Bibliotheca Polyglotta

Via Syr têgûrtâ ‘trade, commerce, wares’, Aram taggārā ‘merchant’ from Akk tamkāru, tamgāru ‘merchant, trader, money-lender’, a deriv. of makāru ‘to do business, use (silver etc.) in business transactions’.

hist

▪ eC7 (merchandise) Q 2:282 ʔillā ʔan takūna tiǧāraẗan ḥāḍiraẗan tudīrūna-hā bayna-kum fa-laysa ʕalay-kum ǧunāḥun ʔallā taktubūhā ‘unless it be ready merchandise which you hand one to the other, there is no blame on you if you do not write it down’; (commerce, business, trade) Q 2:16 ʔulāʔika ’llaḏīna ’štaraw-u ’l-ḍalālaẗa bi’l-hudà fa-mā rabiḥat tiǧāraẗu-hum ‘these are the ones who have purchased error in exchange for guidance, so their trade brought no gain’.
▪ The primary sense was probably ʻmerchandiseʼ. »It will be noticed that the word occurs only in late passages. In three passages (2:16; 4:29; 24:37) it bears the sense of ʻtraffickingʼ rather than ʻmerchandiseʼ or the substance of traffic, and this latter is perhaps a derived sense. The word tāǧir ʻmerchantʼ does not occur in the Qurʔān, nor any derived verbal form« – Jeffery1938.

cogn

▪ Akk tamkāru, tamgāru ‘merchant, trader, money-lender’, Mand tangara, Syr têgûrtâ ¹ ‘trade, commerce, wares’, taggārā ‘merchant’.
▪ Cf. also, for Sem *MKR, (CAD:) Akk mākiru, makkāru ‘trader’, makkūru ‘valuable, treasures, property, assets, estate’, (Tropper2008:) Ug mkr (N-, G-, D-stems pass.) ‘to be sold’, mkr /makkāru/ ‘tradesman’), (BDB1906:) Hbr māḵar ‘to sell’, mäḵär ‘merchandise, value’, Phoen mkr ‘to sell’, Aram Syr mᵊḵar ‘to marry’ (i.e. *‘to buy as a wife’), (Tropper2008:) Ar ^†makkara ‘to buy up, store up (grain)’.

1. Orthography with ʔ (tʔgwrtʔ) contaminated under influence of ʔagrā (√ʔGR) ‘pay, reward’, D-stem ʔeggar ‘to hire, rent’ – Brockelmann1908, Goshen-Gottstein1970.

disc

▪ Fraenkel1886:181, who takes Ar tāǧir (not tiǧāraẗ) as the word that was borrowed from Aram (more precisely, from a dialectal form tāgᵊrāh, as suggested to him by Nöldeke), would derive the underlying Aram taggârâ from ʔagrâ (√ʔGR), which he translates as ‘price’ (cf. Ar ↗ʔaǧr). But this suggestion is not taken up by later researchers (not mentioned, e.g., in DRS, nor even by Jeffery1938), given that the ʔ with which Syr têgûrtâ ‘trade, commerce, wares’ is written (tʔgwrtʔ) seems to be secondary, owing its existence to contamination with Syr ʔagrā (√ʔGR) ‘pay, reward’, D-stem ʔeggar ‘to hire, rent’ (see above, COGN).
▪ Schall1982 thinks that Aram ṯaggārā (for him, as for Fraenkel, the source of Ar tāǧir, not tiǧāraẗ ¹ ) is from Akk tamkārum, which, he thinks, in turn goes back to Sum dam-gàr(-a) ‘merchant’. But the latter is a loan from the Akk, not the other way round – HalloranSumLex3.0.
▪ Zimmern1914: Akk tamkaru, tamgaru ‘merchant, businessman’ > Aram taggārā, Mand tangara > Ar tāǧir (interpreted as PA of a denom. vb. I, taǧara), Arm t’angar, perh. also Hbr taggār (1 Kings 10:15; 2 Chron 9:14).
▪ Jeffery1938, 90-91: »There can be no doubt that the word came from the Aram. Fraenkel, Fremdw, 182, thinks that tiǧāraẗ was formed from the verb taǧara which is a denominative from tāǧir, the form which he thinks was originally borrowed from Aram. In view, however, of the Aram tiggârâ, Syr têgûrtâ both of which have the meaning ʻmercaturaʼ, there would seem no reason for refusing to derive the Ar tiǧāraẗ directly. In fact, as Fraenkelʼs discussion shows (p. 181), there is some difficulty in deriving tāǧir, a participial form, from Aram taggārâ, Syr taggārâ, and Nöldeke had to suggest a dialectal form ṯāgᵊrâ to ease the difficulty. If, however, the original form in Ar were tiǧāraẗ from [Aram] tiggârâ, and the verb taǧara a denominative from this, it is easy to see how ʻmerchantʼ, i.e. ʻone who trafficsʼ, would be formed as a participle from this verb. – That the borrowing was from the Aram is clear from the fact that the original word was the Akk tamkāru or tamgāru,² whence comes the Arm tankar or tangar,³ so that in the Aram ṯaggârâ the doubled g represents an original *n, which we find still unassimilated in the Mand tngʔrʔ. The word was well known in Arabia in pre-Islamic days, as is clear from the fact that we find both tgrʔ meaning ʻmerchantʼ and tgrtʔ meaning ʻcommerceʼ in the NAr inscriptions,⁴ while [Ar] tāǧir occurs commonly enough in the old poetry, particularly in connection with the wine trade.⁵ .

1. NişanyanSözlük (13Jan2015), too, holds that Ar tiǧāraẗ is a vn. of taǧara, a denominative vb. derived from ↗tāǧir. 2. Zimmern, Akkad. Fremdw, 16. 3. Hübschmann, Arm. Gramm, i, 303. 4. de Vogüe, Syrie Centrale, No. 4; Cook, Glossary, 119. 5. Fraenkel, Fremdw, 158, 182; D. H. Müller, in WZKM, i, 27; and note LA, v, 156, with a verse from Al-Aʕšà.

west

▪ Tu ticaret (Osm ticāret) 1437 ʕÖmer b. Mezîd, Mecmūʕatü’n-neẓāʔir : cānını verüp ayağuŋ tozını satun alan / assı kıldı ol ticāretden peşīmān olmasun – NişanyanSözlük13Jan2015.

deriv

► tiǧāraẗ ḫāsiraẗ, n.f., a losing business

► taǧara u, vb. I, to carry on commerce: denom.
► tāǧara, vb. III, to do business, trade (DO with s.o.): D-stem, denom. or coined from I, associative.
► ĭttaǧara, vb. VIII, to do business; to trade, deal (fī or bi‑ in s.th.): tG-stem, self-refl./autobfact.

► ^BP#836tiǧārī, adj., commercial, mercantile, trade, trading, business (used attributively); commercialized; commercially profitable or productive: nsb-adj.; pl. tiǧāriyyūn, n., merchants, vendors, business people: nominalization | bayt ~, n., commercial house, business house; al-ḥarakaẗ al-tiǧāriyyaẗ, n.f., trade, traffic; širkaẗ tiǧāriyyaẗ, n.f., trading company; ĭttifāq ~, n., trade agreement.
► matǧar, pl. matāǧirᵘ, 1 business, transaction, dealing: quasi-vn.; 2 merchandise: quasi-n.instr.; 3 store, shop: n.loc.
► matǧarī, adj., commercial, trade, trading, business (used attributively): nsb-adj. of preceding item.
► mutāǧaraẗ, n.f., commerce: vn. III.
► ĭttiǧār, n., trade, business (fī or bi‑ in s.th.) : vn. VIII.
► ^BP#1662tāǧir, pl. tuǧǧār, tiǧār, n., merchant, trader, businessman, dealer, tradesman: PA I, or the etymon proper (see DISC) | ~ al-ǧumlaẗ, n., wholesale dealer; ~ al-taǧziʔaẗ and ~ al-qiṭāʕī, n., retailer; adj.: biḍāʕaẗ tāǧiraẗ, n.f., salable, marketable merchandise.

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