Bibliotheca Polyglotta

1a to appear, show, loom, emerge, come in sight; b to become visible (li‑ to s.o.); c to break, begin to show (dawn); 2 to shine, gleam, glint, flash, shimmer, glimmer, sparkle; 3 to seem, appear; 4 ↗²lāḥa – WehrCowan1976

conc

▪ The vb. ¹lāḥa represents one of three main values in the root ↗√LWḤ that one will find hard to connect: (a) *‘to become visible, flash’; (b) *‘to scorch, singe, sear, burn, parch, desiccate, wither, lose weight, get thinner’ (↗²lāḥa); and (c) *‘board, tablet, plank; shoulder blade’ (↗lawḥ). The latter is the only value that has cognates in Sem (although, in Ar, it may be a borrowing from Aram), which makes it tempting to assume that the other two are specifically Arabic developments from this value. However, none of the attempts to explain (a) or (b) as derivations from (c) are convincing. Moreover, both (a) and (b) show a fairly high degree of variation within their respective semantic fields, a fact that lets them appear old and genuine rather than later derivations. The semantic field belonging to ¹lāḥa spans from undoubtedly derived values, such as lawwaḥa ‘to flourish, brandish, swing, wave (bi‑ s.th.), to make a sign, signal; (fig.) to allude to, hint at’ (< *‘to let appear, make flash up’), hence also ^†‘to feed a child (*waving with the food/drink)’ and ^†milwāḥ ‘lure, decoy’ (*‘s.th. waved/signalled with < made to shine, etc., to attract attention and entice/lure into a trap), ^†līḥaẗ ‘polishing agent for mirrors’ (*‘what makes mirrors glitter’) and ↗lāʔiḥaẗ ‘program, project; bill, motion (esp., in parliament); order, decree, edict; ordinance; regulation, rule; pl. lawāʔiḥᵘ ‘outward appearance, looks, outward sign’ (< *‘s.th. flashing up, shining, giving a first idea of s.th., sketch, outline’) to less obviously related items, such as ^†¹lūḥ ‘airspace (above the Earth), vault of heaven’, ^†lāḥ ‘eggs rejected as unsuitable for hatching after having “X-rayed” (candled) them by holding them against the sun-light’, and perh. also ^†ʔalāḥa ‘to be afraid (min of s.o.), frightened, blush (min at a word)’.
▪ Borg2021 suggests comparison with (and derivation from?) Eg ꜣḫ (Urk. IV, 18th Dyn.) ‘schön, herrlich, trefflich, nützlich sein | glorious, splendid’ (Brockelmann 1932: 100 | Faulkner 1962: 4); ꜣḫ.t ‘Sonnenglanz’; ꜣḫ.t (NK) ‘eye, esp. eye of the sun’ (Wb I 13, 17). If this etymology is valid it could explain the high degree of variation among the derivations of ¹lāḥa and, thus, its old age as well as the fact that the Ar word is apparently without cognates in other Sem languages.
▪ In contrast, Gabal2012: 2013 suggests a derivation of all LWḤ values from a basic notion of *‘breadth, evenness and dryness or compactness in s.th.’, in his view exemplarily represented in ↗lawḥ ‘board, tablet, plank’. For him, ‘breadth’ implies a higher degree of ‘visibility’, so he derives (a) ‘to be(come) visible, flash up’ from (c) ‘board, tablet, plank (< *broad, even, dry, compact thing’). The strength of his argument is the fact that, among all LWḤ items, only lawḥ has a deeper Sem dimension. On the other hand, compared to Borg’s idea of an Eg influence, Gabal’s theory seems rather far-fetched. Cf., however, a value of lawḥ given by ClassAr lexicographers, namely ‘tout ce qui, par sa surface plate et polie, reflète la lumière’ (BK1860) where s.th. with a flat, even, polished surface (as would be a ‘board, tablet, plank’) is combined with the reflexion of light, and the latter may look as if it could be derived from the former. Such a derivation can look tempting, but it would certainly need to be corroborated by broader and more reliable evidence—after all, the semantic “bridge” may be a homogenizing construction made by lexicographers to explain diversity within the root and give it more coherence.
▪ In a similar way, a semantic bridge betw. (a) *‘to shine, appear, flash, etc.’ and (b) *‘to scorch, singe, sear, burn, parch, desiccate, wither, etc.’ (↗²lāḥa) could be the obsol. ^†lāḥ ‘eggs found unsuitable for hatching after having “X-rayed” (i.e., candled) them by holding them against the sun-light’. This item combines the notions of ‘shining, light’ and ‘desiccation, emaciation, shrinking (> infertility?)’ etc.
▪ An essential element in the original semantics seems to be the notion of *surprise and *speed, or *quick passing, as in the glittering of things, the breaking through of the first sunrays at dawn, the flashing of a lightening, or sudden appearance of an idea or an image, or the sudden blushing (at a harsh word), or the waving with a decoy (letting it appear and disappear).
▪ …

hist

▪ The semantic field pertaining to ¹lāḥa in ClassAr can be sketched as follows: ¹lāḥa ‘to be(come) [clearly] visible, appear, emerge, come into view; to shine brightly, flash, sparkle, glint, glow, gleam, glitter, glisten (celestial bodies, fire, lamp, mirage, cloud of dust; water, butter, a spider’s web; traces left at an abandoned camp; … tracts of land, regions, paths, routes, buildings; flowers, blossoms; parts of the body; grey hair; weapons; implements, tools, materials, cloth, pieces of embroidery, jewelry, etc.; handwriting, ornaments, decorations; ship’s sails; pieces of jewelry, coins; brilliance of the morning sky, flash of lightning, thunder cloud, rainbow)’;¹ ^†lawāʔiḥᵘ l-šayʔ ‘apparent, visible, external parts of s.th.’ (WKAS ii). – ^†lawwaḥa bi’l-ʕaṣā ‘to raise a stick (upon s.o.)’, ^†lawwaḥa ‘to feed a child (*waving with the food/drink)’ (Hava1899). – ^†lāʔiḥaẗ ‘outward appearance, feature’ (Lane, Hava1899). – ^†layāḥ ~ liyāḥ, ‘intensely, shining, glistening white; daybreak, dawn; wild bull’, ^†ʔalwāḥ al-silāḥ ‘shining, glistening, flashing weapons’ (WKAS ii). – ^†ʔalāḥa ‘to make a sign, wave s.th. about’ (WKAS ii). – ^†milwaḥ ‘actively, busily waving’. – ^†milwāḥ ‘the lure; owl used for decoy shooting; decoy (bird)’ (WKAS ii). – ^†lūḥ ‘airspace (above the Earth), air, ether, (blue) sky, vault of heaven’ (WKAS ii). – Perh. also ^†ʔalāḥa bi-ḥaqqi-h ‘to carry s.th. away, go away with, take away’ (WKAS ii), and ^†ʔalāḥa ‘to be afraid (min of s.o.), frightened, be on one’s guard, shrink back, recoil from s.th. (WKAS ii), to blush at (a word) (Lane, Hava1899)’.
▪ …

1. On the value ‘to see, espy, catch sight of’, listed in several dictionaries, Ullmann (WKAS ii) remarks that it is »falsch erschlossen«.

cogn

▪ (outside Sem:) Borg2021 compares Ar lāḥa ‘to appear, shine (star), flash (lightning)’ (DaṯAr lāḥ ‘paraître, briller’, lawḥaẗ ‘apparition d’une chose’, Rwala lāḥ ‘to appear, shine, gleam, glitter, flash, sparkle’, PalAr lāḥ ‘glänzen, funkeln’, EgAr lāḥ ‘to please, be attractive’) with Eg ꜣḫ (Urk. IV, 18th Dyn.) ‘schön, herrlich, trefflich, nützlich sein | glorious, splendid’ (Brockelmann 1932: 100 | Faulkner 1962: 4); ꜣḫ.t ‘Sonnenglanz’; ꜣḫ.t (NK) ‘Auge, besonders vom Auge der Sonne’ (Wb I 13, 17).
▪ …

disc

▪ Any connection with ↗LYQ? If so, one may want to compare (with Dolgopolsky2012 #1285): Ar ^†liyāq ‘flamme, feu qui s’élève en flamme | blaze’ (↗√LYQ); (outside Sem:) Berb *-luqq- > Gd luqq (pf. yə-luqq) ‘shine (briller)’; Gh d. imv. əmləġləg, pf. imləġləġ ‘briller’; (outside AfrAs:) IndEur *leu̯k- ‘shine’ > Grk leuk-ós ‘light, bright; white’, Lat lux (gen. luc-is) ‘light’, Ru luč ‘ray, beam’, etc. – according to Dolgopolsky all from a hypothetical Nostr *LûḲa ‘to shine’.
▪ …

west

–

deriv

►yalūḥu lī ʔanna…, it seems to me that…;
►ʕalà mā yalūḥu, as it seems, apparently

►^BP#4027lawwaḥa, vb. II, 1a to make a sign, beckon, wave (bi‑, ʔilà or li- to s.o. with); b to signal; 2 to allude (bi- to), hint (bi- at), intimate, insinuate, give to understand; 3 to flourish, brandish, swing, wave (bi‑ s.th.); 4 ↗²lāḥa; 5 ↗lawḥ, ↗lawḥaẗ: D-stem, caus.| lawwaḥa bi-yaday-hi, to wave with the hands
►ʔalāḥa, vb. IV, 1 to appear, show, come in sight; 2 to shimmer, glimmer, glint, flash, sparkle; 3 to wave, brandish, flourish, swing (s.th.): *Š-stem, denom.(?)

►talwīḥ, pl. -āt, n., 1 beckoning, waving, flourishing, brandishing; 2a sign, signal, wink, wave; b allusion; c hint, intimation, insinuation; 3 metonymy; 4 pl. a hints, references; b remarks, annotations, marginal notes: vn. II
►^BP#2361lāʔiḥaẗ, pl. ‑āt, lawāʔiḥᵘ, 1 program, project; 2 bill, motion (esp., in parliament); 3a order, decree, edict; b ordinance; c regulation, rule; 4 pl. lawāʔiḥᵘ, outward appearance, looks, outward sign: PA I.f. | see ↗s.v.
►mulawwiḥaẗ, n.f., signal, semaphore (railroad): nominalized PA II

For other values attached to the root, cf., ↗²lāḥa, ↗lawḥ, ↗lawḥaẗ, and ↗lāʔiḥaẗ as well as, for the overall picture, root entry ↗√LWḤ.

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