Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ From WSem (or CSem?) (Kogan2011: protSem, best attested in CSem) *šurr‑ ‘navel (string)’.
▪ Zetterstéen1942 postulated (for the whole root √SRR) a »sense primitif« of *‘lier, serrer’ [? based on ‘umbilical cord’]. In the light of the Sem evidence, this assumption seems hardly tenable; cf., however, Dolgopolsky2012 #2106, who puts Sem *šurr- ‘navel (string)’ together with Berb *√sr˻w˼ ‘to bind, weave’ and NatIndEur *ser- ‘thread, string’ [cf. etymonline: IE *ser- ‘to line up’], all going back to a hypothetical Nostr *säR˹U˺ (= *säRo?) ‘sinew, fibre’. Regarding the navel string, not the navel itself as the primary value would make sense in the light of the fact that Ar surraẗ ‘navel’ appears to be formed, by adding f. aẗ, from the m. ↗surr ‘umbilical cord’, not the other way round. (Otherwise, surr would be a back formation from surraẗ, to distinguish the ‘navel string’ from the ‘navel’.)
▪ However, all other values in the root seem to be dependent on ‘navel’ rather than on ‘navel string’ – see ↗√SRː (SRR) for the wider picture. Therefore, one may assume that surraẗ, once derived from surr, started to live a life of its own, leaving the ‘navel string’ behind as a rather isolated value.

hist

▪ For surraẗ, Lane iv (1872) has also

^†‘small cavity, or hollow, of the belly, in the middle thereof’, hence also
^†surraẗ al-faras ‘[the navel of the horse =] the star, of Pegasus, that is in the head of Andromeda’, and
^†masrūraẗ n.f., ‘the kind of jar termed muzammalaẗ, having a surraẗ, meaning a perforation in the middle, in which is fixed a tube of silver or lead, whence one drinks’.

▪ For surraẗ, Kazimirski1860 not only gives ‘navel’ but also

^†‘milieu, fond d’une vallée, la partie la plus encaissée’ and
^†‘qui égaye, qui cause de la joie (femme)’.

▪ First attestations of several values in HDAL: 528 ‘navel’, 554 (surraẗ al-wādī) ‘the best part of the valley’ (cf. ↗sirr), 632 (surraẗ al-šahr) ‘the middle of the month’ (cf. ↗sarār), 811 ‘affluence, ease, well-being’ (cf. ↗sarīr)

cogn

▪ SED #254, Kogan2015: 198-99 #54: Ug šr (epigraphically unreliable); Hbr šōr, postBiblHbr šārār ‘navel, umbilical cord’; JP šōrā ‘umbilical cord’, Syr šerrā, šurtā ‘umbilicus’, Mand šura ‘navel’; Ar surr, sarar, sirar ‘umbilical cord’; Mhr *šīrε̄ ‘navel’ (see comments below), Hrs šerā, Soq šíraḥ, pl. šireʕheten ‘nombril’, also ŝiraḥ.
▪ Dolgopolsky2012 #2106: Ug šr, BiblHbr šor* ‘navel string, navel’, JPA šôrā, JEA šûrâ, Syr šerrā, Mand šura, nMand šorra ‘navel’, Ar surr ‘navel string’; Mhr ŝīrε̄ ‘navel’, Hrs šerā, Jib s͗irᴐʕ, Soq ŝirᴐʕ ̃širᴐʕ. – On the AfrAs level, the author sees cognates in (Berb) Izn/Rf asraw ‘fil de chaîne du métier à tisser’, Rf B/A fiřu usra ‘fil horizontal (trame)’, Tmz i-sirr (pl. i-sarr-ən) ‘fibre de bois\viande; fil de trame, fin pour le tissage des djellabas ou des burnous’. – For an assumed IE connection and, hence, a Nostr dimension, see DISC below.

disc

▪ According to Kogan2015: 198-99 #54, Ug šr is not reliably attested epigraphically, so it is not clear whether one should stop reconstruction at the WSem level or whether the word might have a CSem dimension.
▪ Kogan2015: 198-99 #54: »The origin of protCSem *šurr- ‘navel (string)’ is uncertain, its attribution to the hypothetical biconsonantal element *Sr(S) “clustering about the notion of strength and stability” (Faber 1984: 213-215) is scarcely convincing, although an eventual connection with the verbal root *šrr ‘to be firm, hard,’ represented by Hbr šərīrūt ‘stubbornness’ (HALOT 1658) and Syr šar ‘convaluit, firmatus est’ (LSyr 802, SL 1611), cannot be ruled out. Possible modSAr cognates discussed in SED I #254 are rather unreliable«.

west

▪ If Dolgopolsky2012 is right in assuming a Nostr dimension, then Ar surr, surraẗ ‘navel (string)’ and its derivatives may be akin to all the descendants of IE *ser- ‘to line up’ (Dolgopolsky: ‘thread, string’), such as, e.g., Engl assert(ion), as-, con-sort, desert (vb., ‘to leave one’s duty’), dissertation, insert, sermon, sorcer-y, -er, series, sort.

deriv

► surrī, adj., umbilical: nisba formation. | al-ḥabl al-surrī, n., umbilical cord.
► surur and sirar, n., umbilical cord: var.s of surr.
► surr, pl. -āt, surar, n.f., 1 navel, umbilicus; 2 centre: f. formation

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