Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ The modern meanings of the vb. go back to a basic notion, in ClassAr, of ‘to put s.th. together, fit together, connect, repair; to fit into one another, set on top of one another (feathers of an arrow)’, in its turn perhaps (as suggested by Militarev) from a Sem *LʔM, *LMM ‘to get together; to unite by common consent; peace treaty’, from AfrAs *liʔam‑ ‘to get together; to be relative, companion’.
▪ Via the value ‘people’, not realized in Ar but in Hbr and Ug, which is likely to be from Sem *to get together, unite’, Ar laʔama may also be connected to laʔuma (↗luʔm) ‘to be ignoble, lowly (of character and birth); to be base, mean, vile, evil, wicked’, the development ‘base, mean’ < ‘people’ being similar to that of Engl vulgar from Lat vulgus ‘common people, multitude, crowd, throng’.

hist

▪ ClassAr (as in WKAS): laʔama, vb. I, 1 to put s.th. together, fit together, connect, repair; 2 to fit into one another, set on top of one another (feathers of an arrow). – ^†talaʔʔama, vb. V, to close, heal (wound). – III and VI: as mod. use. – laʔm, 1 vn. I, joining, union, connection; 2 adj., firm, solid, hard, strong; 3 n. (as also laʔmaẗ, n.un., f.), armour made of iron rings, chain-mail; 4 (arrow) with feathers fitted into one another, set on top of one another. – liʔm, n., 1 agreement, concord; 2 fitting, appropriate person, companion.

cogn

▪ Militarev2006 (in StarLing): Akk līmu (*liʔmu) ‘one thousand’, Ug li͗m ‘people, clan’, Hbr lᵊʔōm, lᵊʔūm, pl. lᵊʔummīm ‘people, nation’, Syr lam ‘to collect’, Ar lʔm ‘to gather’, liʔam- ‘accord, harmony (between people); peace, concord’, liʔamaẗ, liʔāmaẗ ‘equal, similar, corresponding counterpart’; laʔīm ‘ignoble, mean; similar, equal, adequate’; līm ‘peace, concord; ressemblance betw. two people’; lumaẗ ‘small group of people (3-10 persons); similar, identical; equal (age, form)’; lām- ‘parenté’; lummaẗ ‘compagnon; compagnons de voyage, qui participent aux provisions de route; troupe d’hommes (3-10 people); troupe de femmes’, lamūm ‘qui réunit dans son sein plusieurs personnes ou choses, et offre un rendez-vous’, LMM ‘ressembler, réunir en ramassant de tous côtés ce qui était dispersé’, Sab lʔm ‘to make a peace settlement’, lmw (*lmm) ‘to come to an agreement with s.o.’, Te läʔamä ‘to be attached, friendly’, Tña cf. läʔamä ‘to be good, patient’.
▪ Tropper2008: Akk liʔmu, līmu, Ug li͗m /liʔmu/, Hbr lᵊʔōm, lᵊʔôm ‘people’.
▪ Klein1987: Akk liʔmu, līmu ‘thousand’, Ug li͗m ‘people, crowd’, Hbr lᵊʔōm, lᵊʔôm ‘nation, people’, Ar laʔama ‘to gather together, assemble’
▪ BDB1906: Ar laʔuma ‘to be low, ignoble’, liʔām (pl.) ‘common ones’, Hbr lᵊʔōm ‘people’

disc

▪ Militarev2006 (in StarLing) underlines that his putting together such a large variety of diverging semantic values (‘thousand’, ‘to gather, collect’, ‘companionship, people, clan, nation’, ‘accord, harmony, peace’, ‘ressemblance, similarity’, ‘baseness, meanness’, etc.) may raise severe doubts. Nevertheless, he seems to be convinced that, ultimately, we are dealing with one etymon. Irrespective of the question whether Akk līmu ‘one thousand’ and Ar laʔīm ‘ignoble, mean, base, wicked’ (↗luʔm) rightfully belong here, the prevalence of the notion of companionship and accord/harmony among a group of people seems to have convinced the author that ‘coming/putting together, uniting, assembling’, as in Ar laʔama, is the basic meaning of the root. Accordingly, he reconstructs Sem *LʔM, *LMM ‘to get together; to unite by common consent; peace treaty’, *liʔa/ām- ‘union, fraternity, people’. Given what may be extra-Sem cognates,¹ the author even suggests to trace all these back to an AfrAs *liʔam- ‘to get together; to be relative, companion’.
▪ Like Militarev2006, also WehrCowan1979 treats all items with the root LʔM in one lemma, suggesting that they are semantically related.

1. Eg rmṯ ‘person’ (<*l˅m-˅k?, cf. Fay lōm-i ‘id.’), WChad *lilim- ‘assembly for special occasions’ (reconstr. from evid. in 1 lang), CChad *luma (?) ‘market’ (< *‘gathering of people’?), EChad *lam˅m- (based on forms like lùm, lámmà, lũmmè) ‘to gather’ (intr.), pile’; LEC *lamm- ‘companion, relative’ (cf. Som lammaan ‘to be companion’, Or lammii ‘(close) relations’; perh. < Ar), HEC *lamm- ~ *m˅ll- ‘close relative; person’ (based on moollo ‘close relative’, lámmi ‘person’), SCush *lama(l)- ‘age-set’ (lama ‘serpentine ochre marking on body’ in 1 lang).

west

–

deriv

► lāʔama, vb. III, to agree (DO with s.o.); to suit, fit (garment; s.o.); to be adequate, appropriate (to s.th.), be suitable, fit, proper, convenient, favorable, propitious (for s.th.); to be adapted (DO to), be in harmony with, match (s.th.); to agree (climate, food; with s.o.), be wholesome (climate, air, food; DO for s.o.); to bring about a reconciliation, make peace (bayna between), reconcile (bayna… wa‑ s.o. with); to make consistent or congruous, reconcile, harmonize, bring into harmony (different things): L-stem, assoc.
► talāʔama, vb. VI, 1 to be mended, be repaired, be corrected: tD-stem, quasi-pass. of vb. III. – 2 to go well (maʕa with): intr. – 3 ↗luʔm.
► ĭltaʔama, vb. VIII, 1 to be mended, be repaired, be corrected. – 2 to be joined, be connected, be patched up, be soldered, be welded. – 3 to match, fit together, harmonize, be in harmony, agree, go together, be congruous, conformable, consistent; to be tuned or geared to each other (fig.). – 4 to unite, combine. – 5 to cohere, stick together. – 6 to heal, close (wound). – 7 to gather, assemble, convene (persons); to meet (committee, congress, council, etc.): t-stem, quasi-pass./intr. of I.
► laʔm, n., 1 dressing, bandaging (of a wound). – 2 joining, junction, connection. – 3 repair: vn. I.
► laʔmaẗ, n.f., cuirass, pair of cuirasses: probably called so on account of the interlocking of its chain links, set on top of one another (cf. SEMHIST).
► liʔm, n., 1 peace. – 2 concord, agreement, union, unity, unanimity. – 3 conformity, consistency, harmony: obviously a fig. use of the basic value of ‘binding together, repairing, joining’.¹
► mulāʔamaẗ, n.f., 1 adequacy, appropriateness, properness, suitability, fitness. – 2 peacemaking, (re)conciliation. – 3 concord, union, agreement, harmony: vn. III.
► ^BP#3142mulāʔim, adj., adapted, suited, appropriate (li‑ to), suitable, fit, proper, convenient, favorable, propitious (li‑ for); agreeing, harmonizing, in conformity, consistent (li‑ with): PA III.

1. Cf. Freytag1830 on laʔama : ‘obligavit (vulnus), colligavit (rupturam); inde (!) in gratiam reduxit, pacem composuit’.

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