‘high ground’, ^†nābiyaẗ ‘strongly-bent bow’ (all BK, Munǧid, Wahrmund1887/Steingass1894).
▪ Ehret1989#92 thinks NBʔ ‘to be high, tower over, come upon from above, conquer, surpass’ is an extension in “concisive” *‑ʔ from a bi-consonantal “pre-Proto-Semitic” (pPS, i.e. preSem) root ↗*NB ‘to rise, become high’, cf. ↗NBː (NBB) ‘to be haughty’. Other extensions from the same pre-Sem nucleus: ↗NBT ‘to germinate, sprout, grow’, ↗NBR ‘to raise, elevate, thrive, grow’, ↗NBṢ ‘to be on the point of sprouting’, ↗NBĠ ‘to fly off’, ↗NBL ‘to surpass in any skill’, ↗NBH ‘to awake’
▪ Albright1927#47 holds that Ar »nabaʔa ‘to be high’ is connected with Hbr nûb ‘to grow’¹ and Ar nabt ‘plant’, old pl. nabāt, from which ↗nabata ‘to grow’ is denom., as well as with Ar ↗namā ‘to grow, rise’, nammà ‘to raise’. The root is probably nm, from which the dissimilated form nb (cf. banna for manna, etc.) has arisen.« – Outside Sem, Eg nb3 ‘carrying pole’ (= Calice1936#655) is perhaps to be connected.

NBʔ_2:
▪ Huehnergard2011: Sem *NBʔ ‘to name, proclaim, summon’ (Huehnergard1999: an »uncomplicated reconstruction«).
▪ Calice1936#59 mentions Ar nabaʔa ‘to announce’, nabʔaẗ ‘faint noise’ together with Ar nabba ‘to bark’, Gz nababa ‘to growl’ and the Sem vb.s Akk nabû ‘to call, name’, Sab nbʔ ‘to proclaim’, Hbr √NBH ‘to prophesy’ as cognate with Eg (MK) nmj ‘to scream, yell, roar’. Akin to the latter, and thus also to nabaʔa, are also Ar naʔama ‘to whisper’, naʕama ‘to say yes’, namma ‘to whisper’ and Hbr √NʔM ‘to say’.²
▪ Ehret1989#95 does not mention NBʔ among the root extensions he gives for the bi-consonantal “pre-Proto-Semitic” (pPS, i.e. preSem) root *NB ‘to call, cry’, but the semantics clearly allow us to group Ar NBʔ_2 here. For extensions from the same pre-Sem nucleus that Ehret did list, cf. ↗NBː (NBB) ‘to bleat from rut’, ↗NBḤ ‘to bark, bellow, hiss’, ↗NBR ‘to shout to, drive away by cries or shouts’, ↗NBZ ‘to give one a nickname, revile’, ↗NBṢ ‘to speak’.
▪ Militarev2006 (#603): Sem *n˅b˅ʔ‑ ‘to call; to speak; to nominate’, WCh *nab‑ ‘to read, count’, Omot *nab‑ ‘name’ < AfrAs *nab‑ ‘to call by name’
▪ Dolgopolsky2012: Sem *NBʔ ‘to name, give a name’, IE *‘no(ː)m-n(-) / *‘n̥m-n(-) ‘name’, and alleged cognates in other macro-families < Nostr *‘nimʔ˅‑ ‘name’ (with dissimilation of Sem *NB from Nostr *NM).

NBʔ_3 and NBʔ_4:
▪ There seems to be a lot of overlapping of NBʔ with ↗NBW. Thus, NBʔ_3 ‘to turn away, withdraw, be repelled, disgusted, shocked’ seems to be etymologically the same as ↗nabā ‘to move away, withdraw; to bounce off; to disagree, be in conflict with; to be repugnant’.
▪ No explanation so far with regard to NBʔ_4 ‘to wander around’. Belonging to NBʔ_3 ‘to turn away’? – In ClassAr, there is, e.g. (data from Freytag1837 and Hava1899): ^†nābiʔ ‘ex alia regione veniens (aquae fluxus, homo), crossing a country (man, stream)’, nabiʔ ‘migrans de locu in locum, wanderer, wayfarer’, (?) nabīʔ ‘well-traced road’. Gabal2012 thinks it belongs to ↗NBW. Albright1927#47 considers a connection with Eg nmy ‘to traverse’ and Eg nby ‘to swim’.³

1. BDB: ‘to bear fruit’; cf. also nîḇ ‘fruit’, tᵊnûḇâh ‘fruit, produce’. 2. BDB1906: nāʔam ‘to utter a prophecy, speak as a prophet’, nᵊʔūm ‘utterance’. Klein1987: √NʔM ‘to make a speech, utter, give an address; to utter a prophecy, speak as a prophet’: probably related also: √NWM ‘to speak’. 3. ErmanGrapow1921/ThesLingAeg nbj, Copt neebe (Crum: niēbe, and var.).

west

–

deriv

See
► nabaʔa and
► nabaʔ.

Permanent link

http://www2.hf.uio.no/common/apps/permlink/permlink.php?app=polyglotta&context=record&uid=da83cec6-06ff-11ee-937a-005056a97067

Choose languages

Choose images, etc.

Choose languages

Choose display