Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ The name of the ancient Arabian goddess, identified in the Greco-Roman tradition as Túkhai and Fortanae, originally means *‘deity that assigns to each his/her lot/share’, i.e., one’s destiny.
▪ Etymologically, it is from protSem *manay-, *manat- ‘share’, cf. ↗man^an (perh. with interference of protSem *√mny ‘to count’, cf. ↗manā~manà) – Dolgopolsky2012.

hist

▪ …

cogn

▪ See ↗manā~manà.

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▪ Wellhausen1897, 28: »Manat kommt schon auf den nabatäischen Inschriften von Higr vor und zwar im Plural, mnwtn /manavātun/. Dadurch wird […] die Bedeutung ‘Schicksal’ (eigentlich ‘Anteil’ wie im Aramäischen) festgestellt, welche appellativisch nur noch für maniyyaẗ (pl. manāyā, manā) im Gebrauch ist. Ähnliche abstracte Gottesnamen sind Saʕd, Gad (Grk túkhē), ʕAwdh.«
▪ Fahd2012: »name of one of the most ancient deities of the Semitic pantheon, who appears in the Pre-Sargonic period in the form Menūtum and constitutes one of the names of Ishtar […]; the Qurʔānic scriptio of her name preserves the primitive w, which also appears in the Nabatean mnwtn […]. The w changes to i in the Bible (Isa. 65: 11) […]. [the name is from] the root mnw/y which is to be found in all Sem langs with the meaning of ‘to count, to apportion’, being applied in particular to the idea of *‘to count the days of life’, hence ‘death’ (maniyyaẗ), and *‘to assign to each his share’, hence, ‘lot, destiny’ […] The Greco-Roman equivalents given to Manāẗ testify to this meaning, since she is identified with Τύχαι or the Fortunae, the pl. reflecting the form Manawāt […] In Palmyra she is represented on a mosaic, seated and holding a sceptre in her hand, after the fashion of Nemesis, goddess of destiny […]. / Like al-Lāt and al-ʕUzzà who form with her the Arab triad (Q 53: 19-20), Manāẗ was worshipped by all the Arabs. It was [originally] a rock for Huḏayl in Qudayd […, later then] a statue imported from the north, like that of Hubal. The sacred site [was situated …] about 15 km from Yaṯrib […]«

west

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deriv

For other items of the root, cf. ↗manā~manà, ↗man^an, ↗min^an, ↗munyaẗ~minyaẗ, and, for the general picture, ↗√MNW/Y.

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