Re: Judge

Paul Wexler
Explorations in Judeo-Slavic Linguistics
p 47, n 201
(discussing interchange of /n/ and /m/ in loans between Hebrew and Slavic)
'... See also OCz Sephyn 'Judges' (late 14th-early 15th c) < He šoft.īm (Schröpfer 1971:358, line 40) vs. B(ela)r(usian) Softim ~ Šoftimъ (1519) (Skaryna's forewords to 1 Kings and 1 Judges respectively). I have no evidence of the confusion of the two nasals from any Jewish source; nor is it clear yet whether the unetymological n or m became lexicalized.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francysk_Skaryna

Isn't it more likely that the OCz Sephyn is related instead to this/these words for "judge"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sch%C3%B6ffe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schepen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89chevin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89chevin_(Luxembourg)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0epmistr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scabino
?

The Semitic root Å¡-p.-t "judge"
http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=/data/semham/semet&text_number=1012&root=config
seems to be limited to the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkadian_language
and the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Semitic_languages
which are distantly related, which seems to indicate it's a cultural term. A further relative is found in Chadic
http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=/data/semham/wchet&text_number=1009&root=config

Torsten  

****R

Yu mention Akkadian and NW Semitic as "distantly related". I've wondered about how distantly related Akkadian is. It did drop ejectives but that was possibly due to Sumerian influence. I've seen very iittle of it but what I have seen seems very close to Hebrew and Arabic: e/.g. bab "door, gate", Ilu vs. El, vs. Allah, etc. But it could be my luck that popular articles just trot out the easy stuff. In any case, from the little I've been able to see for myself, Akkadian looks like any other Semitic language but with Sumerian sub/ad-strate. Can someone set me straight on this?