Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ Kogan2011: from SSem *baḥr- ‘sea’, replacing the main Sem term for ‘sea’, protSem *tiham(‑at)‑ (cf. Ar Tihāmaẗ).
▪ Cf., however, Huehnergard2011, who assumes protSem *baḥr‑ ‘sea, coast’.
▪ [v3] ‘noble, or great, man’ can be thought to be figurative use (WehrCowan: person »whose magnanimity or knowledge is comparable to the sea).
▪ v4 ‘(poetical) meter’ remains unexplained in the sources but is obviously a calque from Grk rhythmós ‘measured movement, harmonious flow’ (dance, speech, music,…) (from rhéō ‘to flow’).
▪ …

hist

▪ Unless the idea ‘wideness’ was prior to that of ‘sea’, the latter can be assumed to have served as a metaphor for ‘wideness’ (and ‘depth’?), which then could be applied both to generosity and knowledge.
▪ The fact that Gz bāḥər means ‘sea’ while bəḥēr is ‘land’, and a similar "contradiction" within the root is to be found in Ar (cf. baḥr ‘sea’ vs. baḥraẗ ‘land’, and the dimin. of both, buḥayraẗ denotes ‘(little sea >) lake’ as well as ‘(little land >) Ländchen’), made Nöldeke_Gegensinn assume that there was a »Grundbedeutung« (basic meaning), common to both, which later must have split into two. »Vielleicht ‘Niederung, Senkung’? Schwerlich ‘Fläche’ (wie bei aequor ‘Land’ und ‘Meer’).« – See, however, DISC in entry ↗√BḤR for another picture.

cogn

▪ Orel&Stolbova1994#305: Syr baḥrā, SAr bḥr, Gz bāḥr, Te bähar, Tña baḥri, Amh bahǝr. – Outside Sem: WCh Sura voγor, Ang fwor ‘rivulet’, Grk vor, voor ‘pond; rivulet’, ECh Kera vor ‘sea, river’.
▪ Leslau_EDG: SAr bḥr, Gur bahǝr.
▪ Kogan2011: Ar baḥr, Sab Min bḥr, Gz bāḥr.
▪ Outside Sem, Borg2021#25 (b-ḥ-r¹) compares Eg bʕr (Pyr) ‘Wasserfülle, Überschwemmung; Name eines Gewässers in Unterägypten’; ‘sea (in toponym)’ (Calice 1936: 60; Wb I 447; Hoch 1994: 92).

disc

▪ Kogan2011: From SSem *baḥr‑, which seems to be the most widespread replacement in the SSem area for what probably had been the main Sem term for ‘sea’ earlier, Sem *tihām(-at)‑ (traces of which in today’s Ar only in the name for the coastal region in W Yemen, the Tihāmaẗ). (In the NWSem area, Sem *tihām(-at)‑ was replaced by *yamm‑, which later was loaned from there into Ar as ↗yamm.)
▪ Orel&Stolbova1994#305: A hypothetical Sem *baḥr‑ ‘sea, lake’ is ‎probably the common ancestor of the Ar word as well as its Sem cognates. Together with reconstructed cognates outside Sem, ‎such as WCh *bʷaH˅r‑ ‘pond; rivulet’ and ECh *bʷar < *bʷaH˅r ‘sea, river’, the Sem word ‎may go back to AfrAs *boḥ˅r‑ ‘sea, lake’. – a in Sem *baḥr‑ may have developed from an ‎earlier Sem *u under the influence of the preceding labial.
▪ Huehnergard2011: from Sem *baḥr ‘sea, coast’.
▪ Ehret1995#9: Together with Cush ‎‎*bôoḥ‑ ‘to spill (intr.)’, Ar baḥr goes back to AfrAs *‑bôoḥ‑ ‘to flow’; the word is composed ‎of the AfrAs stem + an *‑r noun suffix.

west

–

deriv

► fī baḥri…, prep., in the course of, during (e.g., fī baḥr sanatayn in the course of two years, within two years).
► al‑ baḥr al‑ ʔabyaḍ al‑ mutawassiṭ, n., the Mediterranean (sometimes shortened to al-baḥr al-ʔabyaḍ).
► al‑ baḥr al‑ balṭīq, n., the Baltic Sea.
► al‑ baḥr al‑ ǧanūb, n., the South Seas.
► al‑ baḥr al‑ ʔaḥmar, n., the Red Sea (also baḥr al-qulzum).
► baḥr al‑ ḫazar and baḥr Qazwīn, n., the Caspian Sea (also al-baḥr al-kasbiyātī).
► baḥr al-rūm, n., the Mediterranean.
► al‑ baḥr al‑ ʔaswad, n., the Black Sea.
► baḥr al‑ ẓulumāt, n., the Atlantic.
► baḥr lūṭ and al-baḥr al-mayyit, n., the Dead Sea.
► baḥr al-nīl, n., (eg.) the Nile.
► baḥr al-hind, n., the Indian Ocean.

► baḥḥara, vb. II, to travel by sea, make a voyage: denom.
► ʔabḥara, vb. IV, to travel by sea, make a voyage; to embark, go on board; to put to sea, set sail, sail, depart (ship); to go downstream, be sea-bound (ship on the Nile): denom.
► tabaḥḥara, vb. V, to penetrate deeply, delve (fī into); to study thoroughly (fī a subject): denom., from baḥr in the sense of ‘person whose knowledge is comparable to the sea’, lit. *‘to delve into (a sea of knowledge)’? DRS suggests another etymology, unrelated to baḥr, see ↗ √BḤR.
► ĭstabḥara, vb. X, = V.

al-baḥrayn, n., the Bahrein Islands; (State of) Bahrein: n.loc.
^BP#3264baḥrānī, adj., of the Baḥrein Islands; al-baḥārinaẗ, the inhabitants of the Bahrein Islands: nsb-adj from (al)-baḥrayn.
► ^BP#1874baḥrī, adj., sea…, marine; maritime; nautical; naval; navigational; (in Eg.) northern, baḥriyyaẗ (with foll. genit.) north of: nsb-adj; (pl. ‑ūn, aẗ), n., sailor, seaman, mariner: nominalized nisba adj.
► ^BP#4032baḥriyyaẗ, n.f., marine; navy: abstr. in iyyaẗ.
► baḥraẗ, pond, pool: n.un. (?).
► baḥḥār, pl. ‑ūn, baḥḥāraẗ, n., seaman, mariner, sailor: n.prof.; pl. baḥḥāraẗ crew (of a ship, of an airplane).
► ^BP#3535buḥayraẗ, pl. ‑āt, baḥāʔirᵘ, n., lake: dimin.; (tun.) vegetable garden, truck garden: meaning transferred from ‘lake’ to *‘place with a small lake, pond = garden’? DRS suggests another etymology, unrelated to baḥr, see ↗ √BḤR.
► ʔibḥār, n., navigation, seafaring: vn. IV.
► tabaḥḥur, n., deep penetration, delving (fī into a subject), thorough study (fī of): vn. V.
► mutabaḥḥir, adj., thoroughly familiar (fī with); profound, erudite, searching, penetrating: PA V.

For other items from the root, cf. ↗√BḤR and ↗baḥira.

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