Re: All of creation in Six and Seven

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
<richard.wordingham@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Marco Moretti"
> <marcomoretti69@...> wrote:
> > No. Tiamat is a Semitic word not a Sumerian one. We have a WELL
> > ATTESTED Hebrew teho:m "gap", "Deeps"; *tehowm is only
> orthographic,
> > the waw has no reality at all, and the item is not a product of
> > speculation.
>
> Perhaps *tehowm is a typo for <teho:wm>? It's a bit pedantic to

say

> a waw 'has no reality' simply because it's a pure vowel symbol in
> this context.

Yes, I wright in a so sudden way, that often I make errors such as
forgetting or inverting a character. Sorry, I meant *teho:wm.
I think this waw has no reality. In a similar context would it be
preserved in Akkadian? I don't remember Akkadian phonology very well.
But it seems to me that /aw/ > /u:/ or something similar, isn't it?

> > Tiamat is the Akkadian form, in which the ancient
> > aspiration was lost, and with a feminine suffix. It is not
> definitely
> > a Sumerian item. Semitic is sufficient to explain it. Your

Sumerian

> > etymon is ill-formed, and doesn't account at all for the Hebrew
> > aspiration, that is a phoneme, not a simple hiatus separator.
>
> What's the difference here?

The difference is that Semitic doesn't tolerate hiatus, so it uses a
slight glottal stop /'/ (aleph) in order to avoid it. It never uses
an aspiration. So /h/ in teho:m may be original.
I remember that Hebrew has he:kha:l /hjkl/ "palace", that comes from
Sumerian e-kal, literally "great house", so the difficulty could be
bypassed, but we have a too scanty statistical sample of Sumerian
loanwords in which this peculiarity developed to affirm something.

> > Shabbath is by somebody considered of uncertain etymology. As for
> me,
> > it is simply "seventh (day)". I found no mention at all of

Sumerain

> > Sa-ba-ududa. Perhaps it is for my ignorance, but I suspect that

it

> is
> > a construction of yours, an arbitrary one in order to give to
> Semitic
> > for seven a Sumerian origin.
> > I studied some Hebrew five year ago, and when I was almost able

to

> > speak it I was busy with other matters and I abandoned it. If I
> > remember well, it is Shabbath with an initial /sh/, and also

Hebrew

> > for "seven" has initial /sh/. It cannot be from Sumerian /s/. We
> have
> > no Hebrew word with /sh/ from Sumerian /s/.
>
> Aren't we talking about a fairly early loan if there is a

connection

> with the word for 'seven', rather than a loan through Akkadian?

The

> idea of pre-Hebrew /T/ and /s/ merging and then becoming /sh/ has
> always appealed to me. Isn't the lack of an ayin a more telling
> argument against a connection with the word for 'seven'?

Yes, it is. I'm sorry, I simply forgot the ayin.

Marco