Bibliotheca Polyglotta

to jump, leap, spring, bound; to skip, hop, caper; to jump up, start; to jump up and run (ʔilà to); to rush, make a rush (ʔilà for); to jump, dash (ʕalà at s.o.), pounce, fall (ʕalà upon s.o.) – WehrCowan1979.

conc

The idea of ‘jumping, making a leap’ that is prominent in MSA is an Ar innovation brought into an older Sem theme *wṯb that originally meant just the opposite: ‘to sit, dwell’. The older meaning is preserved in some ClassAr derivations as well as in Yemeni dialects. It is not clear how the innovation may have happened and how it possibly was motivated.
The old meaning appears also in the word ^†mawṯabān, signifying a ‘king who sits still and does not undertake military expeditions’ (Lane), which according to some is the origin of the European words for marzipan/marchpane (idea first brought up in 1904 by A. Kluyver).
The Sem root and its original meaning also appear in the Engl loan-words Moshav and Yeshiva, both from Hbr (mōšāḇ ‘seat, dwelling’, yəšīḇā ‘sitting, session, academy’).

hist

▪ …

cogn

DRS ‘être assis, rester, habiter’ (cf. also Huehnergard2011: Sem *wṯb ‘to sit, dwell’): Akk (w)ašābu ‘s’asseoir, être assis, se tenir, résider’, šubt‑ ‘résidence’, Ug yṯb ‘s’asseoir, être assis’, mṯb ‘siège, demeure’, Phn šbt ‘séjour’, Syr īteb ‘s’asseoir, être assis, séjourner, habiter’, ʔawteb ‘se marier’, Ar waṯṯab‑ ^†‘faire assoir sur un coussin’, wiṯāb ‘siège, lit’, Liḥ mawṯib ‘camp’, YemAr waṯab ‘s’asseoir’, tawaṯṯab ‘s’accroupir sur le sol’, Sab Min wṯb ‘s’asseoir, résider’, hwṯb ‘placer’, Gz ʔawsaba ‘se marier’.

disc

The idea of ‘jumping, making a leap, jumping up, pouncing’ that is present in all MSA items listed under the root in WehrCowan1979, is obviously not the original one, which is ‘to sit, dwell’. ClassAr dictionaries report that the vb. meant ‘to sit, sit down’ only in the dialect of Ḥimyar (Yemen). From this, DRS‑ concludes that ‘to jump, etc.’ must be a NAr innovation. The older Sem meaning is preserved in ClassAr forms like ^†wiṯāb ‘throne; couch, bed; place where persons sit’, ^†mīṯab ‘plain, level, land’, and perhaps also ^†ṯubaẗ ‘assembly, company, troop, congregated body’ (unless this belongs to ^†√ṮBY). (^†mawṯabān ‘king, or prince, who sits still and does not undertake military expeditions’ is said to be an Ḥimyarite expression, too, by Lane, but not by Freytag, Wahrmund or Kazimirksi).

west

▪ According to Osman2002 (relying on Kluyver1904), the deriv. ^†mawṯabān is the origin of the Eur words for marzipan / marchpane. mawṯabān ‘the sitting one’, it is held, was an Arabic nickname for a ruler who was reluctant to take action, i.e., wage war, against his enemies. The term was transferred to a Byzantine coin that showed the figure of Christ (the ‘ruler, king’) sitting on a throne with the gospels in his hands. In 1193, the Venetians named one of their coins matapan, reminding of the Byzantine coin the Arabs called mawṯabān, while in 1202 mawṯabān is attested in Syria where it meant a tax of 10% levied upon the inhabitants of the country (to be paid in matapan‑ coins?). From there, the word seems to have spread to Cyprus where it came to signify a little box in which a tenth (i.e., 10 %) of a Malter, an old unit for corn, was stored (as the tax due to the sovereign?). By C13 / C14, marzapane appears in Venetia as a term for a little box that featured a portrait of the sitting Christ that was similar to the one on the matapan‑ coin. The type of box was in use as a container for marchpane, esp. when packed for export/shipping. In C14 the term for the box was transferred to its contents, and with the latter then made its way into the rest of Europe. – Other theories agree with Osman/Kluyver’s in that they, too, assume a transfer of meaning from the little boxes to their contents. They differ, however, in tracing the name for the boxes back to Ar mawṯabān. For details ↗marṭabān.

deriv

► waṯṯaba, vb. II, and ʔawṯaba, vb. IV, to make (s.o., s.th.) jump, bounce (s.th.) : causative of I.
► wāṯaba, vb. III, to pounce, fall (upon s.th.) :.
► ʔawṯaba, vb. IV = II.
► tawaṯṯaba, vb. V, to jump up, start; to rush, dash (to, at); to hop, skip, bound, leap, jump; to approach eagerly, with enthusiasm, tackle energetically (s.th.); to pounce (upon); to awaken, recover, rise.
► tawāṯaba, vb. VI, to jump, leap, spring, bound, make a jump; to be fast, short, come pantingly (breathing); to spring at each other : reciprocal of I.
► waṯb, n., jump(ing), leap(ing) : vn. I.
► waṯbaẗ, n.f., pl. waṯabāt, jump, leap, bound; attack; daring enterprise, bold undertaking; rise; awakening : n.vic..
► waṯṯāb, adj., given to jumping, bouncy, full of bounce; fiery, hotheaded, impetuous; dashing, daring, enterprising : ints..
► muwāṯabaẗ, n.f., prompt assertion of a claim in the presence of witnesses (Isl. Law) : vn. III.
► mutawaṯṯib, adj., awakening, rising; vigorous, energetic : PA V.

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